Another factor to consider,somewhat akin to Elelle’s post above,was that previous generations often used home canned veggies,which by virtue of the process are largely cooked once processed,and in some cases before.
If there was any doubt about the integrity of the opened jar the contents were often cooked to death.
One of my all-time favorite newspaper cartoons had the caption, “Why Scottish take-out will never work.” The illustration depicted a Scottish chef on the phone telling a customer, “Ach, I kin do it, but it’ll take at least three hours to boil all the flavor oot!”
Another reference in literature to this issue can be found in Jane Austen’s Emma.
Remember Mr. Woodhouse and his hypochondria and overconcern with health and eating and indigestion? At one point some asparagus is brought to the table cooked thoroughly enough for his other guests, but he found it too underdone and sent it back for more cooking. At another point he is advising his supper guests to avoid indigestion by limiting themselves to a very lightly boiled egg and to avoid the muffins.
I can’t believe this thread. Everyone seems to be accepting the OP’s assertion that vegetables are properly cooked today, and were overcooked in the past.
Isn’t this just a matter of style and preference? Maybe they cooked it properly, and today people are undercooking them?
That might be a possibility, but - the more modern cooking techniques leave far more of the various “goodies” in the veggies available for the digestive system to use. Anti-oxidants, phytochemicals, and vitamins all seem to be degraded to various degrees by heat. I’m not about to buy into the “no cook” school of vegetarianism, but there is some reason to believe that longer cooking times reduce the complex nutrients available in foods. I believe it’s part and parcel of the same process that can break down some other larger chain molecules so humans can benefit from them nutritionally.
Besides - our preference is obviously the only right and proper way to do things. 
My God! You people are all sick! Screw the food science and health benefits of non-prolonged cooking. Just… simply… taste the difference. I’m a gen-x’er myself, and grew up hating most of my vegetables – overcooked constantly at home, at restaurants, at military dining facilities. It wasn’t until the last 10 to 15 years (it seems) that vegetables aren’t mush and actually preserve their own flavor.
I recently bought some organic broccoli at the farmer’s market. After a few days in the fridge, it still had a caterpillar crawling around on it. I’m generally OK with the idea that organic = bugs on my food, but I’ll tell you that I cooked that bunch of broccoli for a LOOONG time.
Maybe previous generations didn’t think this way, but if all my veggies came with caterpillars (as they might have in a mostly agrarian community), there would be an awful lot of mushiness at my house.
I suggest you never garden.
I had pretty much the same experience. I’ve heard of enough other people having an experience like that, too. A lot of vegetables just don’t seem to appeal to many people when they are cooked as long as they used to be.
Sidetrack for you caterpillar cookers.Put your broccoli/cauli in a bowl with enough water to cover,sprinkle in a tablespoon of salt,let sit for half an hour before cooking.They’ll be floating dead on the surface.
Is that all it takes? I gave up growing broccoli in the garden because of the 'pillars. They didn’t seem to harm the plant significantly, and I won’t begrudge them sheltering on the plant, but they were the exact same color as the stems, and darn-near invisible.
At the time when vegetables were cooked to mush, they were widely regarded as “yucky”, and something which one had to eat unless one could surreptitiously slip them to the dog under the table. Lightly-cooked vegetables don’t elicit this reaction.
There’s a 1850’s cookbook called “Comfort for Small Incomes” (text is available online somewhere, probably the HEARTH project, too lazy to Google it). Recipe for carrots: take peeled young carrots, butter, water; boil for two hours. :eek: Ditto cabbage.
JRB
I can’t help but think peoples’ teeth - or lack of them - was a significant factor. Losing teeth by 25 or 30 wasn’t unusual until recently, and not everyone could afford dentures. Go back just a couple centuries and even the rich would have trouble getting satisfactory new teeth. But you can eat mushy stuff with no teeth.
This might account for dishes incorporating minced/ground meat as well, which I think used to be more common than they are now.
TWO HOURS?
Where’s the barfy smiley when you need it?
I didn’t like salad when I was a kid, but two hours of boiling for carrots is just WAY too much. shudder
Gah! My grandmother still makes it this way, only she calls it chop suey. And damn it all, I grew up eating it, so even though I know what good Chinese food tastes like now, I still crave it every once it a while.
Alas I must report that here in the college canteen the vegetables are still hideously overcooked, for the most part. Sometimes if they are not overcooked they have not been cooked at all, but appear to have been half-thawed after removed fromt he freezer and left to melt on the coutner or whatever (this happens with peas a lot). Also they serve 3 different kinds of potatoes at every meal (that is, ou could have up to three different kinds of potato on your plate if you wanted).
Vegetables that are green are also very rare - I would leap with joy if they ever served spinach of any kind. Carrots and mushy peas are very frequent.
Ah well. I am a big girl and I buy fresh veggies and have salads instead. But I must ask, why? I suspect it is a continuation of the British Boarding School Veggies Are For Your Sins school of thought.
What color are the mushy peas?
Are we talking about peas that are overcooked until they’re mushy, or Mushy Peas?
(Mushy Peas - for the uninitiated - are prepared that way very much on purpose and are more like a sauce than a vegetable - I tend to think of them as a kind of analogue to hoummous or dahl)
Thanks, Mangetout. I had been among the uninitiated, and presumed the former overcooked type.
(But they’re still green.)
Mushy Peas aren’t Green. They’re GREEN