# Things you don't see anymore: **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 1, 2020, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-dont-see-anymore/850836 "2020-04-01T21:18:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2020, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-dont-see-anymore/850836/41 "2020-04-05T22:58:52Z")
When was the last time you saw Kool Kids??? Hot Tamales and Mike and Ikes are everywhere. But Kook Kids? Nowhere to be found. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Anny\_Middon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/bc79bd/32.png) [@Anny\_Middon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anny_Middon)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2020, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-dont-see-anymore/850836/42 "2020-04-05T23:01:28Z")
A lot of the foods mentioned here are things I’ve had – and even sometimes still have. Herring in sour cream is sold in jars at most groceries, and is yummy on crackers as an appetizer. Liver is harder to find than it once was, but I enjoy it now and then. (Chicken livers, especially made into rumaki as an appetizer, are delicious!) You can still get pineapple upside down cake – glop on some whipped cream for an especially wonderful dessert. I sort-of collect old cookbooks, and one item often referenced that I have never had and never seen in the stores is shad roe. I think you could get it fresh, but it also apparently came in cans. A Google search indicates you can get it, but cod (not shad) and it is a bit pricey. Has anyone here ever had shad roe? Was it good? ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2020, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-dont-see-anymore/850836/43 "2020-04-05T23:48:41Z")
> [@Ukulele\_Ike](#): > > And _calf’s liver_! On every damn menu. With bacon and/or onions. > > Did people really like it more back in the day, or was everyone suffering from iron-poor blood? My mother loved it, so we kids were forced to eat it. It’s one of the few things I can’t stand to this day (though I love chicken liver and liverwurst). She also liked tongue sandwiches. :eek: (Actually, tongue isn’t that bad, although I wouldn’t order it.) One thing we had a lot as kids in the Bronx were [fried smelt.](https://s3.amazonaws.com/bncore/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Photo-May-01-7-00-59-PM.jpg) I never see them any more although I think they may be available in other areas. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2020, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-dont-see-anymore/850836/44 "2020-04-05T23:56:03Z")
> [@seal\_cleaner](#): > > Chicken Croquettes. Classic diner entree. Anything croquettes. My mother used to make tuna croquettes too, and a few times even lamb croquettes. ---
**Author:** ![racer72](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/racer72/32/3075_2.png) [@racer72](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/racer72)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2020, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-dont-see-anymore/850836/45 "2020-04-06T00:07:17Z")
Succotash. Only time I would eat Lima beans when I was a kid. My mom would make it from scratch, cut the corn off the cob, soak and cook the Lima beans and add roasted red pepper. There was also a canned version in the Northwest from Sunny Jim. They made soda pop, jams and jellies and canned vegies. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2020, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-dont-see-anymore/850836/46 "2020-04-06T00:09:01Z")
> [@Tilt-A-Whirl](#): > > I love seeing old menus, and one thing I have gathered is that herring was a heck of a lot more popular than it is now. My father used to eat pickled herring with raw onions, and pickled eel sometimes as well. You used to see pickled pigs feet on the back counter of bars to be sold as a snack, but even back then I couldn’t remember anyone ever ordering some. ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2020, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-dont-see-anymore/850836/47 "2020-04-06T00:22:08Z")
> [@Ulfreida](#): > > Lots of standard-fare American cooking when I was a kid, I haven’t seen for decades. Pineapple upside down cake. “Curry” which was cream sauce colored with turmeric over instant rice, with raisins, sweetened coconut, and chopped peanuts. … [This stuff?](https://smile.amazon.com/Mild-GOLDEN-CURRY-Sauce-8-4oz/dp/B00I9PGGKG/ref=sr_1_8?dchild=1&keywords=golden+curry&qid=1586132356&sr=8-8) > [@seal\_cleaner](#): > > Chicken Croquettes. Classic diner entree. After a trip to the dentist, my mother and I would go to a cafeteria and get chicken croquettes. They were the traditional [cone shape and smothered in chicken gravy.](https://www.providencejournal.com/storyimage/PJ/20160128/ENTERTAINMENTLIFE/160129422/AR/0/AR-160129422.jpg)Yum. ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2020, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-dont-see-anymore/850836/48 "2020-04-06T00:40:50Z")
