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.

The Gino Ginelli advert - the woman in the polka dot dress with a dalmation! Gino oh Gino Ginelli...Tutti frutti what a cutie, take a Gino home with you!

Kebab shop. I remember the first and only kebab shop in a rural Aussie town. Meat rotating.... what ??? Now it’s so whatever but back then it was a curiosity!

1970s Scotland. Very adventurous widely traveled parents. My mum made her own pizza dough (topped with anchovies), avocados with prawns, asparagus from a tin (awful), tinned corn on the cob (even worse), homemade curry (excellent), lots of French recipes from Julia Child. My dad made himself coq au vin while I was being born. They both grew up in poor rural households so this stuff was tres exotic! Personally I liked stovies and mince and tatties much better and was very jealous of my friends less exotic parents.

I didn't have pesto till I was a teen.
Fresh pasta - always used to be dried.
Posh ice - cream, bye by Vienetta
Halloumi - first tried at uni and was amazed!
Sweet potatoes - another uni revelation

Kiwi fruit

70s child. Yoghurts were exotic, I remember eating a ski yoghurt from the stemmed pot and pretending I was eating it from a wine glass.

Rice. We never ever had it as a child. It was foreign. Also salmon. Didn't have it until I was in my 20's.

I seem to not remember having broccoli very often and when it was it was brilliant (trees for tea). I’m not sure why tho as they grow in Britain and I’m only 37 so I’m sure they were pretty common. Maybe my parents didn’t actually like them!

M&S sandwiches - cheese & celery. Parmesan. Orange Juice (as a starter!)

Chunky chicken in a tin! Granary bread.

Would agree with huge amount of things listed on this thread as not featuring in my childhood.

Though must say many of things I wouldn't have considered fancy. Mostly because I didn't know they existed. 😆.

I have vivid memories of my mum going to France. (Booze cruise I realise in hind sight). She came back with Laughing Cow (well 'La vache qui rit') ) cheese triangles. I thought they were amazingly fancy. Almost died with happiness years later when Laughing Cow appeared on supermarket shelves. Evidently easily pleased!

If someone tells me Laughing Cow has been sold outside of France for decades I may have a crisis and never speak to my parents again.

kenny I'd say it was probably your parents TBH as I grew up in a tall unpretentious bog standard kind of house and it was present every Sunday dinner (that it was in season at the greengrocer's, as things were done in those days).
As was cabbage [yuck]. Roughly chopped watery white cabbage boiled for forever, that is. It was a "posh" day when DM ventured to go as far as Savoy cabbage (ie frizzy cabbage). My DCs would probably rather eat cardboard than chopped up and boiled to death white cabbage!!!

Puddings were Heinz Sponge (chocolate or treacle toffee) in a tin which had to be cooked on the pressure cooker for 3 hours just for one tiny tin!!!! There were no microwaves in those days so that's how you warmed them up! I can't believe that you wouldn't have been able to just open it, wrap them in foil and pop in the oven to heat up for a bit. I guess DM was following the word of the letter on the instructions. Once she forgot to open a tiny hole with the tin-opener (essential before putting the tin in the water in the pressure cooker) and it blew up

Also, pumpkins! Utterly unavailable in the 70s and most of the 80s. We had turnips hollowed out at Halloween instead, I never saw a real pumpkin for sale in the supermarket until maybe 10 years ago actually when the big supermarkets leapt on the Halloween bandwagon.

I'd literally never heard of pesto until 1993. Or had pasta as a main meal, just spaghetti with bolognaise. Penne, fuisilli etc was "posh".

totally not tall!

Red my colleague at work in 1998 used to bring in Laughing Cow for his lunch (he wasn't posh either). He diligently saved up 100s of tokens on the outside of the box for a Laughing Cow clock

I grew up in the 70s/80s and prawn cocktail was the height of decadence.

My poor children still think Viennetta is a massive treat 😆 along with Angel delight and tinned peaches . They're all under 9 !

I was an adult in '98. So it's ok so far; still speaking to my parents.

Anyone remember when Lucozade was only sold in the chemist in a big glass bottle wrapped in cellophane? And it was just for when you were sick.

"Because of the popularity of the song, that meal is supposed to be the first "foreign food" ever eaten in England."

Erm...nice story but not true. We've been eating "foreign" foods in the uk for 1000's of years. Certainly pre 50's things like curries were introduced due to Brits returning from colonial posts in India etc

Also I think you'll find a certain Walter Raleigh is credited (possibly erroneously more likely a lower minion) for introducing potatoes to the uk from the new world about Ooh about 400 years ago? Also turkey... Loads of examples.

