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.

Melon

Cream (normally just had top of the milk)

Dates and figs at Christmas

After Eights

Milk Tray / Black Magic

Going to a Chinese restaurant. Having tinned lychees for dessert

Our Wimpy used to do Black Forest gateau and cream, a real treat. My friend and I used to go in there on a Saturday, it must have been about 1974

Parmesan (the sawdust stuff - blocks or flames didn't exist)

I remember my auntie, who was always into any new fad, introducing us to spaghetti (rural N. Ireland in the seventies). It came wrapped in dark blue paper

Ah, yes, a blast from the past!

My background was "continental" so we had very exotic food in the 60s, including: garluc, pasta, salmon, shellfish, pineapple, etc. I don't remember Greek food until the 70s; and Thai in the early 80s as people started visiting that area regularly.

I miss the joy of fruit and veg coming into season: new potatoes, strawberries, runner beans.

I disagree about coffee however. My mother went to Italian coffee bars in the 50s, where good ice cream was also sold. They were in London and also in Kent. They made frothy coffee (cappuccino) and latte's. We had very good coffee at home through a percolator or cona coffee gadget. Many homes had fancy coffee sets with dainty coffee cups. My mother has hers still and I have my grandmother's. Both very pretty.

There was a dearth of coffee and tea shops in the 80s. Does anyone remember Juliana's in Notting Hill - there was hardly anywhere else.

Kale is a funny one. My stepmum grew up on a farm and she always says kale is what they fed to the cows, they’d never have dreamed of eating it themselves. She finds it hilarious that it’s now seen as a trendy health food and sold at silly prices!

Going to the East end of London, getting a bagel from one shop and going to another shop for the filling - smoked salmon sliced off there and then.

Bagels are much more common now, but only the supermarket in a bag variety near me. Alas, they are just a normal bland bready product, not the delicious bagel that I remember. I will have to go on a pilgrimage to get the real thing!

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.

My dad was from Cyprus we used to have Jugs sent over from Cyprus back in the 60s. There were also a lot of greek shops in North London my dad used to go to for Cypriot foods.
I still go to the local Turkish shops for my Halloumi rather than buy supermarket brands

Muesli
Rice except as a pudding
Green pepper

@woolyheart yes! I grew up in east London and going to the beigel bakery was a regular weekend trip, we’d buy 1/2 dozen beigels, some platzels, and on odd occasion some cholla bread for a treat. DM would freeze them to make up in the week. We’re not Jewish, it was just commonplace, along with having seafood like other people mentioned upthread - there was a van that would park at different parts of the area depending on the day of the week (but always outside a pub!) where you could get mussels, winkles, prawns etc.

The beigel bakery is now incredibly popular with hipsters, and they charge a small fortune for their most popular filled beigel (hot salt beef) compared to what it used to be, but it’s still really cheap to buy regular baked goods. My treat as a child was getting a smoked salmon beigel from the bakery. These days you get a knowing look when you go in and buy plain baked goods! Like some sort of odd badge of honour

Oops I meant @woollyheart

I'm on a 'memories' FB page for the area where I was born and brought up. Recently, a man posted that he'd seen tins of Baxter's consommé when he was shopping, decided to try it - and at the first sip he'd been instantly transported back to the café at the local baths, when we'd come out after swimming club and always have a cup of hot Bovril...
Hundreds of people (me included) agreed with him... I've still never tried consommé - but I love a cup of Bovril when the weather's like this - it warms you up from the inside like nothing else

Ribena
Steak
Hake
Fresh salmon not tinned
Melon for a starter (my Nana's staple but we didn't have it at our house. She was well off, we weren't but she sent us food parcels)
Sara Lee gateaux
Mayonnaise instead of salad cream
Those chocolate mousse desserts where the advert said not to tell the children
Any ice lolly that cost more than 20p
Angel delight instead of instant whip
Peaches
Golden shred instead of silver shred (again nana vs home)
Sugar cubes or crystals
Proper butter (Lurpak)
Prawns (Christmas starter only)

Kidney beans
Sweetcorn
Rice

I can remember in my teens (so mid seventies) hearing that in France people bought drinking water in bottles from a shop. We thought that was hysterical. By the time I was married 10 years later I was addicted to Perrier and like most of us got into the habit of buying bottled water regularly (although Perrier became hard to come by after a contamination scandal). Now the wheel has turned full circle, I try to avoid single use plastics so I drink water from a tap again. Although I now filter it and use an infuser bottle to add flavour. At our house cucumber water is the new Perrier.

