Buffalo wings. I was raised in NJ, but my mom’s family was from upstate NY and we spent a lot of time up there when I was a kid. Back then, Buffalo wings were still a local speciality to Western/Upstate NY, and when I told my friends back in NJ, they were disbelieving that people would a) pay good money to eat chicken wings and b) would drench food in hot sauce. (Flavors a lot milder back then.)
I was in college from 1984-88 in the Capital District, and buffalo wings were available there. And they were cheap. I remember being in a friend’s dorm room late one night, hungry and ordering a hundred chicken wings to be shared by three of us. (Ah, to be young and able to both eat late at night and consume vast quantities of food.) And I believe that many wings was only about ten bucks but my memory is not perfect.
Now chicken wings are available everywhere, but they are no longer cheap.
Fried chicken. It was only for special occasions.
I first encountered Buffalo Wings in Schenectady in 1985. I don’t believe they were common in New York City at the time.
Was it just fried chicken or chicken in general?
Assorted greens (read: lettuce variants).
When I was growing-up I swear there was only iceberg lettuce for salads. That was it. A fancy salad might grate some purple cabbage in there and slivered rather than sliced carrots. Maybe a hard boiled egg on top if it was Sunday brunch.
Where all the wonderful greens like mesclun (assorted greens) and arugula and romaine and butter lettuce and more were I have no idea.
Yes. Chicken was rarely eaten during the era and place I was raised, in the States. It was actually tastier than chicken today - didn’t need sauces and stuff, wasn’t mostly white meat.
^^ When and where in the US was chicken considered an uncommon food for you?
Fried chicken was the single most popular dinner in Canada in the 1970s. (I’m guessing Shake & Bake). But it isn’t exactly health food (nor quite as bad as some might think). Not hard to see a family with a knowledgeable mother saving fatty food for special occasions?
In the 60’s, midwest, main courses were steak, liver, tongue, hamburger, ham - then on some Sunday, there’d be this meat, breaded and fried, called fried chicken. It felt exotic to a kid.
I grew up in the PNW and most of our dinners were some form of beef or pork. Chicken was not exotic, per se, but it was a rather small part of the rotation. It almost seemed like salmon and red snapper were more common (there was that one day my brother came home from school, read the note wrong, put the salmon in the oven at 3:50 at 500°, and we ate out that evening).
As far as I knew when I was a kid, salmon, like tuna, was found only in cans. You would make it into salad like tuna salad, or maybe croquettes. It wasn’t until I grew up that I learned about fresh salmon. I discovered fresh tuna even later.
Someone mentioned salad varieties above, and it occurred to me that red onions were not a common thing when I was a kid (70s), and were mostly ornamental - but now they are everywhere, including on pizzas, which never looks right to me
Lol!!
I grew up in the '60’s in the midwest, and chicken was most decidedly in the regular rotation. Baked chicken parts (always overcooked), baked pork chops (always overcooked) with sliced potatoes, ground beef with varying types of tomato-based or soup-based sauces, and meatloaf were the home-cooked meals. Alternating with Swanson’s TV Dinners. Everything else was exotic. I didn’t have a taco until I was 15.
About ten years ago, my sister took some leftover tuna I had fried and mashed it with mayo. I was stunned and she said it was the same thing as tuna from the can. Smack Duh!
I tried it once and nope! Not the same thing as canned tuna, too fresh tasting! LOL
The odd thing is I usually eat fried tuna with mixed mayo and soy sauce and have even eaten it whole as a sandwich. But mashed? Nope! Ever going to do it again!
The baked ham in a can I posted about in the beginning was kind of a special occasion thing. Baked Spam with the same orange glaze as we used for the ham was the non-special occasion meal.
I remember when I stayed with my cousin in Kauai when I was 12, I excitedly told my parents about how after church one Sunday (it wasn’t Easter), my Aunt served ham! Amazing! She also served fresh green beans and that was first time I ever had that!
IIRC, when I was in either middle or high school, in the 1990s, my mom started occasionally buying salmon “steaks” that were cut such that there was a big vertebrae bone at the top and more rib bones radiating out from there. I never see fresh salmon cut like that anymore; all I ever see are filets in stores now. I assume she bought those because they were cheaper. Even then, she only bought them when they were on special. At full price fresh salmon was still considered an expensive fancy food. I’m pretty sure the only reason she bought them at all was because they were considered healthy.
I’m sure I must have figured out that fresh tuna existed when I was younger, but I didn’t actually eat it until I was an adult.
You mean like this? https://www.chabad.org/recipes/recipe_cdo/aid/4520/jewish/Salmon-Steaks.htm
I see both this and filets all the time. I prefer the former because a taste and texture between the top and the belly. I’m used to it because that’s how butterfish is cut in Hawaii: https://www.foodland.com/recipe/misoyaki-butterfish
Thinking about it, is butterfish considered exotic?
I was 20 before I had a taco. I knew about them from TV, but had never seen one available locally, nor were there the Old El Paso kits in the local supermarket.
Anyway, I was in LA when I was 20, and there was a taco stand, and it was lunchtime, and I had my first taco. Now, they’re available everywhere, and I often made them at home, too.