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.

A lot of stuff already mentioned, but I don't remember chicken being expensive. We had it every Sunday in the 70s, but was one of those frozen things. Salads were for summer though.
We did have fresh salmon though ( think my dad poached it..).
I didn't get any pasta till I was in my teens. My mum got a Findus frozen lasagne in the 70s and said it vile. She didn't like the feeling of it in her mouth. She never ate it again! I didnt taste spag bol till an ex bfs sister made it, and I learned to cook it.
Frozen food was rare in the early 70s unless it was fish fingers or peas, and then they opened Bejams etc.
Curries and Chinese food, I had quite young. My mum was a nurse so got introduced to them by a few Consultants, and we regularly got home made Indian/Chinese food. If we ever got a takeaway, it was halved between me and mum ( my dad hated foreign muck). I would have been nearly 18 before I got one to myself!
We did go out to eat when I was a child, but it was a rare event. I remember Wimpys with a knife and fork.
Think I was about 20 before I had my first Maccyds.
Pizzas were those awful doughy things that you deep fried in Scotland. Tasted my first PROPER pizza in France when I was 13.
One thing I DO miss is those Birds Eye Fritters. I loved them! Cant get them anymore.

@ginislife

Brings back Memories. In addition to your thoughts, Luncheon meat for Sunday tea. Yorkshire pudding with sugar on. Pudding before main course. Not us, but sugar sandwiches. Toast and Dripping. Egg and Chips.

I chatted to my mum today about this and she couldn't think of anything that classed as posh. I think she inherited my nana's tastes and bought whatever. She used to buy my grandad undercut as it was called. Steak I think. Very expensive. We had vienetta regularly and didn't class it as posh. Everything was branded in our house, it's only in the last 12 years that I've got my mum to get supermarket own brand to saw money. Mum and dad were always meat, veg, potatoes people and we didn't do fancy because they didn't like anything different. We ate a lot of fried breakfasts when I was 7-11. With Fruity Sauce for me instead of HP. Sausage, fried egg, fried bread, fried potatoes, grilled tomatoes (for mum and dad). A real treat was having a fry up for dinner in the week. God I loved a fry up! I went veggie when I was 13 and haven't had one now for years and can't stand eggs but of how I loved them.

I could not believe my eyes when I asked for pizza in a Glasgow chippy, c1983, and watched the guy chuck it in the fryer. Can you still get that in Scotland?

With Fruity Sauce for me

Wait... how is it I know about this sauce yet I don't. It sounds amazing but I can't tell if I've had it or not, this stirs up maybe false memories and makes me uncomfortable.

Veg soup from the Klinx machine after swimming was a treat. We didn't get it every time so I swore I would as an adult. Every time I visit a Klinx machine after swimming and see just a stupidly large selection of coffees (it's a vending machine! Surely you only need white or black) and NO SOUP!!!! I die a little inside.

I don't know if this was a Scottish thing only but bovril and a greasy Scots pie at half-time with tablet after a match.

Tablet at church too.

The wife and I would treat ourselves to a small Sara Lee Double chocolate gateaux with a spoon each whilst courting...

Mum and Dad had a herb and spice rack they brought back from living in America along with a bottle of Tabasco... they lasted almost my entire childhood and I thought them luxuries... Now i need to top up my selection every week.

Fresh herbs you didn't grow yourself always strike me as special.

Ready meals. They were special occasion food.

Mum made these samosas with a really sweet curry. Never got the recipe before she died.

Anything fried or with cream/butter was a luxury as it was all oven cooked, yoghurt or marg.

Remember yoghurt that had fruit in it... not silly flavour but actual messy not set funny yoghurt with fruit lumps. The set flavoured stuff was a luxury.

Now I think about it I don't believe we had pizza until I was an adult and we made it at a burger place I worked in.

60's kid here. I remember going to my friends house and picking at the carcass of fa whole roast chicken - that was posh!

@longwayoff

I could not believe my eyes when I asked for pizza in a Glasgow chippy, c1983, and watched the guy chuck it in the fryer. Can you still get that in Scotland?

