Everybody gets a bit nostalgic for some foods that were more available when one was young; maybe your mother cooked stuff in a certain way. Or maybe products you enjoyed as a kid are no longer available in your area, or at all.
What is the most trouble you have gone to, in terms of dollars or delivery, to get a dose or supply of a food you love(d) no longer commonly available in your area?
I’m not much on expensive food delivery. But I have paid $20 for a case of “Tahitian Treat” soda. I expect some people have paid more… or gone to more trouble.
Before they brought Turkish Taffy back, I used to special order another candy, French Chew, which was pretty much identical. The same for Merri-mints, I forget the name of the alternative stuff but it was as good. And when I found out the Carolina Nut Company went out of business, I located 12 cans of their Sriracha ranch peanuts online and bought them. Still have 3 cans left.
I recently took a 90-minute round trip bus ride to get to a butcher shop that sold XLNT tamales, which I haven’t seen anywhere since I left San Diego 20+ years ago.
When my sister and I took my nephew to Legoland a few years ago, I made a point of having El Pollo Loco, In-n-Out, and Rubio’s while I was there.
During our most recent trip to Pennsylvania a few years ago, we went to several grocery stores looking for raisin-filled cookies before we found some. They remind me of how my grandparents always had some at their home in Huntingdon.
Quite recently one of my sons told me they started making Jolt Cola again.
I went to all the local stores that was listed on the website as having it but none of them did.
Ended up driving 75 miles one Saturday to get it.
Place was selling them 3 for $5.
And it’s sugar free now and terrible. 150 mile round trip for bad soda.
But I can top that:
In 2016 I drove down to South Bend (from Milwaukee) to buy some Drewrys beer. Some venture capitalist got it running again and I figured it wouldn’t last long and they wouldn’t be selling it around here. It was Christmas Eve and I had the night off so why not?
The SUV I had at that time had a defective gas gauge and I ran out of gas on the indiana turnpike. State trooper that stopped to help me thought it was Smokey & the Bandit as I had 10 cases of beer in the back.
A trip that should have taken me 6 hours all around took closer to 12. Triple A never did find me.
And that beer was awful. I couldn’t give it away
And 8 months later I saw it in a local store.
On several occasions I have driven up to Sault Ste. Marie or over to Windsor just to stock up on Lowenbrau. Do it about once a year just for that purpose.
There’s a Taco Bell Enchirito copycat recipe thread here that I participated in. My effort was good, but didn’t ping the nostalgia meter like I had hoped it would.
Not really nostalgia, since Skyline Chili restaurants still exist and still serve their unique Cincinnati chili, but they don’t have any in Michigan— closest is Toledo, OH. I really missed it from the times I drove through Ohio on road trips. So I made a copycat Cinci chili recipe once and that turned out great! Really hit the spot. Surprising amount of effort to make it— I had to re-grind the ground beef and sauce in a blender to get the texture extra-fine and simmer the mixture for hours. Now they sell Skyline chili in cans at the grocery store here.
My Holy Grail of being able to experience a nostalgic food from my past would be to make or find a Reuben just like the one they made at the Schnelli Deli in Detroit, now long gone. When I went to college at Wayne State University, I’d get a Reuben at the Schnelli at least once a week. A Reuben might not seem that difficult to reproduce, but the secret was the sauce- it was a tangy dark red-orange sauce, not the insipid pale orange Thousand Island style sauce that every other deli puts on their Reubens. I asked the owner once what the sauce was, and he said it was a secret, but he imported it from New York. I’ve looked online for years to see if I could find out what the sauce was, or get a recipe for it, but nothing seems quite close to my memory of it.
When I was hungry but stuck at home (heavy cold), I got the local taxi service to help.
First I phoned my local Chinese for a takeway, got the time it would be ready and sent a taxi to collect and pay for it.
So I paid the taxi firm for two local trips, plus a big tip.
The food was worth it.
The traditional Reuben sauce was made from Russian dressing, not Thousand Island. I bet the right ratio of Mayo, Ketchup, Worcestershire, and Horseradish will get you where you want to go. The first three are the main ingredients for Russian dressing.
When I lived in Montana, there was a local burrito place that was really good, and had some distinctive flavor combinations. I still get a craving for them sometimes.
A couple of years ago, I was visiting there again. The burritos weren’t the reason for the visit, but since I was there, I had to have one.
Except that the cost of living has gone WAY up in Bozeman, and what used to be $8 was now $20.
Thanks! I will give that a try sometime. I’m thinking there needs to be a bit of acid as well. Maybe lemon juice? I’ll take a look for some traditional Russian dressing recipes.
Back in 1987 I had the best blueberry muffins I had ever eaten at a coffee shop (Waverly’s?) in Greenwich Village. Several years later when I heard a co-worker was going to the Big Apple I asked them to pick up a dozen and I would pay whatever it cost to ship them back. Sadly the muffins did not travel well and were dry and stale when they arrived.
Being Minnesota transplants (me Milwaukee, wife Chicago) a couple times a year I order Usinger’s brats and sausages, candy raisins from Lake County Candies, while my wife has several Lou Malnati’s frozen pizzas shipped up. I also cross the border a few times a year for New Glarus spotted cow and cherry tart.
I guess it has twice the caffeine and three times the sugar… of Coke Zero.
Also when I lived in Montana, I used to bring back a few bottles of Bertmann’s ballpark mustard every time I visited Cleveland, but that wasn’t all that much trouble, because mustard travels well, and a few bottles will last a year.
Mine is relatively tame. Long John Silver’s is a dying franchise, and the only one in the greater Little Rock area is located on University Avenue. I’m not that far, I could get there in 20-30 minutes depending on traffic, but it’s located in a part of Little Rock I pass close by but never stop. There simply isn’t any reason for me to go to that area.
Once or twice a year, I make it a point to go down University specifically for my LJS fix. It’s ridiculously overpriced, last year it cost about $16 for my fish & shrimp meal, but it’s worth it. And I suspect in the not-to-distant future I will no longer be able to enjoy LJS as it will be defunct. (It’s odd, but the employee at the Little Rock location are fantastic. I’ve never had a bad experience there like I have with the other fast food restaurants in the area.)
Our family has New York roots and fond memories of black-and-white cookies. Decades ago, it was extremely rare to come across them in California. Once, when I learned that a bakery in San Francisco was offering them, I pre-ordered a dozen and brought them home, two hours away, as a surprise. Neither the cookie dough nor the icing was even close to the real deal, so finishing the box was a joyless slog. (These days, Costco mass-markets a reasonably authentic version, though I don’t know if it’s available on the West Coast.)
A few years ago my husband found Soda Pop Shop online that listed dozens of flavors of soda, some very hard to find, that could be delivered. The cost of shipping was probably more than the cost of the sodas, but it was fun. (My favorite was Curiosity Cola made by Fentimans, also a Rose Lemonade and Dandelion and Burdock . I kept the bottles on the windowsill to use for little vases.)…anyway, we ordered Blue Jolt! cola and drank it about 8 p.m. on a Saturday night. And my husband said after an hour or so, ‘let’s paint the kitchen!’ We’d been putting it off, had all the equipment and paint, and so we did, got done about dawn, and had a beautiful ‘orange sherbet’ kitchen. ‘All the sugar and twice the caffeine’ was their slogan. It was like poor man’s cocaine.
We’d been putting it off, had all the equipment and paint, and so we did, got done about dawn, and had a beautiful ‘orange sherbet’ kitchen. ‘All the sugar and twice the caffeine’ was their slogan. It was like poor man’s cocaine.