'Wet' sandwiches, as my mother called them, which were this terribly exotic idea we brought back from a holiday abroad. Basically it meant putting mayo or even salad cream in your sandwich along with the meat or sliced egg, and adding lettuce as well.
'Gateau' which always meant a layered cake with a lot of whipped aerosol cream on - sometimes it would be specificed a Black Forest, but it might just as likely be strawberries or tinned mandarin segments instead of cherries.

Granola
Tropical fruits
Cranberry juice
Quinoa
Pesto
Olives
Tia Maria/Sheridan's/Bailey's
Mexican food and panini's were the trendy food option in the 90's. I remember when I was a teenager thinking that's what cool adults ate.

Avocado
Tomato puree was not available in supermarkets (not ours anyway), only from Cullens in those teeny tiny tins.
Any take away that wasn't fish & chips - and yes, we ate them out of newspaper.
Garlic was hard to get.
You could buy fresh parsley from the fish-monger, but any other fresh herb had to come from the garden.
Drinking chclate was cocoa powder, pure and simple. You added sugar when you made it (and no one put marshallows in it back then! Not sure anyone put cream on it either).

Loads of stuff not around in the early 60s!

Pretty much anything I eat now, but particularlyl

Herbs that taste of plants rather than dust and sadness and were only used after washing off the coating of grease and dust from the lids because they came with the spice rack in 1978 and weren't used up yet,

Fresh fish,

Vegetables that weren't out of a tin (I still love Marrowfats and carrots, they're just different) and

Anything that wasn't cooked to a second death or burned to buggery in the pursuit of Killing All Worms (and Watercress was completely forbidden)

Drinking milk. The number of clumps I got for taking a crafty swig when there was a Sodastream and squashes available was ridiculous.

Conversely, a lot of things that cost a fortune or are largely unobtainable outside a specialist retailer were regarded as poor people's food (with an extra element of racism relating to anything that could be picked, foraged or poached in the UK - think a nasty G word and mutterings of stealing babies). This meant things like;

Raspberries
Blackberries
Gooseberries
Red, white or blackcurrants
Chestnuts
Plums
Cherry Plums
Anything made with Rosehips or Crab Apples
Quinces
Medlars
Samphire and other sea veg
Seaweed
Shellfish
Anything other than Cod or Salmon. Even Haddock or Trout - she would have been incandescent at the thought of actually being offered Coley, Guernard or Monkfish. Oh, except Turbot and Roc Salmon. Which, according to her, wasn't a Dogfish/Shark, it was a special posh fish just for grownups that magically didn't have bones but that didn't make it a non cartilaginous fish in the Shark and Dogfish order. Mainly because saying non cartilaginous would have been beyond her
Rabbit and Hare
Pheasant, Partridge, Duck, Goose or other Game
Butter (Margarine was the refined choice)
Non Homogenised milk. Having a layer of cream on the top was common and my Grandfather was to be informed this every time she saw a bottle of Gold Top in the larder, along with instructions to buy a nice tub of Stork rather than butter churned within two miles of his home
Crusty bread/Oats/Barley/Rye/Sourdough
Anything 'foreign'.

In addition, salt was evil. Not a single scrap of it was to come in the house unless it was for killing slugs and Sea Salt would have been even worse, as that could be made for free/was obviously riddled with fish parasites.

No wonder I was regarded as a fussy child. I just hadn't found food I liked yet.

Tomato puree was not available in supermarkets
It was back on the 60s

Siracha was a cupboard essential in my house growing up (Mum is Chinese Malaysian) and I remember when everyone around me suddenly discovered it!

I’ve been trying to introduce my 78yr old MIL to the joys of a slow cooker. She sees it as some exotic kitchen tool whilst I can’t live without it.

Rabbit and Hare
We often had rabbit as a child in 60s. My mum used to make a stifado type recipe with onion and vinigar

We used to get tomato puree too - it was in funny little tins not tubes though.
We used to go to the Swizz centre in London every 6 months or so, so my mum could buy rye bread and Emmental and "proper" salami (not the pink, salty Danish stuff).

Does anyone remember Tizer?

Olive oil
Wine
Pasta
Rice not for puddings (see pp)
Anything not deep fried or shallow fried
Anything not cooked in lard