> [@Anny\_Middon](#): > > I sort-of collect old cookbooks, and one item often referenced that I have never had and never seen in the stores is shad roe. I think you could get it fresh, but it also apparently came in cans. A Google search indicates you can get it, but cod (not shad) and it is a bit pricey. > > Has anyone here ever had shad roe? Was it good? I collect them too! Fresh shad roe is common in fish shops along the Atlantic Seaboard in season (mid-spring). I’ve made it several times, as it is a favorite dish with Rex Stout’s private detective character, Nero Wolfe. See **The Nero Wolfe Cookbook** for a variety of recipes. It’s a bunch of fish eggs contained in a fetal sac. You generally poach it. I find it kind of mealy and not particularly appetizing, and haven’t cooked any in years. And I’ve never seen it canned. ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2020, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-dont-see-anymore/850836/49 "2020-04-06T00:43:25Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > One thing we had a lot as kids in the Bronx were [fried smelt.](https://s3.amazonaws.com/bncore/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Photo-May-01-7-00-59-PM.jpg) I never see them any more although I think they may be available in other areas. Smelt and sardines are popular in NYC Greek restaurants. Grilled or broiled, not fried (they are fatty enough on their own). They are heavenly, with a few squeezes of lemon over. ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2020, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-dont-see-anymore/850836/50 "2020-04-06T00:46:57Z")
> [@seal\_cleaner](#): > > Chicken Croquettes. Classic diner entree. I love the IDEA of croquettes…MEATBALLS! But I don’t do the deep-frying thang. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2020, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-dont-see-anymore/850836/51 "2020-04-06T01:49:01Z")
> [@Ukulele\_Ike](#): > > Smelt and sardines are popular in NYC Greek restaurants. Grilled or broiled, not fried (they are fatty enough on their own). They are heavenly, with a few squeezes of lemon over. In season, we would get fresh smelt at the fish store, and fry it up at home. This was an Irish/Italian neighborhood. Of course, this was back in the day when there were separate fish stores and butcher shops. Something we used to have regularly were swordfish steaks. They must have been pretty cheap for us to have afforded it. I can’t recall seeing it on a menu for many years, but maybe Mediterranean type places have it. ---
**Author:** ![DrForrester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/8edcca/32.png) [@DrForrester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrForrester)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2020, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-dont-see-anymore/850836/52 "2020-04-06T02:18:01Z")
Anyone interested in food from the middle of the last century will enjoy this - > **[Home - Mid-Century Menu - Vintage Recipes & Shop](https://www.midcenturymenu.com/)** > > Ruth is the creator & culinary historian of Mid-Century Menu, where she recreates mid-century food much to the delight and horror of her readers. Personally, my favorite is the “[Cranberry Crack](http://www.midcenturymenu.com/2014/11/frosted-cranberry-squares-1965-vintage-thanksgiving-recipe-test/)”. ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2020, 12:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-dont-see-anymore/850836/53 "2020-04-06T12:34:42Z")
The best book on retro food is the brilliant [Square Meals](https://smile.amazon.com/Square-Meals-Jane-Stern/dp/0394531124/ref=sr_1_1?crid=12PYKGDJPLSJC&dchild=1&keywords=square+meals+cookbook+stern&qid=1586176027&sprefix=square+meals%2Caps%2C184&sr=8-1) by Jane and Michael Stern. You can get a very cheap used copy on amazon and it is priceless. There are lots of stories and commentaries on the various recipes. Anyhoo, just gitchyseff one! There’s a chapter on the Cooking of Suburbia, the patio meals where the neighbors were invited, parties often represented in Doris Day/Tony Randall movies. Appetizers, clever grilling recipes, cute desserts often involving Jell-o sculpture of some kind. But the one recipe that caused me to laugh hysterically sitting up in bed one night was in the section on fake exotic food. You take a cabbage and stand it up. You carve out a shallow, cylindrical cavity in the top, into which you place a can of Sterno. Then you impale cocktail sausages all over the cabbage on toothpicks, a design that, oddly, resembles today’s electron photos of the coronavirus. You briefly pass the sausages through the volcanic flames of the Sterno then dip them in a sauce. But it was the name of it that got to me: “Flaming Cabbagehead Weenies with Pupu Sauce.” 😃 ---
