What no longer popular foods do you still crave?

I have been craving beef stroganoff for about a month.

I will have mushrooms, sour cream, and beef strips in my next produce box from imperfect foods.

I haven’t had Manwich in a long time. Not sure if that was very popular with a lot of people? It seems like sloppy joe was popular when I was a kid. I don’t necessarily crave it, but I do enjoy it.

Funny, I make beef stroganoff a few times a year when I have leftover sour cream that needs to be used, I didn’t know that was trendy at one time and not trendy now. My husband periodically makes chips with onion dip, and it’s true I don’t think I have seen that at a party in a long time. I don’t like it, so maybe I wouldn’t notice.

My mom’s meatloaf. For a woman who hated cooking, and had to learn how in her late 20s (she grew up in a house with servants), damn, that woman could make a fabulous meatloaf! I wish I had gotten her recipe.

Rumaki
Shrimp cocktail (I never see folks eating these anymore.)
Deviled eggs (ditto)
Rum balls

And three cheers for @canidmajor‘s suggestion of meatloaf, something else I seldom see (which reminds me that I never see old-fashioned lunch counters or diners anymore: add American chop suey to the list).

Meatloaf isn’t difficult to make, as I recall: ground beef, obviously, a couple of eggs, bread crumbs, parsley, salt and pepper, and the finished ‘loaf’ set into the oven with a couple of strips of raw bacon on top to add moisture (and flavor!) during cooking.

I also make my own sloppy joes (pretty much every other month) from scratch now, and serve it over my own rice pilaf mix (basmati, wild rice, orzo and quinoa cooked in chicken broth with lots of turmeric).

I guess it’s time to get cooking.

Sometimes Chef Boyardee Beef-a-Roni

Spam sandwiches

White Castle burgers

Recently I’ve been craving Dinty Moore Beef Stew

Stuffed Green Peppers

I thought of two more: coca cola cake and forgotten cookies. I make both, but very rarely, maybe once every three to five years.

I think I’m stuck in the past. Lol. I make shrimp cocktail fairly regularly for my husband me. I make my own cocktail sauce. Plus. I just had it at Disney World and see it at parties still.

I eat stuffed green peppers about once every 6–8 weeks. Sometimes I make it broken down rather than stuffed.

My husband loves my meatloaf and craves it. I basically make my mom’s recipe. I wish @canidmajor could get the recipe for the meatloaf she craves, I miss my grandma’s plain pot roast and I don’t have her recipe. I do have her brisket recipe made with ketchup, vinegar, cinnamon, and onions, which is a true memory flavor from childhood.

Things that come to mind that were never my thing, but trendy: fondue, jello molds and jello parfaits, and I remember some sort of cool whip and pineapple dessert.

I laughed at the thought of popular foods. I suppose it really means popular/trendy recipes. I eat pure whole foods mostly, not so much prepping and adding ingredients. I have come to rarely enjoy restaurant food, as well as being intimidated by the inherent lack of cleanliness.

I suppose I can safely say that rabbit stew is less popular than it used to be.

Sauce N’ Cake. They are discontinued.

@seawulf575 About once a year I open a can of Spam and indulge in a couple of days of fried Spam sandwiches. :-)

@JLeslie My sister has the recipe, almost makes me want to break the silence!

My meatloaf is ground meat, eggs, onion soup mix (again!), ketchup and Italian bread crumbs. I make it about once a winter since I am not eating meat much and have it with mushroom gravy and mashed potatoes. It is a great winter meal.

@janbb on my way over!

^^ Brownies for dessert ok?

Omigod, yes please!

I miss the make it your self condiments/veggies 7/11 microwaved hamburger.

You can add as much mayonnaise, tomatoes, lettuce etc.

I also miss the McDonald’s McRib and Canadian bacon burger.

Also Blueberry turnovers, seeing that I can’t have apple from the apple turnovers in Tim Hortons.

Ooh sorry… I meant blueberry fritters.