You may well find the BBC programmes I recommended educational and interesting.

Also shows like

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Supersizers...

And numerous books and online articles on food history. It's a fascinating subject that links into every aspect of our lives and reflects on politics & culture.

"Growing up in a Scandinavian country in the 80s we oddly enough had things like kiwi, starfruit, persimmon, Sharon fruit and other exotic fruit as an occasional treat.

Pasta, pizza, lasagna and rice were stable fare though. Avacodos with prawns was a special occasion or long weekend treat as we're tinned asparagus (I seem to remember)." That's reminded me that I had the mistaken perception (that I didn't even realise I had until I realised it surprised me) that other countries only eat their own national food - even though we don't here!

It was a bit of a "oh they have McDonald's in Benidorm" thing.

Even though I'd lived in European countries before as I say I don't really remember plus mum would've just given us what she usually did.

When I then went to live there again as an army wife I was (stupidly) surprised at the Indian/Chinese/Thai/Italian restaurants there

BUT what I also noticed was "their" Indian etc restaurants didn't serve the same dishes or they were flavoured differently to what I was used to in Indian restaurants in the uk. Weirdly I got talking once to a restaurateur who'd lived in uk too, and he explained (which I should have realised) that of course while the basics remain tied to country of origin that immigrants setting up in the catering business, in order to get custom, tweaked dishes to the palate of their customers. Apparently Brits like quite hot curries while Germans like more flavour than heat, plus lots more garlic.

"Was born overseas and lived in an international community there so my friends and their families were American, Canadian, French and Italian. We shared meals and recipes as a community." When I did my nurse training about half the consort were "international" we were in shared accommodation with tiny shared kitchens. Quite early in training we decided on a Friday night we'd take it in turns to batch cook our "local" dishes for everyone to try, we'd all contribute to cost of ingredients. Fabulous cheap way to try new things and get to know each other. Some were European so not wildly different, but others were from Russia, China, vietnam, Philippines, Guatemala, Mexico etc so for early 90's quite adventurous and entering into the spirit those of us that were Brits went regional so eg I made scotch broth, stovies and cranachan. Others made things like hotpot, Bakewell tart, roast with Yorkshire puds etc. It was great fun.

70s, food was really only meat (or fish) potatoes and veg. The only convenience food sausages, fish fingers and baked beans. Lots of stews, Mum would buy half a cow for the freezer! Big block of vanilla ice cream in cardboard, tinned fruit, jelly or blamange. (Sp?). Mum made lots of traditional puddings from scratch, including a fab pavlova with tinned peaches. Pudding was accompanied by custard or evaporated milk, used like cream. Meals out were always 3 courses with a starter choice including soup or fruit juice!

Roll on the 80s - spag Bol hit the tables! My mum would do spag Bol one Saturday, and a rice dish with tomatoes, mushrooms and bacon the next. Both yum. She also tried chilli in the mid 80s, not such a success. And lasagne, which we liked. She used packet mix to turn some of her stews into casseroles 😁 or into curries by adding sultanas and curry powder.
Much more convenience food - pizza, findus crispy pancakes, Vienetta, yoghurt, potato waffles, neopolotan ice cream.

I would not have known what any of these foods were as a child:
Houmas, pitta bread, aubergine, courgette, pesto, proper curry, chick peas, coconut milk, mango, kiwi, pomegranate, squash (the veg), any pasta that wasnt spaghetti or didn’t come in a tin, olives, cookies (not biscuits), couscous, most cheeses, rocket...

A long time ago when my dad was young (no idea how long ago, but he's 93 this year so way back in the mists of time) he and his sister got hold of some avocados. Cue great excitement in the house as the family pondered what to do with this hugely exotic fruit. Eventually they just bit into them, skin and all, as you would an apple. He still remembers his sister pulling a face and saying, "Ooh, Jim, these aren't up to much, are they?"

Lasagne, curry, spaghetti, Cous cous hated that stuff lol

I remember pitta bread becoming a cool new thing!

Satsumas were only available at Christmas in the 50’s. Also bananas and oranges were a treat. My school friends never had those but I was lucky to have them. Jam strawberries which were smaller and eating one were larger. These were only from the uk and only available during the summer. Vegetables and fruit were seasonal not like now we get all varieties all year round.

Mangoes and bananas must be allowed to ripen ..