Deep fried pizzas were the best, lovely base soaked in oil like fried bread and nice mushy top. I could go one now!

Yes, you still get them but they don't seem as common. The new trend is a pizza crunch which is the cheap pizza battered and then deep fried. I think it's a horrible doughy monstrosity but DD loves it.

White bread! I still remember my first slice and it was heaven
Shop sandwiches
Chicken and mayo sandwiches
Cherries
Tinned fruit salad
Takeaway chicken and chips
Avocado
Real ice cream
Real cream

I remember the cardboard 'sick cheese...ugh!

Thanks gingerkitty, glad to know those culinary standards are still being upheld up there. Battered deep fried pizza, there's a thing. As the original was such a shock - alive in my memory all these years later - I'll give the updated version a miss.

longwayoff you do still get deep fried pizzas, but mostly pizza crunch. Most chippies have proper pizza ovens now, so less popular.

My dad used to have the Vesta curries. They were his and we were never allowed them!

I eventually tried one in my late teens. I think I would probably eat one again but I would feel all dirty like when you eat a Pot Noodle.....

I literally had that same pizza experience in Glasgow in 1992. I properly gawped in horror. It was bloody delicious.

I'm now the kind of pizza wanker that has a five year old sourdough starter, a 500 degree pizza oven in the garden and have even been known to make my own mozzarella and salami, but I'd give quite a lot to be back in that chippy in 1992 right now.

I still remember going to school with smoked salmon sandwiches one day (it was after some sort of celebration, probably a family birthday) and one of the younger girls said to me 'You rich or something?'

Pizza doesnt seem as good as it used to be. Or was it just so exciting and new back then? You couldnt beat a deep pan pizza.
Im sure that virtually everything in my kitchen would have seemed fancy to a teenage me. Even down to the clean potatoes that i dont have to rummage for in a big sack and then spend ages scrubbing.

Ha yes I had to scrub dirt off potatoes too hmm! Every time! I'd forgotten about that!

Also wash (live) creepy crawlies and dirt off lettuce My DM once went mad as we had friends to tea and she'd tasked me with washing the lettuce, I'd done a half hearted job (age 7) and it had loads of dirt still clinging to it on the plate

And you know those potatoes were only ever used for chips or mashed potato!

Oven chips were viewed with suspicion when they came out. Everyone had a chip-pan.

Sushi. I remember the first time I had it, was with a friend. I was 21. It was the most amazing thing I had ever tried. My husband and I have it at least once a month now. So strange.

1957 or thereabouts, Sunday dinner, a CHICKEN! First time I'd had it. Recall some conversation between my mother and her dad, who'd produced this miracle, "oh dad, this reminds me of the war and what you used to get on the black market. Chicken, how lovely". I think battery farming was still a thing of the future.

I get an organic veg box and my veg have DIRT on them and taste inside them !

Just like the seasonal veg that was all that was available then zigzag.

" A tin of corned beef for Saturday lunch with mashed potato and peas"

Corned beef hash. Always a conversation starter. Whether you were a Ketchup, or brown sauce, egg or no egg on top, type.

My Dad was SA and my Grandad Italian descent. If they wasn't going to a specialist market, or bringing it home (Merchant Navy). Then my Mother would go to Binns Food Hall (Church Street Liverpool) to get Salami and the like.

My Mother's first husband was from the Caribbean and she'd lived were lots of different foods were available, on markets. So we ate more varied than most.

Money wasn't an issue amd we went to ice cream parlours etc.

I didn't eat an Indian curry until the 00's, though. I couldn't believe what I had missed out on.

OhTheRoses That's why my box is so disappointing right now - not an awful lot in season compared to the veg aisle at Sainsbury's. Forces you to be a little more inventive though unless you wish to return to the blandness of the 70s.

Oven chips were viewed with suspicion when they came out. Everyone had a chip-pan

Yes very true - fresh cut home made deep fried chips are still the best