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.

I was born in England but parents moved here 44 yrs ago. I was brought up driving an hr away every weekend to go to shops where we has lots of ‘different food’ avocados, pitta, olives pomegranate rice curries, my favourite mooli. What I found unusual was English food in school, or as I grew up. I only had a dumpling in a stew about 5 yrs ago OMG amazing. Custard I could never understand. When i discovered meringues that was a special day. Baked beans were a really strange thing, still can’t quite understand them.

I agree streak is still quite an expensive meal!

Steak

Prosecco
Chicken
Coffee that didn't come out of a jar

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

I was much older. Probably not until around 2010 when I came back from another country. Same for butternut squash, which I'd always considered an American veg. Same with halloumi. Jalapenos were everywhere as well.

When my Mediterranean DDad came over here in the 60's he wasn't impressed that he had to buy his olive oil at the chemist! Thanks

Sorry random thanks there...

Prawns were a novelty in our house.

My dB hada Chinese friend, he introduced to a whole world of foods. Though we were already foreign, we tried everything.

looks at big belly

We were discussing this the other day and apparently people used to rent pineapples to take to parties as it was a status symbol

The historian on The Kitchen Cabinet (Radio 4 foodie panel show) said only last week that this was untrue. They were a luxury but you didn't rent them.

I remember having orange juice as a starter.

I remember me and my friend giggling like crazy the first time we saw butternut squash.

DreamsofJacaranda - yoghurt was very commonplace in the 80s and 90s.
Aubergine is still exotic for my parents.

Once when I was home from uni (circa 1999) I made fajitas for my DF for tea (DM always cooks and she was out). He ate them with a knife & fork! He just couldn’t get the concept of picking it up! The silly thing is my DM is actually a really good contemporary cook and they eat all sorts of things (she’s more Nigel Slater & Jamie Oliver than Delia) but fajitas had completely passed them by!

Love the pp story about eating Petits Filous on bread and butter because they thought it was cheese .

This thread has made me reflect that there was literally no ingredient in my (pretty dull, bog-standard) dinner tonight that I would have eaten before leaving home.

Used olive oil (no, would've been butter or lard) to fry garlic (nope) and anchovies (definitely nope), then added diced courgette (never even heard of one of these until I was at uni) and smoked paprika (I don't think this existed). A bit later I added cherry tomatoes (only whole tomatoes in my youth), then added cooked wholewheat spaghetti (I had non-wholewheat a few times though) and stirred through some watercress (only had the egg&cress type when young).

Oh, I tell a lie - I added some lemon juice. But we only had that on Pancake Day.

Smoked salmon. The first time I tried it was in an expensive salad in a restaurant when I was a teenager. Now my DP buys it several times a week for breakfast and sandwiches and two year old DD loves it too. (I still think that’s a bit excessive though)

"I’m old enough to remember when fresh orange juice was served as a starter."

I'm 41 and I remember this as well. I was confused by it even at the time (would have been early to mid 90s)

Birds eye frozen peas from the corner shop in the 60s, they came in a small pack which we had the whole pack for dinner. I used to have to go and buy them just before dinner iirc

Nutella. I remember going on a school trip to Belgium in year 5, and having Nutella in little packets for breakfast.

I was very excited when it started to appear in the UK!

Curry came as vesta in a box when i was a kid we lived in a town that had one chinese restaurant and one chippy so curry was very exotic, live in yorkshire now loads of curry restaurants and take outs where i live now,
didnt taste pizza till the 1980s
exotic fruits like mango , avacados, prawns wernt on my moms list because they were too expensive even broccoli never tried that till in my twenties when friends of ours served it with dinner at their house

They'd still be considered reasonably fancy now, so not really in the spirit of the thread, but I remember kumquats were briefly trendy in Ireland in the 1990s. It must've been the start of the celtic tiger, they were all over the place as the newest thing.

They suddenly disappeared, along with their lesser known cousins the limequats. I can only assume this because everyone realised they are bloody horrible.

Mushrooms!....until I was about 10 ( mid 70's ) they were quite exotic--but I did grow up in rural Scotland, where strangely enough smoked salmon was relatively easy to come by

Smoked salmon costs about the same as naice ham, and you only need a bit with scrambled egg for breakfast so not massively expensive. I portion it up and put it in the freezer and probably have it a couple of times a week.

OK so I am old.. but spaghetti was 'new' when I was a young teen Dad declared it to be 'foreign muck' and wouldn't eat it!

All the stuff mentioned.

I have a stand out memory of an article in Harpers Bazar in the early 90’s of some posh girl at Uni giving her recipe for Pesto bread. It was a winner amongst her circle.
I had never had pesto ( or even pine nuts). Mostly because it was woody herbs only in British gardens at the time. Basil was an exotic treat to remind you of holidays.
I make pesto everything now by chucking leafy veg in with nuts and garlic.

I remember when crunchy nut cornflakes cake out! Oh what a treat! And they were so expensive! Well to my parents they were.

I felt so so sophisticated having them.

Same for special k. Felt like something out of Just 17.

Steak- never had it in the home and pissibly a handful of times as a teen.

Indian and Thai food- didn’t eat either till I was in my twenties. Using chop sticks! What an absolute novelty!

Fresh OJ in the house, as rare and precious as a golden ostrich egg.