Foods your children eat daily that you NEVER had as a child

[Tawdrylocalbrouhaha]

As I watched DS(3) gorging himself on blueberries, crabcakes and houmous (yes. On the crabcakes) for his tea, I realised that I never saw a blueberry until I was at least 18. Likewise, despite growing up beside the sea, I never had crab in cakes or otherwise, or houmous.

Now I'm watching Back in Time for Tea, and feeling like a museum piece.

When did we start taking this stuff for granted?!

Sushi, Mexican food, avocados, bagels, a lot of not-common-in-Britain foods. Not surprising, I suppose. Never had pesto, risotto, mango. A pineapple was a once a year event.

My DM hated cooking but was a SAHM and so did the cooking anyway. We used to eat a combination of freezer food and the occasional very odd creation of hers.

It wasn't until I grew up that I understood that rice didn't have to have uncooked grains in it and macaroni cheese didn't have to have a weird congealed layer at the top where it had been overcooked. And that it was possible to have sauces on things that weren't ketchup or salad cream or gravy.

Just not her forte. But she also wouldn't allow anyone else to cook as that would have interfered with her performative martyrdom. But that's another thread...

There’s a lot that my DD gets that I didn’t ever have as a child. Our food was cheap shit for the most part.

DD actually has fruit/vegetables each day.

But daily we have garlic. We have garlic in absolutely everhthing! I love the stuff.

I often think to myself that when we were young my mum would avoid anything that smelt at all like there was garlic on/in. How odd.

Chocolate spread.

Fromage Frais, avocados, courgettes, brocolli, tuna, salmon, brown bread, noodles, Chinese takeaway, cherry tomatoes, mayonnaise, omelettes, Yorkshire pudding (my mum couldn't and can't make them), risotto, muesli, mussels, prawns, steak.

On the other hand they have never had dumplings, semolina, or rice pudding. And I never gave them porridge as I hated it so much when I was young and they both love it now they are adults.

We had chocolate spread - Panda Spread. We literally couldn't believe when my mum agreed to buy it. She shopped on a Friday and the Panda was always gone by Saturday morning.

Wraps and pesto. That's all I can think of! I was born in 89.

We never eat out of season fruit.....it's travelled too far and I often don't trust where it's come from if it's from abroad...who knows what pesticides they use?

My DC eat curries which I wouldn't ever have eaten, sushi....and we live in Oz so they're able to pick oranges in season which would have blown my mind as a kid.

Waffles
Pancakes
Brioche
Snack bars
Carrot crisps things
Rice cakes
Pasta
Pizza
Potato skins
Tortillas
Houmous
Noodles

Fresh fruit. We had tinned.

Snacks - we weren't allowed. Even if really very hungry. Also not allowed to take anything from fridge/pantry.

Takeaways because they didn't really exist aside from the occasional chippy tea.

There are SO many things my dc consider normal, every day food that I wouldn't have had as a child or if we did it was only on special occasions.

Fruit was apples, oranges and bananas (or tinned). That's all. Anything other than those was only had in our house around Halloween because it was cheaper then. Even at that the selection only expanded to include grapes and pears. I'm 99.9% certain that I was well into adulthood before I tasted fresh pineapple, mango, blueberries .

Hummus. Never heard of it much less tasted it until I was in my 30s! I think actually MN might have inspired me to try it.

Gawd, loads of other stuff really. I'm Dublin too - Ireland in the 80s didn't have much in the way of exciting foods and my very plain eating, working class parents tended to stick to what they knew so meat, spuds and veg it was... Even pasta was an unusual one for many and in fact my DPs to this day will only have pasta with bolognese, they seemingly just cannot think of any other dish it could be used in. Despite me telling them .

TheVeryHngryDieter
@squiggleirl you didn't have Sqeez orange juice as a kid? I had those cartons for school in the early 90s and the preservative always tasted faintly reminiscent of the acids at the back of your throat after you vomit. Eurrgh.

