Things you grew up with that became "mainstream"

[cheesenpickles]

My parents lived in Cyprus before I was born and thus I've always grown up with things like Halloumi, olives, tahini and hummus as standard "go to" foods - even back in the 80s. We'd fly back from visiting over there with giant brine-filled tubs of Halloumi made by their old friend's mum in the Troodos mountains.

What things did you grow up with that you find slightly funny now they're become part of everyday life?

My mom used to be a bit embarrassed about the fact she liked to drink gin. I think it was seen as the drink of middle class functioning alcoholic housewives. My mom was none of these things and wouldn't buy gin from the local/regular supermarket.

So I grew up with the idea that gin was a bit weird, a bit taboo. It's still odd to me that gin is now very trendy and mainstream

I don't think I have any but I have very happy memories of eating hummous and pitta in Pilatres village up in the Troodos Mountains, along with the most delicious olives. We sat at a cafe outdoors but undercover as the rain fell and the street became a bit of a river for a while . If only I'd known you could bring buckets of it back through customs!
I remember trying hummous in 1998 and thought how fancy pants I was!

I spent a good portion in the 90s living in Germany as a child. We shopped in Aldi all the time. Aldi came to the UK in the 90s I think but when we returned to the UK they still weren’t a ‘thing.’ They’re definitely a thing now!

@BingBongBingBong yes! My parents lived in Germany and when my mum found out a lidl had opened near us (well two counties away!) in the 90s we had to trek there. She also called it Ly-del which took me years to stop doing.

Kickers shoes. I lived abroad as a child where they were very popular.

Wore them when I returned to Scotland as a teenager and barely escaped with my life on several occasions.

And also reusable water bottles - long before the trend took off over here.

Avocado’s.

I spent large portions of my time in France with my French mother, it was odd when suddenly school friends in England were eating nutella and going on about BN biscuits, they were staples of my childhood. I still never drink orangina in the UK. it's a special French thing that must only be consumed in France.

Wholemeal bread. My mum was into healthy eating in the 70s and my packed lunches consisted of heavy slabs of wholemeal bread, I was so jealous of all my friends having white sliced.

Olive oil. Used to only be able to get it in pharmacies. Now it's everywhere.

My aunt used to bring lush stuff up every time she visited when I was a kid in the late 90s and early 2000s

I also remember being embarrassed about my parents shopping at Lidl

Avocados and Lidl/Aldi here too. I hate avocados having been fed them a lot as a child and it makes me laugh how much people pay for avocado on toast these days when I would sneak it into the bin as a child.

Lentils, wholemeal bread and wholemeal flour to make said seeded wholemeal bread and pastry etc. My mum was a bit of a hippy on the sly back in the 70s and 80s, despite otherwise being v conformist and having an office job, so these things were normal for us but now people get very excited by them. She also embraced wholemeal pasta which thankfully has died a death probably due to it being fucking disgusting.

Just by seeing the title, before even opening the thread I was ready to post word for word the same as the OP.

I grew up with time divided between the UK and Cyprus and later Spain. So I also grew up with halloumi, houmous, tahini, olives etc. As a child in the early 80s, I was known as a bit of a weirdo for having filled pitta in my packed lunches instead of normal sandwiches - I frequently had a pot of tzatziki too. I remember friends trying feta cheese at our house for the first time in around 1986 - they were daring each other to try it and then making barfing noises at the taste. It is definitely strange to me now how these foodstuffs are now part of everyday UK diets.

When I started spending time in Spain, I discovered chorizo long before it started appearing in UK supermarkets - we would bring back casefuls of the stuff and used to describe it to people here as "Spanish salami".

I didn't grow up with it, but in the early 80s an American girl started at my school, I went round for tea and we had tacos from an Old El Paso style kit, it was amazing, but run of the mill now.

Bagels. My Jewish Dad has to go to "specialist shops" to get them. Actually, I still do if I can because they taste better.

Had to not has to. This was pre 1990s.

Veganism - DM was in the 90s / early 00s, when it was deeply unfashionable. Neither of us are vegan now - though it's much easier to be vegan nowadays than it was back then.

I grew up in the 60s and 70s and I'm another one who had avocados when nobody else had heard of them. All the men in our extended family were in the Merchant Navy, so we got all kinds of foreign foods as a regular thing. We also ate out in restaurants once a week when my father was at home so got exposed to a wide variety of cuisines. I remember having a thing for snails for ages as a kid!

@LenoVentura snails were my fave food until I was about 5.

Chinese gooseberries, I first ate them in the 60s, when my mother had them having eaten them before the war, and also Cote d'Or Bouchée chocolates.

We always had a bottle of olive oil in the cupboard for salads - grandpa was a pharmacist.

Another one for hummus (Israeli family). Hence my mirth at Waitrose now deeming it essential...

Primark, it was one of the few cheap chain stores my crappy town had back in the 80s and people would get bullied if they admitted shopping there.
Then it became the thing.