By this I don’t mean particular brand-name foods which are no longer available due to being discontinued or the company itself going out of business but rather particular dishes that used to popular but are no longer that common due to changing tastes. For example in older books I constantly read about references to liver-based dishes such as liver and onions or liverwurst being popular especially in diners and other relatively cheap eateries. However, I’ve almost never seen liver on menus outside of Korean specialty shops that serve sundae or Korean black pudding/blood sausages. Has taste for liver really disappeared as a result of Americans moving further away from their Continental roots where liver dishes often came from?
Well, liver is evil and preferred only by those who consider mushrooms edible, so there’s that :D.
Anyway: We’re at the tail end of the Baby Boomer generation and liver is definitely not something anyone my age or younger seems to voluntarily eat - I’ve certainly never heard of anyone saying “Yumm, fixing liver for dinner!”. My mother loved it, as does my mother in law. Part of its loss of populariity may well be that it isn’t really all that good for you especially given that its benefits (iron, protein) are readily available in the modern diet in less cholesterol-heavy forms.
One of my husband’s proudest childhood memories was of the day his mother served them liver for dinner. He regaled the whole family with detailed descriptions of what he’d learned in school about what the liver does. His brother and sister, in a rare moment of solidarity, chimed in with plenty of appropriate EWWWWWWWWWW sounds.
His mother never served liver again. :D.
Other stuff: hmmm…
Weird Jello concoctions.
Instant pudding: for us growing up, it was actually a treat especially if Mom had bought some Cool-Whip (artifical flavoring and plastic, yummmmmmm).
Anything found at Lileks, for sure! (Jello often features there, as I recall).
Tuna-noodle casserole comes to mind. It’s just not something you hear much about anymore, though on those rare occasions I have it, I quite like it - I have a tuna lasagna recipe that is basically TNC in a slightly different form factor.
I’ve seen a lot of old cookbooks from the early-to-mid-20th century and they all seem to have a rather curious obsession with aspic, gelatin, and all other sorts of gelatinized dishes, often in what I would consider quite odd pairings. I was born in the late 70s and I’ve not seen anything like any of that, well, ever.
Steak Diane
Fondue
Anything in Aspic
Baked Alaska
Cherries Jubilee
Peach Melba
Chicken Divan
Charlotte Russe
…
Quiche.
Hams baked with pineapple rings and cherries in the center of each ring
Salisbury Steak
Poke cake
Maybe we could generalize to “creamed <anything> on toast” is out of fashion.
My mother (not a great cook) used to do creamed hamburger on toast and also something she called “corned beef and English peas” which was also sauce-y and served over toast. The corned beef was from a square can, and I don’t know what it was about the (canned) peas that made them English.
I vote chicken a la king can’t be dated because I had that a lot when I grew up and I refuse to believe the 90s is that old already.
Is it weird that I rather enjoy sauce-y things on toast?
My kids range from 15 to 23 and all 3 like liver (no onions because I don’t like that smell combo), 2 like tuna noodle casserole and 2 like broiled/boiled or fried chicken innards (heart, gizzards, livers).
You don’t see Waldorf Salads that often anymore.
Monte Cristo sandwich. They were everywhere in the 80s.
Can I have a Ritz Salad instead? 
Chicken à la king
A mainstay of American restaurants through the 1960s, it was all but gone from menus by the 80s. Its swift disappearance was the subject of an essay by Calvin Trillin who theorized that millions of gallons of the entre were being stored in grain silos in the midwest.
Were they mushy, like in pea soup? :dubious: 
You have to watch out if you have a Watergate salad, it might have a bug in it.
OMG, I’m actually old enough to get this joke! :smack: 
Some things in 1950’s Oklahoma which should never have been served:
[ul]
[li]Brains and eggs[/li][li]Blood pudding[/li][li]Pickled pig’s feet[/li][/ul]
I liked chicken a la king, but hated the occasional little bone or two hidden in the sauce.
A while back I watched The Blues Brothers again. There’s a scene where they go into a vert fancy restaurant to recruit one of the band members, who’s working as a waiter there. They order shrimp cocktail. In movies and TV at least, shrimp cocktail used to be the signal that you were in a classy joint. I can’t remember the last time I saw it on a menu or heard of anyone having it.
Eww…too many carbs!! Although I did once enjoy a mock apple pie made with Ritz. I guess there are a few recipes for Ritz Salad: http://www.cooks.com/rec/search/0,1-0,ritz_salad,FF.html
Fondue made a comeback and is offered in many restaurants now. I have two electric pots and usually make it once a year, just because I love it.
I do, too! Stouffer’s used to have frozen Welsh Rarebit (savory cheese sauce) that was yummy by itself over toast, or better, with bacon and a slice of tomato on that toast then cheese sauce poured over. Can’t find it anymore.
No, the peas were whole, which raises the whole mysterious issue of “mushy peas,” which I understand, you can actually find in a can.