**Author:** ![DCnDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dcndc/32/2842_2.png) [@DCnDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DCnDC)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2020, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-dont-see-anymore/850836/54 "2020-04-06T13:31:24Z")
Ambrosia salad. This was a staple at all parties, picnics, and large family meals for decades. Couldn’t have a family get-together without it. Not that I was a huge fan, actually I thought it was kind of gross, but it just sort of totally disappeared sometime in the early 90s. ---
**Author:** ![Tatterdemalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/43a26b/32.png) [@Tatterdemalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tatterdemalion)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2020, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-dont-see-anymore/850836/55 "2020-04-06T13:51:41Z")
> [@ThelmaLou](#): > > But it was the name of it that got to me: “Flaming Cabbagehead Weenies with Pupu Sauce.” 😃 Would I be out of line if I said, “Band Name!” I just did a google search on that, and my god! It’s actually a thing. I never would have believed it. Not only is that something you don’t see any more, it’s something I had never seen. ---
**Author:** ![purplehorseshoe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/purplehorseshoe/32/2996_2.png) [@purplehorseshoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/purplehorseshoe)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2020, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-dont-see-anymore/850836/56 "2020-04-06T14:12:29Z")
Doubting Thomas over here, who just HAD to google it, too. Scholars will puzzle over the bump this search phrase is receiving! Hmm, bits of food on a stick, briefly cooked and enjoyed communally. Best I can figure, someone encountered fondue while on an exotic vacation, drunkenly described it to friends back home _(“No, no, see, it’s already cut up, and impaled on these little sticks, see, and then the oil gets hot and you cook hick you cook hick you cook hick oh, just eat the fucking thing, man.”)_ and then after a few years had fogged up everyone’s memories, they tried to re-create it _(“Were they on sticks already?” “I don’t remember a cabbage.” “Well, do you remember him saying NOT cabbage?”)_ and their friend wrote it all down, and then decades later, we’re all sitting around wondering what the hell Flaming Cabbage Head Weenies (featuring Pupu Sauce!) is all about. I agree. Makes a helluva band name. ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2020, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-dont-see-anymore/850836/57 "2020-04-06T14:16:57Z")
> [@Tatterdemalion](#): > > Would I be out of line if I said, “Band Name!” > > I just did a google search on that, and my god! It’s actually a thing. I never would have believed it. > > Not only is that something you don’t see any more, it’s something I had never seen. > [@purplehorseshoe](#): > > Doubting Thomas over here, who just HAD to google it, too. Scholars will puzzle over the bump this search phrase is receiving! > > Hmm, bits of food on a stick, briefly cooked and enjoyed communally. Best I can figure, someone encountered fondue while on an exotic vacation, drunkenly described it to friends back home _(“No, no, see, it’s already cut up, and impaled on these little sticks, see, and then the oil gets hot and you cook hick you cook hick you cook hick oh, just eat the fucking thing, man.”)_ and then after a few years had fogged up everyone’s memories, they tried to re-create it _(“Were they on sticks already?” “I don’t remember a cabbage.” “Well, do you remember him saying NOT cabbage?”)_ and their friend wrote it all down, and then decades later, we’re all sitting around wondering what the hell Flaming Cabbage Head Weenies (featuring Pupu Sauce!) is all about. > > I agree. Makes a helluva band name. [For the Doubting Thomases.](https://www.midcenturymenu.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/IMG_5438_thumb.jpg) LOVE the plate in that picture. I think we had those plates… ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2020, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-dont-see-anymore/850836/58 "2020-04-06T16:07:13Z")
