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.

When I was very young, chicken was a luxury. Also, I can still remember when shops started selling this weird but tasty stuff called "yoghurt"... And in my home, at least, a truly exotic meal was spaghetti bolgnese. A different world back then!

Dh remembers being introduced to crisps in 1990s Russia.

essential I find that absolutely fancisnating! Tell me more!

Mushrooms were a rare treat in our house!

In 1979 when I was 17 an Italian family invited me round for dinner and I had my first ever taste of spaghetti bolognaise. We had never had pasta at home.

Mayonnaise. We only ha salad cream growing up (and that really vile sandwich spread, which looked & smelled like vomit!), until Hellman's launched mayonnaise in jars (mid 80s?), which was one of the few 'foreign' foods my mum would countenance. She once cooked me spaghetti with cream & sugar, and tried to cook corn on the cob until the middles were soft.

My friend is from Romania and he grew up with empty supermarket shelves and never evening seeing fruit like oranges and bananas. He said that when the iron curtain came down, the supermarket shelves filled up overnight with all these amazing foods which we took for granted but his country had never seen before.

I’m from an Asian background, and grew up in London so had access to a lot of spices, exotic fruit and veg etc.

However, my brother had severe eczema as a baby, and was allergic to cows milk, so we all had to drive down to a farm in Kent to buy a stash of frozen goats milk, on a regular basis.

Decent jam. Hartley was about the best, but in my gap year in Parisin the early 90s I went mad for bonne maman confiture and also peppermint tea bags.

Spinach. Only time I’d ever seen or heard of it growing up was on Popeye. Now I can’t imagine my life without it

Smoked or fresh salmon
Vienetta
Blueberries, strawberries and blackberries - although mulberries were commonplace
Soft stonefruit (I still regard cherries as extravagant)
Old world wines
Croissants
Artichokes
Lobster

Stuff like avocados, grapes, pumpkin/butternut were staples though. We also had posh brunch things like corn fritters on a very regular basis as they are cheap to make. Pasta, peppers (capsicum), courgette (zucchini) commonplace and grown in the backyard.

I didn’t eat Thai, Indian or Vietnamese food until I was 18 or so!

I don’t know if it’s super fancy but fresh Parmesan, when I was a kid we had that dry stuff you had to shake out of a tube.

You can still get spaghetti in blue paper: www.ocado.com/webshop/product/Garofalo-Traditional-Long-Spaghetti/50584011

Where does a chicken cost £3?! I don't know how much the battery ones cost as I don't buy them but mine are a tenner or so. Hence the fabled Mumsnet chicken. They are not cheap!

Balsamic vinegar. I remember when I was a kid and Delia was suddenly using it for everything in one of her shows — except she kept pronouncing it ba-SAL-mic!

this is very interesting,i grew up on the north eastern seaboard of the u.s.
all these foods mentioned were readily available.
to put it in perspective
when i was 14-15- 1970.i babysat for all the children in the area and standard meal was ordering a large pizza and salads delivered to the door.and we lived 10 miles from town.
sundays were spent at gm eatting lasagna or some other sicilian delight.
my favorite diner food(film and wander around town on a saturday afternoon) was creamcheese(philly of course) and green olives on bagels or toasted rye bread.
we were not wealthy dad was a policeman.
mcdonalds appeared from the west coast in 1968.never ate there.
now, i know why years ago british food had such a bad reputaion.

Where does a chicken cost £3?

Most supermarkets

In 1979 when I was 17 an Italian family invited me round for dinner and I had my first ever taste of spaghetti bolognaise.

Life can be hard, cruel, tedious, many things that grind us down... but imho, moments like that, when your whole world opens with a mouthful, a bar of music, a single image or a new concept, you realise the infinite possibilities and wonder of it all. We seek the planets afar and dimensions beyond our own, but the first taste of a truffle, or the first viewing of a Jodorowsky film can transport you in ways you'd never imagined.

I didn't grow up in the UK and some of the things here I found amaizing when I first moved here 6 years ago:

Sandwiches and the choice and variety of them. Was my favourite thing to get every time I visited before I moved. Now they are normal and I dont even find them that nice anymore.

Whole fresh chickens. And all the meat without any marinades on them. Not as easy to find back home with no marinade. This has changed a bit now.

Eating carbs with carbs. Like pizza with chips or lasagne with garlic bread. Never would have done this before and found it so weird!

Thick chips rather than thin french fries. Mind blown.

Pate. Only at Christmas or when eating out.

Only the posh kids had Dairylea Triangles.
We had them! We were not posh.

Takeaways- they were a massive fancy treat when I was growing up! And you actually had to ring up or go in the shop to order...no Deliveroo or just eat lol! Now regular takeaways are the norm for many.

“Pot noodle! We got one a year as a holiday treat. My mum used to take a flask of hot water out one picnic and we made them up. It was so exciting.”

Awwww!
Smart mum.

I still go to the shop to collect takeaways - I feel that the shop gets more of my cash that way. Deliveroo etc drive down the prices.

I have never had a pot noodle!

Oh yes, spaghetti used to come long length wrapped in dark blue paper.

"Eating carbs with carbs. Like pizza with chips or lasagne with garlic bread. Never would have done this before and found it so weird! "

Oh yes, this is a big no-no is lots of countries.

We also phone takeaways and go to the shop to collect. Neither of the ones we use take cards, and delivery is expensive and takes ages, easier to go and collect.