The American entrepreneurs Arthur Meyerhoff and Leon Rubin patented a highly innovative aerosol cooking spray composed of lecithin blended with a propellant, founding the PAM company. Allowing home cooks to instantly coat frying pans with an ultra-thin layer of non-stick lubricant via an aerosol button, the invention completely bypassed traditional cooking techniques that relied on melting whole blocks of butter or lard. It perfectly matched the rising mid-century post-war consumer demands for high-speed kitchen efficiency and low-fat diet foods.

The aerosol spray can in the kitchen became an iconic visual marker for the synthetic automation, chemical processing, and plastic domesticity of post-war American suburban life. Poets utilized the distinct hissing spray in their verses to construct sharp, humorous critiques of modern suburban alienation, the decline of natural agrarian cooking, and the corporate sanitization of the home.