Twinkies and pop-tarts.

@canidmajor Was it a sweet meatloaf? Mine isn’t sweet, and it is very similar to @janbb.‘s I’m sure you know there were lots of soup packet and Campbell soup recipes for meals in the 1960’s and 70’s. I think Lipton’s soup packets first hit the market in the 50’s if that helps narrow down the possibility.

I use the beefy onion packet, I modify the recipe on the box using half the ketchup and I use half Italian breadcrumbs and half panko for the total breadcrumbs, and I add some fresh chopped onions. If I don’t have panko I tear up some white bread instead. If you use all of the ketchup it makes it too sweet for us.

KFC ‘s Corn Fritters with strawberry jam.

@JLeslie I always make mine by feel rather than a recipe but like you, I don’t add a ton of ketchup.

@JLeslie It’s been so long, I honestly don’t know, and without the recipe I know I’ll never be able to replicate it. That’s OK, the memories of it are lovely. She made it for me when I had cancer, it was a nice thing and I am glad to have a thing to think kindly of her for.

@janbb Me too, by feel, but when giving a recipe you have to give quantities, so I estimated it.

@canidmajor That’s good.

@JLeslie Makes sense.

It’s really not a food at all. But I’d like have a Tab.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tab_(drink)

@gondwanalon Which makes me remember Fresca.

This thread is making me feel 15 again!

You can still get Fresca! I had one a few weeks ago.

KFC skins. In other countries you can buy just the skin. I know that It is bad for me, but it is delicious.

Y’all ate some weird food!

@Dutchess_III Seems to me someone was pretty fond of her Egg McMuffin!

Several cheap candies from the 80’s. Like soft gummies individually wrapped and chocolate on a stick (not Nutella).

Jello salad, with suspended shredded vegetables

I don’t know what to make of the notion of popular or trendy foods.

And I’m not sure when/if people thought some things were healthy, but doing my best:

Home-made macaroni and cheese

Giant platters of nachos

Bacon and breakfast sausage

Oh, here’s one that probably fits the intent: Bananas Foster

@Zaku You gave one example of a dessert that was popular at one time; I gave the example of onion dip. Also, things like fondue from the 70s, tuna casserole from the 50s or so, alfalfa sprouts on sandwiches. Maybe I should have written “dishes” instead of foods.

I can make ya’ll meatloaf anytime! I use V8 juice and it’s amazing. My grandma and great aunt taught me so every Sunday I cook for my inlaws, all the good old-fashioned meals. I cant eat most of it on Paleo but its worth it to see them eat really well.

I don’t really crave much old foods but I do get a nasty McRib every season.

A nice, thick cheese fondue with rye or French bread. I loved the mouth feel of the warm cheese.
The whole process seems so unsanitary now.

@LuckyGuy Unsanitary even if you make it for just you and your wife? Remember the restaurant The Melting Pot? Basically, the entire experience is fondue like, including the dessert. The restaurant still exists. It never was appealing to me.

Sorry for another answer. I just saw on my facebook feed that there was a party last night here in where I live that was a 70’s theme. Everyone was dressed like the 70’s AND it was a potluck asking that everyone bring a 70’s dish. I never went to a 70’s party that thought to include the food. Sounds fun.

@JLeslie I was thinking of having a dinner party with a 70s theme and serving lasagna as a fundraiser for my congregation. I still make lasagna and people love it but it does seem a retro kind of dish.

And as for fondue, my Ex and I used to make it and enjoy it. I still wouldn’t have a problem with that but I could see where in a restaurant or with a crowd it would be unsanitary.

With a crowd all buffets are unsanitary. Restaurant buffets require a clean plate each time you go to the buffet, but at someone’s house people bring their dirty plates for seconds and tap that serving spoon on their germy plate. Gotta pile on food first time around to avoid it. That is if you trust how the food was prepared in the first place.

