Nostalgic Foods for Turn of the 21st Century
Maybe I haven't consumed much junk food or processed foods in my life, but I'm hard pressed to come up with nostalgic foods beyond when I got married, and was surprised how hard it was to even think of something for the 90's. What about the last 8 years? Other than movements toward natural, sustainable, organic, humane and affordable, I'm clueless again. Except for the sudden unpopularity of bottled water and the praises paid to products that contain sugar as opposed to high fructose corn syrup, like Mexican Coca-Cola. If you were asked this in 20 years, what would you point to as nostalgic and definitively from this decade?
Add a comment:
Previewing your comment:
HTML Hints
Some HTML is OK: <a href="URL">link</a>, <strong>strong</strong>, <em>em</em>
Comment Guidelines
Post whatever you want, just keep it seriously about eats, seriously. We reserve the right to delete off-topic or inflammatory comments. Learn more at our Comment Policy page.
If you see something not so nice, please, report an inappropriate comment.
Start Talking!
Need a question answered? Have advice to share? Start a Talk topic now!
Sign up to get your questions answered and share advice.
9 Comments:
"Upscale" macaroni and cheese is the first thing that comes to mind. Celebrity chef gourmet burgers and sliders possibly too. I don't know how long deep fried turkeys have been around but there was quite a bit of hype about them four or five years ago. I'll have to think a bit on this one.
dhorst at 4:06PM on 01/15/09
Turducken... and those those places that sell ingredients for " cook at home" meals all prepped and ready. How about restaurants using the actual shows instead of commercials to advertise...
calliope at 4:16PM on 01/15/09
truffle oil infused anything.
juliebugsmama at 4:20PM on 01/15/09
Roasted vegetables.
Iced coffee drinks a la Starbucks/Gloria Jeans/Panera.
Kobe beef.
Whole grains (quinoa, buckwheat/kasha, barley)
Homemade yogurt cheese
And I'd have to disagree on the bottled water thing...I think it's just entered a new phase with the "fitness water" thing (and other flavored waters). Not that it's a GOOD phase...just different...(look, it's water! it's not that evil soda! what? it has more calories than soda? who knew???)
akk328 at 4:21PM on 01/15/09
I think I've missed out on most of the food trends ending quite a while back. I remember some things that were new and exciting when I was a kid, but in my teens I wasn't cooking much and mom's cooking habits didn't change much then, either. Later, when I was first on my own, I was too broke to be trendy. I ate what was cheap and easy at home (a lot of scrambled eggs and a lot of spaghetti), and out of the house, whatever was free was great.
Since then, my own cooking has changed, but I've never been a big bandwagon-jumper, and I tend to buy single-item-foods rather than packaged, so I miss out on a lot of the quirky stuff that comes along.
Meat preferences have changed, but I can't pinpoint a decade. Pork used to be fatty, then they started breeding leaner pigs and it became more tasteless and less appealing. And now pork, particularly fatty cuts, have made a comeback. Bacon is big.
Used to be fat was bad, then carbs were bad, so by default meat and fat became good. When did the Adkins diet show up? Aren't we about due for a new trendy diet?
Flank steak went from being a cheap cut to a fancy piece of meat. Skirt steak is more readily available.
I can remember my mother buying these huge sirloin steaks, but now they're broken down into smaller cuts. Don't know for sure when that happened.
Grass-fed beef is becoming trendier than corn-fed, which used to be a selling point.
Turkey isn't just for Thanksgiving any more. Cuts of turkey are available most of the time, and ground turkey has become a go-to ingredient for a lot of people.
Cane (white) sugar used to be the "premium" sugar to buy, but now that's fallen out of favor.
More people know what HFCS and vegan mean.
Olive oil! Was it the 90's when olive oil got more mainstream?
As far as the packaged stuff, I'm fairly clueless. When I wander down those aisles, I'm like a tourist. I'm seduced by the pretty boxes, and then I pick them up and look at them and I come to my senses. No matter how pretty the box is, a half-cup of rice and some spices isn't worth three dollars.
dbcurrie at 5:17PM on 01/15/09
I think the 'celebrity chef' phenomenon and 'eating locally' will get noted in culinary history books. So will the rebirth of the Atkins diet and renewed interest in bacon and heritage pork, turkey, and so forth. Conversely, there is also an obsession with whole grain foods and vegetables.. although without the 'fear of fat' paranoia of the 1980s and 90s
Mexican food seems to have 'come into its own' more this decade than in the past.
100-calorie packs, and Whole Grain Frosted Flakes.
Protein bars and nutrition bars.
Omega-3 fatty acids in everything. Ditto what dbcurrie said with the 'olive oil' fascination.
Fear of HFCS, transfats, and sugar in general.
HeartofGlass at 6:53PM on 01/15/09
@calioppe~ maybe that's when Turducken became mainstream, but would you believe I had it as my "Yank's Thanksgiving Dinner" in Leicester, England in 1986? The chef enrobed it in puff pastry when it was almost finished and stuffed it with a sausage stuffing. I had to admit, I was impressed with his skills and the effort he took to make my friend Mark and I feel welcome and also give us a taste of home on a very traditional American holiday. I will even forgive him his much surprized and unwanted kiss. Eh, what too many yards will do...
dhorst at 7:51PM on 01/15/09
Trans fat , Sentra, Organic, anythingtarianism,
pjracz10 at 2:22AM on 01/16/09
chipotle and wasabi
emgroff at 7:32PM on 01/16/09