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.

Sweet peppers! I remember my parents serving them at a dinner party in the 1970s and there was a great deal of discussion about how "continental" and exciting they were. Also garlic although people wee a bit more suspicious about that.

Everything - I am from the poorer end of society in the 80s. It was only meat, potatoes and vegetables which were the British ones. Fruit was basic too. My kids eat such a varied diet esp compared to my childhood. My grandparents saw brown bread as poor mans bread - white was posh. I really can’t remember bell peppers or broccoli for some reason. But can remember cauliflower and green cabbage.

When my mum was a kid she got given a banana in a packed lunch and had to take it round the school to show everyone

Brioche. Brioche said France, sophistication, chic bakeries.

Now brioche is just that sweetened stuff that sits next to the pitta bread.

Coffee. Until around 20 years ago, coffee in the U.K. almost always meant instant. It really doesn’t seem so long ago that Starbucks, Costa, Nero, Pret etc etc simply did not exist. This must be completely unimaginable to anyone under 30....

Any food from M&S was a complete treat. Now me and DH always pop there on the way home from work.

Broccoli. Didn't eat it until the 90s.

Fruit!! Mum and dad has an allotment so we had loads of berries in the summer. Autumn we had apples but the rest of the year there was just a few oranges in a fruit bowl.

We still had loads of fruit and veg in pies and tarts etc that mum had froze but we never had peaches, grapes or even bananas.

Pesto. I didn't have that until I was introduced to it at university and it was amazed by how tasty it was.

Didn't have steak or salmon until my 20s, it was too expensive.

My parents, whilst very good cooks, are not very exotic or experimental. At the age of about 20, I met my now ex in-laws and ex fil was making guacamole and invited me to try a piece of avocado. He offered his hand when he saw my look of disgust as I tasted it. The in-laws also ate a lot of halloumi, houmous, tempura, fajitas, sushi and were generally very experimental. All things I really love now and am glad I was introduced to them.

Fererro Rocher. How the Ambassador spoiled us back in the 80s!

Also it sounds a cliche but when we first had garlic bread in 1998 it was like the Peter Kay sketch!

We also didn’t have pasta until the late 90s and she still only does one dish with it... dolmio, sausages, onions and cheese on top.

They feel that I don’t feed my husband properly because we don’t have pork chops, boiled potatoes and veg every night. I’ve let her down as I don’t cook a roast every week.

Fresh cream. When I was a child, our regular Sunday tea was fruit and cream (i.e tinned peaches or pears with Carnation milk) with bread and butter
.

avacados.
hummus
prawns other than in a cocktail.
treat cereal.oh golden grahams.
filled pasta
smoothies
seeded breads tiger breads etc
20 million optons for tea or coffee
sweet potatos
pomegranate
edamame beans and such things like llentil chickpeas etc

Parmesan. We had 'box cheese' with spaghetti bolognese when I was growing up. This was in a cylindrical tube, and tasted of sick.

I also remember my first pizza, courtesy of M&S. I was frightened by it. I was 13 at the time (am 47 now).

Bought sandwiches, especially from M&S. We were given them on some sort of children's coach outing to the seaside when I was about 10 and we talked about it for months, it was probably the only time I had a prepacked sandwich as a child, because it was an unimaginable luxury.

We also had asparagus growing in our garden and we had this vague notion that it could be eaten, but had no idea how so we just left it to go to seed .

Profiteroles - only ever had for pudding in an Italian restaurant.

Although weirdly, chocolate eclairs seem to have been around for ever.

I'm the only person in my family who has ever eaten avocado. I am 40.

I am very old, and I remember when one of the exciting things about going abroad (which most people didn’t but we did) was having food unavailable in the U.K. Croissants, salami, yoghurt, fresh figs....loads of stuff.

pesto
olives
hummous

my dad just grumbled.yeh you mean how we will all be eating again after Brexit haha.

My dp has never had pasta that wasn’t spaghetti hoops until he was 20.

Prawns
Cream
Mayonnaise
Fresh juices
Avocado
Posh coffee
Takeaways

Salmon
Vienetta
After Eights