I’ve eaten at Disney and hotel buffets probably 30 times this past year, and sometimes I get through it without a thought, and other times something happens that ruins it for me.

^^ Although this is is in Social, I’d like to stay away from germy buffet issues. I know LG raised it with the fondue response but I’d like to keep it to foods we used to enjoy and would like to again.

Sure.

Ruffles potato chips + onion dip is a good one! I could go for that too.

@janbb….damn skippy McMuffin! My world cracked when they quit serving them all day. >-<.

@Dutchess_III Hugs!

Water…

I fucking love a nice clear glass of ice water. From the hose will do too…

NOBODY gives water it’s props. Lots of people drink water to try to stay in shape, or as a “lesser” option to something flavored.

I pretty much drink water only. Now that I’m not a “drinker.”

After being sober for a few years now, I have been thinking about how many calories I must have been drinking between liquors and beers…

I know my ex used to drink Coke a lot. She dropped back to like one a day, and lost 15 lbs quick. Not that I felt she needed to lose weight…

I KNOW America would be a healthier nation, if people drank less empty calorie crap…

On the flip side, I miss the 99 cent Totino’s(?) pizzas. There was like 5–6 different ones. They were 20% of my diet, until I was in my late 20’s. They still make a similar product, but I think it’s like actually bread now. It may have been cardboard with plastic toppings, back in the day…
I can still remember how they were. Back then only the “fancy” folks had microwaves that spun. If yours didn’t, you could expect a half scolding hot, half frozen disc. Or, burnt if oven baked.
Best served with the munchies, folded into a pizza “samich.”..
A Highlife (champagne of beers,) complimented them nicely…

This thread is making me hungry, after reading what everyone else wrote.

I love onion dip and chips, onion dip made from sour cream and Lipton soup mix, like @janbb. I have some dip in the refrig right now, and a bag of chips which I am trying not to open because then I’ll have a bit every night until it’s finished. Sometimes, to offset the “badness,” I’ll have baby carrots with onion dip.

My grandmother used to make jello salad which had canned fruit in it. It’s a very retro thing.

My grandfather used to occasionally eat Dinty Moore beef stew. I didn’t like it.

My mom made meatloaf, but didn’t add any soup mix or anything like that as far as I know. If I know her attitude toward things, she would say that adds unnecessary salt. Her meatloaf was good. It was mild flavored. No gravy. I’d use ketchup.

My mom also made tuna casserole. Some people think it’s gross. I liked it. I made it once or twice but my daughter doesn’t like things like that so I tend not to make them because it’s too much food for me to eat on my own, and after about three days of the same leftovers I’m done, no matter what the food or how good it is, I tend to throw it out.

Also mentioned on this thread are sloppy joe’s. I love them but it’s not something I’d make at home because my daughter doesn’t like them. If I did make them, I’d probably add onions and peppers because I like texture, even though it’s not part of the recipe.

Also mentioned was cheese fondue. Has anybody ever been to a party with a chocolate fountain? It’s kind of the same concept as cheese fondue. So good. The party I went to that had it had marshmallows and fruit and pretzels. Soo good and memorable.

One retro food that was not mentioned here is blintzes. My mom used to make me blintzes in the mornings. I buy them occasionally. Blueberry or apple. I don’t have them wtih sour cream, I just eat them plain. I think she would saute them in a pan. I bake them in the oven. They’re kind of like egg rolls except apple or blueberry.

Another thing she used to make was “French Jelly pancakes” which I believe was a recipe she got from the NY Times. My mom used to get a lot of recipes from the NY Times and she’d be willing to try new things. French Jelly pancakes were basically thin pancakes like a crepe. They had egg whites but not yolks. They’d be eaten with jelly instead of syrup.

When I was little, another meal I would request and I’m sure my mother didn’t mind, would be TV dinners. Also frozen chicken pot pies. Retro and used to be popular…..

Canned armour chili, steakums, cheap half burnt hotdogs, Doritos, disgusting frozen garlic bread, sugar cereals.
On a very rare occasion or function I may eat some gross carbs like fritos or something. Not often.

