What food was a luxury in your home growing up?

[TherealBolton]

Eating out

Choc Dips

Marzipan
strawberries
imported western crisps
grew up abroad in a developing country and a lot of food was imported which made it expensive so stuff like strawberries and crisps not made locally were a big treat.

Fun cereal like coco pops.

Any fast food.

Christmas treats were always quality street and those after eight mints.

Vienetta! Still love it.

My parents were working class and placed a very very high premium on good quality food. We had meat and vegetables and fruit that were as high quality as they could afford. But they would not buys us a junior burger!

Cream only bought when there was a blue moon.

Any sort of cakes or biscuits. I remember going to my friend's house and being blown away they had pots of yougurt in the fridge...I remember the first take away we had (Chinese) apart from fish and chips ( which was very rare as well) and just being speechless with the exotic things in the containers - such innocence - it was the early 70s I guess

Tinned ham. Purchased before Christmas and carefully stored until Boxing Day.

WHY?!?!

Fudge donuts from Fisher and Donaldsons in StAndrews, bought as a very special treat when visiting my aunt. We ate them very slowly! I can still taste them if I close my eyes. They still make them, but I’ve not been back to Scotland for 30years!

Butter, we always had margarine or really cheap spread. I loved going to my grans as she always had butter and made what tasted like the best buttered toast in the world.

Echo the butter comment above..my dad still refers to butter as “best butter” and considers us very extravagant for buying it.
Wagon wheels were a huge deal. Very occasionally allowed one from the Sunblest bread van when the man
came on his rounds..considered ridiculously decadent. (Early 1970s)

Vienetta here too! I remember we used to buy it from Iceland, was it really that expensive? They must have had a hell of a marketing team.

Also Black forest gateaux, Ferrero Rocher and those jam puddings you had to boil in the tin then risk 3rd degree burns to open.

Fruit. Once it was gone, it was gone.

Lamb chops! The expense of those was always remarked upon. And avocado, which I loved.

@sashh ah it sounds like our mums would have gotten on. My mums shopping was partly dictated by what The New Internationalist was down on that month. Tuna- no. Avocados- no. Non fair trade chocolate and coffee - absolutely not.

After Eight chocolate mints. My father would bring home a box on Christmas Eve and we would sit on the sofa and eat them while watching the midnight Christmas Mass.
Cereal with sugar. My mother believed all cereal was junk food (except shredded wheat) so a box of any kind was a treat.

Lurpak

Grapes and satsumas.

Real butter. We always had Stork margarine

Takeaway we had once a year, a Chinese on the day we came back from holidaying in Wales.

Smoked salmon - a pack of 4 slices bought for Christmas, I'm sure it was about £3 in the early 80s. That was before salmon farming took off though.

Tinned salmon

Anything with flavour really. My mum sees food as a necessary evil, so we had things like boiled chicken, boiled potatoes, tinned peas and carrots.

I remember the excitement of making myself a cheese and tomato sandwich with my brother's help for a school trip packed lunch. It was cheese spread every day in my lunch box in primary school because it was minimal effort and expense (probably one of the few food items my mum would have allowed herself as well, with cardboard crispbread).

Chicken, which was relatively expensive back then, yet we often had beef! Never had takeaways at home, fish and chips in the car if we'd been out for the day. Fizzy pop (no supermarket own brands).

Orange squash on my birthday was a real treat. Never had it otherwise.
Never went to a restaurant whilst growing up but remember going to the cafe for a cup of tea in the local market when out shopping with my mum.
Dad used to bring home a box of Ritz crackers on his payday to share with us

Pomegranates - we thought they were such a tropical treat! We’d spend ages cutting them, popping all the pips out, then gobble them all up. You get them all year round in the supermarket, ready prepared now…… not the same.

Warburtons bread (we always had the crap own brand stuff that was like cardboard) and proper Coke (I still have nightmares about Rola Cola - it was vile!)

We never had bottles of fizzy pop at home, but my Grandmother used to have dandelion and burdock, or sometimes icecream soda, so it was a huge treat to have a sparkling drink when staying with her.

We didn't eat crisps as an everyday snack, ( actually we rarely snacked between meals,) but occasionally crisps would appear if we were having a special celebratory drink, so a bowl of crisps seemed the hight of luxury!