What ‘everyday’ food was considered exotic when you were young?

[Splodgerbodgerbadger]

I remember the first time we had lasagne, it was a ready made one from M&S. It was considered very new and different by us. It must have been late 80’s early 90’s. We all loved it and had it every Saturday. Mum used to buy it, but then started making her own. It’s still one of my favourite dinners.

We never had curries or pasta growing up, it was generally things like mince beef, my Mum used to make that every Tuesday in gravy and we had veg and mash potatoes in the winter and new potatoes in the summer. I loved that too. Although the downside was we had tapioca for pudding as my Mum cooked it at the same time as the mince. I hated ‘frogspawn’, my Dad wasn’t keen either, but my sisters and Mum loved it.

I remember when my dad discovered garlic... his friend introduced him to it... dad thought it was amazing and started cooking with it, before that we'd never had it, not at home anyway.

I remember reading in the Garfield comic strip that lasagne was either Garfield or John's favourite food, and I thought "What's that?"

We did start having spaghetti bolognese as a regular meal when I was a teen (but made with Dolmio!), which we loved, but dad would insist on still having a big plate of boiled potatoes along with the spaghetti etc.

Yes, Viennetta was very posh wasn't it 😆 - we often had it on a Sunday.

Spices were definitely available by the late 70s, even in small provincial towns like the one I grew up in. I know this because you used to be able to unscrew the jars and give them a good old sniff, something I did on a regular basis. I'm amazed that I was never thrown out of the shop or even asked not to do it. Perhaps nobody ever bought them.

@DahliaMacNamara yes there was a range of Schwarz spices available in most places. They were okay but expensive and the usual range did not include a lot of spaces easily available today. Basically look at a small supermarket and what they have. It is likely to be what was available back then. Most places only had small supermarkets plus a bakers, butchers and greengrocers.

Early 70s Saturday night clubbing was followed by the hunt for a Chinese restaurant for a late supper. This was in n Wales they stayed open till around 3am. Fun times.

My brother went to university in a multicultural city he loves the choices of foodstuffs, spices, and other ingredients to make Indian meals. Was available in the supermarket there he said unlike our neck of the woods

Anything foreign really (going back to the 70s here) Meals in our house invariably were of either the meat, potatoes and gravy or the fish and chips ilk and anything else was considered a bit exotic (and regarded with suspicion by my mum, who for years referred to most foreign foods as 'foreign muck'. )

I also remember having a mini-epiphany at a friend's house when I noticed they had herbs and spices in their kitchen. Those things just didn't feature in the meals we had at home.

My mum used to make a thing we all called "risotto" but which was actually more like an Anglo-Indian pilaff, with long grain rice, veg, lots of turmeric plus raisins and sliced banana. It was actually really nice (at least, 5yo me thought so) but a clear indication that none of us had the first idea what a risotto was.

I remember as a dc my mum having a mango in the house and my friends not knowing what it was.

@KohlaParasaurus

Spaghetti that wasn't canned in tomato sauce. The little cheese and tomato frisbees that the early 1970s referred to as pizza. Rice served as the base for a savoury dish rather than made into rice pudding. Any savoury dish that could be served with rice. Beans other than baked beans in tomato sauce. Fish that wasn't battered and served with chips.

When I was 10 in 1964 we went on a week's holiday with our primary school to Knokke in Belgium. The food was fairly basic, and one day they served us with plates of plain boiled spaghetti. None of us had ever seen in except tinned, so we put tomato ketchup on it to make it more familiar. Didn't taste the same though!

And when I was about 14 I had an American pen pal, who sent me a subscription to an American teen magazine for Christmas. At one point they mentioned pizza, and I had no clue what it was.

Chicken or scampi in the basket at our local pub. Payday was monthly on 15th so we'd walk to the pub at lunchtime to celebrate, or the Chinese three course lunch, soup, curry, banana fritters, both meals very cheap

@Hyenaormeercat

Any cold meats that aren't ham, tongue, corned beef or haslet. Salad that isnt just round lettuce, tomato, cucumber Olive oil was to be warmed for earache, bought from Boots. When it started to be used in cooking I was convinced it was a 'different' olive oil. Dinners were meat and 2 veg. When those frozen saucer sized cheese and tomato pizzas became widely available we had those occasionally. Thought they were exotic! I remember having Nutella for the first time in Germany on an exchange trip in 1981, was blown away!

Yes to the meats, I remember we used to have tongue in our sandwiches for school.

I remember on the few times we had roast chicken, my Mum used to heat a bag of ready salted crisps in the oven and we’d have those with it, seems very odd when I think about it. We loved it though. She stopped doing it after a while as we would argue over who had more.

Chocolate was a real treat too, we only ever had it at Christmas and on birthdays. Tins of quality street and Roses were very exotic to us.

My dad ran a greengrocers so I was always the odd one bringing bird brains (lychees) and physalis to school in my packed lunch!
We also had a steady supply of oranges and therefore fresh juice. I never realised it was so precious!
I think my mum was quite adventurous, I grew up in the 80s eating curry, stir fry and pasta regularly.

Bananas, yoghurt, anything "foreign" (curry, Chinese food etc), anything out of season such as strawberries in December.

Yoghurt. A neighbour ate it but was considered a health food freak. We didn't have any until I was fourteen, and then it was always flavoured and sweetened.

My dad served in India during the war and developed a love for curry, so we did eat curry in the 1960s. It will have just been a stew with curry powder and sultanas added to it though.

Munchies were posh when I was younger

They really were. I had the occasional packet of Mintola as well, but once they changed the name I was out. There is no rationale behind this, other than a vague feeling that they'd lost their cachet.

I think Munchies were marketed as posh and more expensive than other chocolates. I remember being underwhelmed when I got to try them.

@DahliaMacNamara

They really were. I had the occasional packet of Mintola as well, but once they changed the name I was out. There is no rationale behind this, other than a vague feeling that they'd lost their cachet.

I would buy mintola and keep them in the car they're too good for the rugrats I decided 🤣🤣

Thorntons were posh chocolates to us, I remember we used to get my Granny some of their ginger chocolates for Christmas as a real treat.

Curry.
Avocado.
Ground coffee.

@Splodgerbodgerbadger

Thorntons were posh chocolates to us, I remember we used to get my Granny some of their ginger chocolates for Christmas as a real treat.

Yes to Thornton. I think it’s because you could only buy Thornotins from a Thorntons chocolate shop. There was something lovely about going into one, especially at Easter time. Selling Thorntons in supermarkets cheapened the brand. We used to have two Thornton shops in the town I live in, now both gone.

Yoghurt was considered very continental and the only ones available were Ski yoghurts (usually out of date at the CO-OP as only healthy people bought them) The rest of us were defrosting individual frozen raspberry ripple mousses or the chocolate 'Lovely' mousses with a little cream flower on top

I never ate pasta until I was cooking for myself as a teenager so that seemed magical.

But I remember the treat that was strawberries and cream, with a sprinkle of sugar on. Only a couple of times over summer and I was in heaven. But it was also a treat because my 3 siblings hated it, so they ended up without dessert so I felt smug in my 10yo way.