To ask which foods used to be super fancy but are now totally "normal"

[cheesenpickles]

I was chatting to my 3 year old today about how, when I was little, pizza was quite an exciting thing. It's what they ate on American tv shows and there was no way you could get it delivered to your house. Got me thinking about things that are ordinary groceries now which were the pinnacle of fancy/unthought of in the 80s and 90s (and earlier!)

Avocados are another one. My mum would buy one for her and my dad as a special treat to eat with vinegarette from their special "avocado pear" bowls.

Mexican food as well. Old El Paso kits were the height of fancy pants when I was younger.

Halloumi, gets and hummus were things only my family seemed to know about (parents were stationed in Cyprus) and trying to explain squeaky cheese to my friends when we brought a huge brine-filled jug of the stuff back from holiday was hilarious considering it's totally normal now.

Thai green curry. It was very new and exciting when Jamie did it in one of his first TV series.

Garlic!

Fresh rather than dried pasta, except for ravioli in tins.

I remember my parents coming back from visiting family in South Africa and raving about an exotic new discovery: butternut squash.

Fresh orange juice
Blueberries
Asparagus

Wine.

I remember a big fuss about the first wraps being sold in M&S!

When I was a kid Dairylea Triangles were THE item to have in your lunch box.

I never had them; we had the thin cheese-not-cheese between plastic sheets. Only the posh kids had Dairylea Triangles.

Looking at you, Sarah-Jane Jones from Year 5.

Anon, an old lady I knew once told me about dancing with some Spanish sailors in the 1950s and thinking they smelled really strange but not being able to place the smell. It was only decades later she realised it was garlic!

Curry. I didn't try curry until I was 15.

Bought sandwiches.

Strawberries out of season

Garlic bread! I remember my group of friends getting very exercised about making this at uni in 1982.

Prawns.

Lasagna, garlic bread, pasta, croissants, bread of loaf variety. Chickpeas, olive oil, hoummus, al dente vegetables, chorizo, smoked salmon, cheeses other than cheddar, olives
Basically anything other than meat and veg with potatoes.

From when I was a kid -

Prawns
Steak
Fresh OJ
Asparagus
Nice wine / spirits
Puddings - were special occasions only
Fresh pasta
Bagels
Smoked salmon

I still remember the first time I tried hummus! I was 18 and my older sister served it as a starter with some warm pitta bread. I thought I was the height of sophistication

The now-ubiquitous avocado.
Strawberries - available all year round. DH had a Saturday job at a greengrocers in his teens and strawberries only used to come into season in time for his birthday - in June.

Olives
Houmous
Chickpeas

Didn't eat any of these until adulthood. Although, to be fair, didn't have pasta or curry until a teenager. My mother was a very plain cook (still is).

Pomegranates, we used to have only around xmas. Would halve them and pick out the fruit with a pin. Would keep us busy for ages.
Avocados, prawns, smoked salmon, pasta

Vienetta. It was proper posh.
Dry roasted peanuts instead of just salted. Some years later, along came pistachios which were on another level altogether.
After eights. Only at Xmas, so posh were they.

I was about 23 before I'd heard of or tasted a sweet potato.

Mango! When I worked in a sandwich shop as a teen we had no idea how to cut it for the fruit salads!

It's interesting - some of the stuff was familiar just super posh like smoked salmon. Some was something you might have had on holiday if you went abroad (croissants) and some was weird hippie stuff that you could only get at the health food shop (chick peas...)

Mangoes. I was talking about this with dd yesterday. We very rarely had mangoes in my childhood as they were expensive. Now you can get mangoes for under a pound. Sainsbury's had them for 82p this week.

Kiwis in the 80's!