I'll see your cartons of Squeez orange juice, and raise you cans of Squeez concentrate. We had a special tool for piercing triangular holes in the can - 2 on one side, and 1 on the other. For every can of concentrate you added 4 cans of water. The smell of it - it was awful. And what's worse, my Mum used to make me drink loads of it because the doctor recommended it as an alternative to milk with my dinner. I hated that woman! Thought that may have been because she also reckoned I needed daily doses of cod liver oil. No tasteless odourless tablets back then. Nope. Pur cod liver oil off the biggest tablespoon known to man - vile!

Tawdry
In fairness Squigglegirl there was Calvita as well as cheddar. And easy slices...

No easy singles in out house - my Mum didn't like the look of them. I do remember having them at my friends house, and folding them an infinite amount of times so I ended up with a little stack of tiny cheesy squares. My Mum used to buy Calvita triangles alright, but you could only have those in your school lunchbox. She stopped buying them though when my brother got in a fight in school for defending his honour when some other boy suggested the girl on the label was my brother's girlfriend. She did briefly try pulling the picture off and telling him they were Dairylea, but sure no place sold them, so he got rumbled about his 'girlfriend' again!

Also turkey - DS demands turkey at least once a week. In my day turkey was only for Christmas, not for tea on Wednesday just because you feel like it.

Oddly we're exactly the opposite. I grew up 70s and 80s and ate fresh home cooked food. All really exotic for the time as my Mum had lived in Sicily and travelled thru Europe. I never ate crisps or fizzy drinks or chocolate or sweets. Or frozen food or chips. I never tried a fishfinger till i had kids of my own.

My kids now on the other hand eat a load of shite. Dry white bread, greggs sausage rolls, hula hoops, biscuits, packets of dry sweet waffles, every single day. Just a sea of beige crap.

squiggle would you believe we only had easy singles?? At least until I was in my teens. I doubt my dc have ever even tasted one!

Btw your mum was right about the easy slices Squiggle, those are one thing I had that DS is deprived of!

Mango, blueberries, sugar snap peas,

Pineapple juice, oat milk,

pasta, chicken and rice.

Meals at home were always a lamb chop with potatoes and sprouts, baked potatoes, mashed potato with fried egg or a random vegetable casserole. Dessert was angel delight or bread and butter pudding .We don't have any of those meals today.

My DD is too young to partake, but I can remember the first time I went in a Starbucks at the local shopping centre with my parents and not knowing what was going on. I must have been early teens. Now my DD plays ‘coffee shops’ and asks me if I want a latte or cappuccino. Probably indicates I visit Costa a bit too often. Little me wouldn’t have known what she was on about.

Crumpets, my dad insisted they were a treat food so we only had them on birthdays and at Christmas. I now eat them most weeks as does 2 year old DD (and yes my dad was a bit odd)

Even pasta was an unusual one for many

I remember us all standing around a saucepan looking at the first spaghetti that wasn't tinned hoops in tomato sauce cooking. My Mum had bought some so she could work out what to tell my brother to do with it when he went away to college.

I also remember the first time she made us popcorn. There was certainly no such thing as pre-popped popcorn, so you had to make your own. The kernels came in a pack with a tiny bottle of oil, and a fake butter substance that went on top. You had to provide your own salt.

I also remember when olive oil was something you bought in a little brown bttle from the pharmacy. None of us were sure what you did with it, but it was never bought with the intention of using it to cook.

I remember my Nana saying she had tried pasta in the 80s she asked someone what it was and they said 'it was like potatoes'. So she boiled and mashed it and served it with pork chops and gravy. She said they 'didn't think much of it and wouldn't have it again'

Olive oil was for warming in a spoon and then pouring into someone's ear to soften ear wax.

Hope that hasn't ruined it for anyone now...

My mum came from the tropics so only cooked food from scratch but she hated cooking and was terrible at it.

She then discovered the pressure cooker and would chuck in a load of rice, mince and veg and salt liberally.

We used to dread supper.

not daily foods but we never had any foreign food, picnics were always jam sandwiches, you never bought sandwiches in shops, bottled water was unheard of, fruit was apples and satsumas. No ready meals, they were unheard of too, certainly no pizza - I doubt I knew what it was.
No salmon, no frozen food (though we don't have that either) and no crusty bread.

it would be easier really to say what things my kids eat now that were the same as what I ate....er....
marmite
home made jam
I think that might be it