I went to Trader Joe’s on the way home last night for some coffee. I got the French Roast as I always do, but they’ve discontinued the Volcano (which was their darkest roast). I got to thinking about the great stuff they carried that has been discontinued over the years:
Volcano coffee
Cocoa Almonds (replaced by Dark Cocoa Almonds, which are not as good)
Escargots en Brioche (not discontinued, but seasonal)
Seasoned leg of lamb (possibly seasonal, but I haven’t seen it here in over a year)
Frozen escargots in the shell
Duck
Merguez sausages
Swedish-Style Pancake Mix
I can live without the Volcano coffee. Their French Roast isn’t quite as good, but it’s fine – and cheaper. Besides, Costco has really good French Roast. Cocoa Almonds? It’s not as if I should have them around, but I miss them. Escargots en Brioche I’ll just have to remember to stock up on when they have them. I can get leg of lamb at Costco or Don & Joe’s at Pike Place and season it myself. I do miss the escargots in the shell. Sure I can open a can of snails and make the sauce and stuff the shells myself, but it was so nice to be able to just heat the frozen ones up in the microwave oven! I can get merguez sausages from Uli’s Famous Sausage, but I have to order ten kilos if I want them properly hot. (He reduced the heat by half for the local market, which he told me after I told him they needed to be twice as hot.) I’d have to go to a butcher for duck. I’d eat more duck if I could just get it frozen from Trader Joe’s. I remember when it was ‘temporarily’ discontinued that PETA-types were offended by the ‘inhumane way’ the ducks were killed. The Swedish-style pancakes are just crêpes, which are easy enough to make from scratch.
Still, I miss the ‘one-stop shopping’.
I’ve been shopping at Trader Joe’s since 1987, and it’s there that I got some of my favourite snackage. But of course there are other stores in other parts of the country (and other countries) that undoubtedly have discontinued items that people like. And knowing how threads go, there will be people who miss items that are not discontinued but are simply not available in their area (like Farmer John’s sausage links). So have at it. What foods do you miss?
I went to Trader Joe’s last week and discovered they’ve discontinued their cranberry and apple chutney–which is the perfect thing for turkey and brie sandwiches. Just thick enough and tart enough. Cranberry sauce, even the lumpy kind, is too sweet and wet and makes the bread soggy.
I sent an email to them via their Website, and got a reply that they have no plans to bring it back. So there goes one of my favorite sandwiches unless I can find someplace else that sells a similar cranberry chutney.
I really missed Surge, the soda. However, **Vault **is essentially the same thing and I’m glad it is back. If they take it away, I’ll be sad.
A few things I miss:
The original Mexican Pizza from Taco Bell(called the Pizzaz Pizza I think). I just had way more stuff on it than they put on it now.
-** Pitch Black Mountain Dew** : It was great. I hope Live Wire never gets taken away. I am not sure if it is still national, but Michigan has had it for a lot of years, now.
Tsingtao Dark Beer : Had it in China for cheap. Can’t get it here at all(at least without spending a fortune). I even miss Yanjing beer, which I liked better than generic Tsingtao.
Ortega Chipotle Taco Sauce. Nobody carries it around here anymore, and I can only find it online at specialty spots. Who knows how old the stuff is they are selling.
In CA around 1990 I used to get Belgian chocolate bars that had ganache fillings there. I haven’t seen them in ages.
More recently they seem to have stopped selling mixed cut-up chicken pieces. This bugs me, since their chicken was both cheap and less awful-tasting than grocery stores and Whole Foods chicken.
Central Market’s chocolate chip cookies (Albany -Schenectady area). Jon Olmer and I used to do the shopping for the group. We had to buy a minimum of three boxes because at least one would be empty by the time we got to the checkout. the checkout girls would always laugh when we were paying for empty boxes eaten as we grocery shopped. We weren’t the only ones doing this either!!!
This was the 70’s and these cookies were locally famous - some people who moved away would actually get them shipped to them (pre-on-line era). Ummmh - chocolate chips were soft but still didn’t melt on your fingers; and the cookies were perfect; infused with lard but magically not coating your fingers with grease. Can taste/remember them even now.
Target / Archer Farms had a wonderful Southwest Style Lasagna which was essentially an enchilada lasagna, with layers of corn tortilla, enchilada sauce, black beans, peppers and cheese.
Ahhh, Trader Joe’s. I still have fond memories of the Creole simmer sauce–use it for shrimp and sausage and add it to some cooked rice and you have a passable jambalaya with no real work. Alas, it’s been gone for years.
Their awesome Winter Blend coffee now no longer comes in whole bean (and whole clove and cinnamon stick and peppercorn along with the whole beans), which is a shame, because I don’t buy coffee I can’t grind myself. I can make a passable version of it, but it’s not quite the same.
For about a year, TJ’s stopped selling the entire reason I go there–the frozen raw bison burger patties. They replaced them with a pre-cooked variety that tasted like something out of a school cafeteria. We begged every time we went until they brought them back, and they haven’t gone away since.
Twix used to make a Cookies and Cream variety that was quite good. They had it in the early 90s for a couple of years, and then poof, gone.