**Square Meals** — great book, everyone who eats food should own a copy. I bought mine WAY back in the ‘80s, when it was new and you had to go to a bookshop to buy your books. When Little Banjo was just a lad, he personally kitchen-tested every ice cream confection in the “Lunch Counter Cuisine” chapter. I swear by the “He-Man’s Tuna Noodle Casserole,” and a good friend is a big fan of “Milky Way Cake,” in which the main ingredient is candy bars. My favorite recipe title is “Gas Company Rumaki.” The Sterns found their favorite rumaki method in a promotional pamphlet issued by the Milwaukee Gas Light Company in 1961. ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2020, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-dont-see-anymore/850836/59 "2020-04-06T16:39:10Z")
> [@Ukulele\_Ike](#): > > **Square Meals** — great book, everyone who eats food should own a copy. I bought mine WAY back in the ‘80s, when it was new and you had to go to a bookshop to buy your books. > > When Little Banjo was just a lad, he personally kitchen-tested every ice cream confection in the “Lunch Counter Cuisine” chapter. I swear by the “He-Man’s Tuna Noodle Casserole,” and a good friend is a big fan of “Milky Way Cake,” in which the main ingredient is candy bars. > > My favorite recipe title is “Gas Company Rumaki.” The Sterns found their favorite rumaki method in a promotional pamphlet issued by the Milwaukee Gas Light Company in 1961. I love the chapter when the Sterns stopped by that farmhouse for Sunday lunch and the elderly couple got slowly soused during the meal. 😃 Trivia: did you know that Jane Stern did a mid-life career change to EMT? **[Ambulance Girl: How I Saved Myself By Becoming an EMT](https://smile.amazon.com/Ambulance-Girl-Saved-Myself-Becoming-ebook/dp/B000XU4U6M/ref=sr_1_5?dchild=1&keywords=jane+stern&qid=1586190927&sr=8-5)**? > [@](#): > > Jane Stern was a walking encyclopedia of panic attacks, depression, and hypochondria. Her marriage of more than thirty years was suffering, and she was virtually immobilized by fear and anxiety. As the daughter of parents who both died before she was thirty, Stern was terrified of illness and death, and despite the fact that her acclaimed career as a food and travel writer required her to spend a great deal of time on airplanes, she suffered from a persistent fear of flying and severe claustrophobia. Yet, this fifty-two-year-old writer decided to become an emergency medical technician. > > Stern tells her story with great humor and poignancy, creating a wonderful portrait of a middle-aged, Woody Allen–ish _[sic]_ woman who was “deeply and neurotically terrified of sick and dead people,” but who went out into the world to save other people’s lives as a way of saving her own. Her story begins with the boot camp of EMT training: 140 hours at the hands of a dour ex-marine who took delight in presenting a veritable parade of amputations, hideous deformities, and gross disasters. Jane—overweight and badly out of shape—had to surmount physical challenges like carrying a 250-pound man seated in a chair down a dark flight of stairs. After class she did rounds in the emergency room of a local hospital. > > … ---
**Author:** ![salinqmind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3ec8ea/32.png) [@salinqmind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/salinqmind)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2020, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-dont-see-anymore/850836/60 "2020-04-06T16:45:29Z")
> [@Ukulele\_Ike](#): > > **Square Meals** — great book, everyone who eats food should own a copy. I bought mine WAY back in the ‘80s, when it was new and you had to go to a bookshop to buy your books. > > When Little Banjo was just a lad, he personally kitchen-tested every ice cream confection in the “Lunch Counter Cuisine” chapter. I swear by the “He-Man’s Tuna Noodle Casserole,” and a good friend is a big fan of “Milky Way Cake,” in which the main ingredient is candy bars. > > My favorite recipe title is “Gas Company Rumaki.” The Sterns found their favorite rumaki method in a promotional pamphlet issued by the Milwaukee Gas Light Company in 1961. OH, I LOVE THAT BOOK. I bought it in the 80’s, too, and have made many of the recipes. In fact, I misplaced it once a few years ago, panicked, and immediately bought it for $$$ online. … It is just delightful reading about American cuisine through the decades. I made Chocolate Bread with Vanilla butter, chocolate syrup for ice cream, and made the Milky Way Cake several times. …I think I have all of the Sterns’ books, the Road Food tomes about special restaurants to check out in every state are especially good reading, sort of like the food tv shows (Diners, Drive ins and Dives) - 'If you’re ever in Georgia, be sure to come to the church service Sunday in the parking lot of Maurice’s Piggie Park ’ [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-dont-see-anymore/850836.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-dont-see-anymore/850836.md?page=4)