MMMM. Pork roll, egg, and cheese on a sesame bagel. sigh
I miss lots of stuff from the east coast. I might be able to find some of these things around here, but I doubt they will be nearly as good.
A few:
Brooklyn bagels and bialies, and basically brooklyn bread in general.
Cannoli
Egg Creams
Black & Whites
Souvlaki from street vendor
The Goya section of a supermarket
White Castle
Boston Market
Arthur’s Steakhouse.
yum.
Dr. Brown’s celery soda-a weird , acquired taste…but once you like it, you love!
Is this stuff still made?
I’m not so upset when it’s gone, as it comes and goes seasonally (more on this later), but I am overjoyed every time I happen to go into a McDonalds that is serving the McRib sandwich.
I love those things!
Now, we all know that McDonalds is one of (if not the) the world’s largest purchaser of beef. I jokingly asked a fellow who had a couple of the franchised establishments under his belt when he was bringing the McRib back, and after a discussion of some of the more outrageous things McDonalds has tried (hot dog McNuggets, anyone?), he explained it thusly:
McDonalds is big. Really big. You just wouldn’t believe how vastly hugely mind-bogglingly big it is (unless you’ve been in space, I suppose).
There’s enough beef and chicken production in the world to supply them with the old stand-bys, but if every McDonalds restaurant were to offer the McRib during the same season, pork prices would actually rise to an uncomfortable level.
Same thing is true of the fruit in the yogurt cups; not all McDonalds offer those, either.
That’s why those things come and go, and at any one moment are not available to all McDonalds all the time.
Pete
Long time RGMWer and ardent AOLer
Pretty good call there Stoid!
Clark’s Teaberry gum, who would’a thought it? Nik-L-Nips miniature wax soda bottles. Sen Sen even! They even had the Junket dessert mix. I had seen it recently, but now it is only artificial raspberry flavor without the red currants. They did have date bar mix which I haven’t seen at the market for years.
That place is so bookmarked!
Krispy Kreme for a time had Key Lime doughnuts. Saint Zero was in heaven. They were pretty awesome. Then they disappeared. We emailed Krispy Kreme, who said they were a seasonal item and had no plans on putting them on a regular menu. My darling husband was so devastated…
For me, what I miss is still made, but it is regional, and I can’t get it down here easily. Ale-8-One, a wonderful caffeinated ginger ale, which is only made in Winchester, KY, and is only sold in stores in a 50 mile radius. Since I’m in Mississippi, I can’t get it without ordering it from the website and paying $10 shipping per case.
Sometimes I get really desperate and order some, though… and it may be about time I did. 
Burger King had a veal parmigiana sandwich that I loved, and the Jack in the Box near my house had pizza pockets and side salads. All three were discontinued, and my heart was broken as a result.
I healed some when the Sour Cream and Onion Doritos were brought back.
Okay, I lived in Israel for a year and I desperately miss some of the food there.
-Good falafels. Why can’t Americans make good falafels? Even Israeli restaurants in the US make lousy falafels, trying to cater to Americans, guess.
-“Special” frozen yogurt. I’m not sure exactly what to call it, but the place that sold it in J’salem called it “Special”. Yeah, in English. They have all these ingredients and you get to pick a few and they blend it with vanilla. M&Ms and strawberries…yum.
-Bissli. Horrible-for-you snack. Not sure what it is, exactly, only that it’s yummy.
-“American” peanuts. I wish they WERE American, I can’t find them anywhere! They’re peanuts covered with a coating of sweet peanut-buttery goodness.
-Shuk food. The shuk is the outdoor market. Where you can get freshfreshfresh pita for a few shekel, a hundred kinds of olives, and the best fruits and veggies possible, for excellent prices. (I could buy enough groceries to last me a week for about 40 shekel, or US$10.) And great atmosphere! Lots of bargaining, and the added danger of a possible suicide bombing (it happened once in the eleven months I was in Israel - fortunately I was not there at the time.)
Two things I miss terribly: 7up gold (I was one of the very few who tried it, one of nine people on earth who actually liked it). But then I love 7up, especially cherry 7up. The other thing is Keebler Tato Skins potato chips, which are still made but have not been available in my area for several years now.
