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.

Olives. I was born in the 1980s. I remember we had a 'Roman feast' in primary school and someone brought in olives. Everyone crowded around to see them and there were lots of 'oooh!'s.

Avocado
Spag bol (my best mate's mum is an amazing cook and I first had spag bol at her house, aged about eleven - very exotic).
Greek food - DDad had a friend who owned a Greek restaurant, we used to get invited to family parties there - first taste of saganaki, moussaka, retsina .
Curry powder in baked beans (best mate's mum again ).

@CockneySpanner

Quiche Spaghetti bolognese M&S prawn & mayo sandwich

We used to make quiche with my Granny so I must have that fairly young. Must have been ahead of the times on that.

Spaghetti or pasta in any form was very exotic in my house in the 1960s. But my Mum was adventurous and we tried lots of different foods.

She also made sweet and sour spare ribs with a homemade sauce with pineapple in it.

Avocado, definitely! We had them sliced in half with a slosh of olive oil and a squeeze of lemon where the stone used to be. That was a very posh start to a meal.

When I was tiny I remember my mum making curry and there would always be a little bowl of sliced banana sprinkled with lemon juice, and another little bowl with chopped cucumber and tomato. We thought that was so fancy!

Thai green curry. Maybe not 'everyday' now, but a standard ready meal option. I don't think it was remotely authentic but delicious.

Tinned lychees - YY, such a treat! Also fresh ones, bought in Chinatown in London - they were just starting to be available. I still cannot get my mind around the idea the exist in the supermarket.

I was born in 1984 and on the whole my mum was an adventurous cook, but it's amazing how quickly some things have become easy to get.

When I was a kid (19sixties):
Oranges - only in winter, bought at a fruit shop.
Bananas .

Viennetta
Chinese takeaway
Watermelon
Pineapple

I never had pasta or rice at home until I was old enough to cook them myself - every dinner had chips or potatoes as the carby bit.

Nothing much - my mum was quite an adventurous cook even in the 70s and 80s and made all sorts of things from different cuisines. We were encouraged to try all sorts of food at home and especially on holidays. My mum was lucky that none of us were particularly picky eaters or she’d have been on the warpath!

One thing I did regard as incredibly exotic though was crispy duck pancakes - I was invited to a friend’s birthday party when I was about ten, and her birthday treat was crispy duck pancakes from the local Chinese restaurant. I regarded this as the height of sophistication and exoticism for a long time!

Not exotic but Chicken was a luxury and only eaten on special occasions, Beef was the usual Sunday dinner. Late 50s/early 60s.

I remember when the first Chinese opened and we were all amazed by Crispy Pancake Rlolls 😊

Arctic roll. And yes yoghurt, pronounced yoh-gurt for some reason.

And also muesli pronounced to rhyme with Mersey.

I don't remember ever seeing a pineapple when I was a child; it always came in tins.

Pesto

Vienetta
Pizza

I'll be showing my age but simple things like olive oil could only be bought in tiny bottles from Boots.

Fresh orange juice was luxurious, pineapple juice was exotic and frozen pizza had just become available in Bejam.

Fresh pizza wasn't available as far a I knew, maybe in cities.

I remember going on holiday with a friend when I was 13(?) and they had continental breakfast with ham and melon and cheese. I was blown away!!!

Garlic bread and rum baba

Reminded me of grapes always used to come by the weight, but in pre filled open plastic bags ☺️

Pineapple
Smoked salmon
Avocado
Cereals in mini boxes
Fresh fish
Steaks

Not quite the same but I remember my mum buying rum and raisin choc ices when we were kids. We were extremely strapped for cash and this was her only treat. She would buy a box of ten and have one a week whilst having a bubble bath 😂🤮 we were not allowed to touch them!

So now I'm a mum I view them as a rare and exotic treat and have been trying to hunt them down for ages!!

Lasagna was my first thought when I saw the thread title.

Cornetto - - they were quite expensive when they came out

I’m amazed people are saying spag bol.. That was fairly staple in our household during 70s and 80s, but was the only pasta we had apart from macaroni.

Fruit corner yoghurts!

Vesta curry.
Black forest gateau
Vienetta

In the 90s/early 2000s.

Don’t think I ever ate curry until I was an adult, or much food from other cultures at all really. We had avocados but only ever served cubed in salad for some reason, I didn’t realise I actually like avocado until a couple of years ago.

We were dirt poor and ate a lot of very healthy food made from scratch which would be considered very middle class these days. I remember whenever I went to my (very spoilt, very middle class) friend’s house we would have supermarket pizza and oven chips, from their second freezer in the garage (!), and that was incredibly fancy in my eyes. We only ever had homemade pizza and homemade chips or occasionally chip shop chips for a treat.

Swan. But I was born in 1543.

Salmon. It only started being available cheaply around 1988 as fish farming took off. It came in steaks with the bone in, skin on and instructions to microwave it for several minutes until cooked through dry as a bone and the palest pink imaginable and then to remove the skin and discard.