@jca2 Marie Callenders pot pies are so good!! So terrible for us but yum.

Yesterday in a facebook group for where I live someone was asking where she can buy Peanut Chews.

@jca2 Blintzes are still very much alive in Jewish/NY style delis and they sell them in the freezer section of the grocery stores. I don’t think of them as retro, but maybe they are? For me they are the same as potato latkes, black and white cookies, and matzah ball soup. All of which I can easily buy where I live, and when I go to the deli restaurant here plenty of people order those things. Since I am surrounded by older people, maybe I am out of touch with whether young people are still eating them. I would think even young Jewish people eat a lot of that at least on the holidays just like many Americans only eat Turkey on Thanksgiving.

I have had chocolate fondue many places in the past, and I think they still do it in some restaurants and probably on cruises, or maybe they just served fruit and marshmallows dipped in chocolate now post covid? I wonder. You can buy chocolate dip in a container in the grocery store, and you heat it up so it is like fondue.

@KNOWITALL I still eat a Dorito now and then, I didn’t know that was passe. Sugar cereals too, I eat them more like dessert not a meal.

@JLeslie When I have blintzes, I do buy them in the frozen section of the grocery store. I know diners have them as well, but I don’t believe they’re as popular as other things for breakfast, like pancakes, French toast or eggs.

On the news just the other day, they said sales of sugary breakfast cereals are down 17%. I guess it’s the stigma that they’re bad for you and so a lot of parents don’t feed them to their kids. My mom wouldn’t buy them, and she wouldn’t buy me Pop Tarts either. She liked Familia Muesli, which I love although it’s really expensive (about 8 or 9 dollars a small box, but it is dense).

Another retro thing I just thought of is soft boiled eggs. Often at flea markets and thrift stores, you’ll see egg cups which are to put the soft boiled egg in, and you’d crack it and you could eat the egg out of the shell that way. My mom would make the soft boiled egg and give me toast, and I’d dip the toast into the warm egg yolk.

@jca2 oh, lordy, the soft boiled eggs! We called them “oodle eggs” because, as kids, we’d put a couple into a bowl with ripped up bits of toast and yell “OODLE OODLE OODLE!” as we stirred them together. In retrospect, I think we did that to make an otherwise somewhat unpalatable mess more fun. Clever parents!

@canidmajor I called them “Dippy Do” because the toast would do dippy do. Hahaha!

I no longer fell 15.
Now I feel 6. :-D

@jca2 I still buy Golden’s cheese blintzes. I saute them in a little oil and eat them with fresh blueberries as a lunch.

@MrGrimm888 At least in my part of the country, water is as “popular” or even more so, than ever.

Sugar cereal down 17% is a huge number. That’s incredible. I wonder if sugar cereals had gone up during covid? Maybe more kids were eating breakfast at home. Still a very big number.

Probably a lot of people don’t realize that carbs in most cereals turn right into sugar in our bodies anyway. I guess sugary cereals have even more sugar and calories in a bowlful than the no sugar ones.

The Kellogg’s brothers had an argument about it actually. One wanted to add sugar and the other didn’t. They both lived to be in their 90’s.

I don’t think blintzes are anywhere close to as popular as French toast or pancakes, and I think that has always been the case. I think most of America doesn’t know what a blintz is. New Yorkers know because of the huge Ashkenazi Jewish population in NYC and the suburbs. Maybe some areas of the US that have a lot of Eastern European immigrants also served them or something very similar. I’m pretty sure it is an Eastern European Jewish food item, but maybe it’s more Eastern Europe than Jewish, that I don’t know.

@JLeslie Doritos are horrible for you. Added flavors, colors, sodium, sugar, fat and calories. Like really bad.

^^Of course, but I wasn’t thinking in terms of good or bad for this Q, just popularity or current availability.