The things I miss are, for the most part, still available, but not in Atlanta. They include:
[ul]
[li]River catfish. Don’t get me wrong; I love farm-raised catfish, and it’s nice not to have to worry about why the fish tastes like it does. But my dad and I spent every afternoon from April to October on the Cache River in Arkansas, within a mile of where it flows into the White River, running trot lines. We’d usually bring home five to ten pounds of fish every evening. Some we’d eat fresh, but most we’d freeze. I must have eaten a couple hundred pounds of river fish in my time, and for a long time the farm-raised stuff tasted kind of bland and boring to me.[/li][li]Wild duck. When it was too cold for catching catfish on trot lines, it was probably duck season. My dad saved all his leave for the year and took off work every morning of duck season. He’d be on the river at 4:00am on his way to the flooded bottomland with his decoys on it. He’d usually have his limit pretty early and head home, clean the birds, and head in to the office. As with the catfish, the wild version definitely tastes different from the domestic ducks most people are familiar with. Some people find it gamey, but if it’s an acquired taste it’s one I picked up early. Part of the reason I loved duck and catfish so much is that if we were having them, it meant my dad was cooking, and he was a much better cook than my mom (wonderful woman, but she wanted as little to do with the kitchen as possible).[/li][li]Yarnell’s Ice Cream. Only available in Arkansas and border areas of surrounding states. Everyone else has to make do with Breyer’s and other “premium” stuff. At least I do still get to indulge in this one when I visit my family in Arkansas.[/li][li]Ken’s/Mazzio’s Pizza. Two slightly different chain pizza concepts from the same Tulsa-based company. Don’t misunderstand me to mean that I think this is outstanding pizza. But Ken’s was the pizza we were most likely to order for take-out when I was kid in Fayetteville, Arkansas, and the Mazzio’s in Conway probably fed me as many meals in college as the cafeteria.[/li][/ul]
I’ll second that Zenster
I keep telling Mrs. B. the stuff in the cans doesn’t taste the same. Originally Vernor’s was aged in oak barrels, like wine, and then bottled. Remember the original bottles? Made for a very smoooth drink, but not the most economical production process.
Deiket, what Josta had in it was guarana, a South American berry, which incidentally contains a lot of caffiene, I’m told. I loved that stuff.
What I miss is Rath’s Black Hawk Honey Cured Ham
Best canned ham ever. Damn, I’m hungry!
After living in the UK for several years, I have learned that any food you buy that calls itself “American” or “American-style” will in fact be a) completely unlike any food substance available in the USA; and b) inedible. Especially “American Ginger Ale”, which contains sugar, saccharin, AND aspartame (presumably for those who want to get cavities, cancer and Alzheimers all from the same drink). But I digress.
Things I miss that AFAIK don’t exist any more: Baskin Robbins’ Chocolate Raspberry Truffle ice cream, which as far as I can recall was only offered for a limited time. Phoo.
Things I miss that I I can’t get here: Popeye’s spicy chicken. I don’t know why; I just like it.
Bizare thing…
In Finland they have a mongrel fish , its a cross between pike and perch. It is sensational. They sell it charcoaled up and its great cold. An indescribable taste.
I miss it terribly but console myself that I can now go into anystore and buy a packet of Tayto.
Josta by Pepsico. They could have stole me away from Cocola if they’d only kept Josta on the market. Yummy.
Tayto being the best Crisp(Chip) you can buy here in Ireland.
Yeah, baby! That was guarana, for those of us with really BIG caffeine tolerance threshholds.
Oh, god. Baskin Robbins Raspberry Truffle ice cream. Way to go jr8. I still wander in BR from time to time looking for it, even though I haven’t seen it since college.
Also, in the spirit of rackensack, I dearly miss fresh quail. When I was just a little Nym and all was still right in the Nymfamily world, my grandparents raised quail. Every Sunday after church we would go over to their house and have fried quail with homemade biscuits and flour gravy. If I ever met a man that would make this for me, I would marry him, no questions, no stalling, no worries.
<sigh>
And I’ll sign this as I always do: Nym - who really shouldn’t read the food threads while she’s dieting.
Oooh. Staying in the same vein, I don’t know why I didn’t think about this before: wild dove. I actually preferred dove hunting to duck hunting myself. We usually cooked them by stewing in a gravy, served over rice.
Peanut Butter Twix bars, my all-time favorite candy bar. Why were they taken away Lord, why?? I practically lived on these in junior high. I saw a family pack of them in a big grocery store a few years ago and bought it, but I haven’t seen the candy-bar sized two-pack for almost a decade. Nor have I seen any more family packs. I’ve never liked the caramel Twix, either.
I wonder if the OP works for a market research firm and is looking for ideas?
I was gonna say Matilda Bay too! Instead of buying bottles of the stuff, you could get a big carton of it.
Oh and Zenster, there are still places that make sodas with sugar. I bought 4 cases of Dr Pepper from the Dublin, Texas plant last year.
They seem to be a New England thing. Went to college in Hartford, and got addicted to them. 25 years later, my mouth still waters at the thought of one.