Aw, geez, @KNOWITALL, quit with that. I’m having a hard time coming out of Covid and Doritos are one of my few easy, guilty pleasures! ;-p

@canidmajor Hey I love them, too! It’s my new doctors fault!

^^ I’m a big proponent of “everything in moderation” except ice cream which should be consumed daily!

You know what else I just thought of? Rice pudding. It reminds me of my grandmother, who used to make the baked kind all the time. I love it. I don’t make the baked kind, as it takes more milk (you put the uncooked rice in a casserole with other ingredients and lots of milk, and the milk baking with the rice cooks it).

Oh, @jca2, another fave. I have to go on a cooking binge soon!

@canidmajor I know! So many good ideas on this thread.

My husband loves rice pudding. My family never made it or ate it, but it’s something my MIL regularly makes, and almost always when we visit she has it for my husband. I didn’t know that was something from decades ago that maybe isn’t made as much now. One of my friends in the UK sells it in her store. They make it from her recipe.

What about bread pudding? I actually see it on quite a few menus in recent years, but was that something from the past that was revived? I never had that growing up either.

@jca2 I had posted something about TV dinners on FB. They and pot pies were a treat for us kids when my parents went out. I kind of want to try one again now!

Swanson chicken pot pies !!!

Marie Callendar. https://www.mariecallendersmeals.com/. More better ! ! !

But just the crust @RocketGuy…

Really craving a pot pie now!

Just the crust tho!

Damn, I love a good food thread!

You know who makes a good pot pie? Trader Joe’s. It’s bigger than the Swanson one. It’s like a mature pot pie haha.

@jca2 – I will have to try them.

@jca2 Just looked at that but wouldn’t work for me as I like the pastry all around the pie, not just puff pastry on top.

@janbb If you’re referring to Trader Joes, their pastry is on the bottom, top and sides of the pot pie.

^^ Not according to this link

Then there are these . . . . https://eatingatjoes.com/2014/03/04/trader-joes-chicken-pot-pie-bites/ individual puffs.

Don’t know if they stilll sell them.

@Tropical_Willie I think we’d need to ask @LostinParadise if he could scale down the ratios right!

I miss Little Caesars pizza from the 90’s when they were super delicious.

Pizza Hut deep dish pizza!

@janbb I’ve never seen the square one like in the photo. The one I get (and the only one I’ve seen) is the round one which has bottom crust. It’s only about 3 or 4 dollars so buy the round one if you don’t believe it and check it out. If for some reason you don’t like it, it wasn’t a big investment.

^ I’m willing to take your word for it!

Horse meat, I remember eating in. the 1950s. I think my mom had to buy it from a butcher that only handled horse meat. Pot roast with little fat.

@Tropical_Willie I remember the “All in the Family” episode where Edith made horse meat and Mike and Gloria were in on it, and the only one who had no clue was Archie!

@janbb I have noticed that the 20–50 year old people are drinking more water. I can’t get my father to drink anything except Mountain Dew, or coffee. I don’t understand how he’s alive…

Coffee and pops are 99% water so no worries @MrGrimm888

Too much sugar, though.

Well YA!

Thanks Dutch. Good point about coffee…

Mountain Dew is like corn syrup though. It’s like viscous and fizzy. On hot days, a drink like that is worse than no water…

All non diet drinks taste like corn syrup to me.

The SOS the schools used to serve us.

Before COVID I loved Eggos with corn syrup. Then blueberry syrup. Now I don’t eat either. I still crave though.

S’mores. We hosted a multiple day event with about 24 people recently. One couple brought a pitcher of S’mpre shots for everyone. It had some kind of chocolate alcohol mix with a plop of Fluffer-nutter and crushed graham cracker crumbs on top. They were delicious but impossible to drink properly. The fluffer-nutter got stuck to your upper lips and nose the graham cracker crumbs would catch in your throat if you inhaled before drinking.
But it made me want the real deal: s’mores over an open campfire – with lots of water and rags to wash off the sticky.