Your favorite retro/forgotten/by-gone foods

…and I’m thinking mostly of stuff you just don’t see in restaurants anymore (not pre-pckaged foods). Dishes like Lobster Thermidor. Chicken Cordon Bleu. Baked Alaska. I’m sure they’re out there somewhere, but they’re not common.

Imagine you were making a menu for an upscale restaurant in the '50s. What kind of stuff would you put on there. I’m thinking of doing some “retro” cooking and would love some ideas.

Fresh Ham used to be more common. It’s not cured ham, just roasted leg of pork. Even simply called Roast Pork it’s not found on many menus anymore.

Sweetbreads used to be considered a delicacy. You just don’t see them any more. (The one time I had them was in a French restaurant maybe 30 years ago. They were delicious.)

Beef Wellington was a fancy meal back then. You rarely see it now.

Cherries Jubilee.

I have always been curious to try something “in aspic”, but gelatin had become a joke long before I was born.

A friend of mine recently resurrected his old fondue set from the 1980s. It met with universal approval. His young kids ask for a fondue regularly now.

One Easter we had a morning tea at work and ended up with leftover hot cross buns. I suggested that the one woman there with a family take them home. She demurred because they would be dried out. Knowing her husband, I suggested that she use them to make a bread and butter pudding. It turned out so well that she bought more and made another to bring in to work the next week. It was delicious.

Going back 40 years or so, savory crepes were a thing in many casual and fine dining restaurants - Stouffers even had a full selection of them.

I still see them occasionally in specialty restaurants that specialize in crepes, but most of those places concentrate on the sweet stuff with the savories offered as an afterthought, if at all.

I see them pretty regularly, but I live in Europe. And I agree they’re delicious. Had some last summer in a little town in the Czech Republic.

Chicken Kiev. I haven’t had it in years. When I was a kid, we had family friends who made it for special occasions, and it was awesome, tender and buttery.

I actually just had Chicken Kiev at the Russian Tea Room last week, but the Russian Tea Room is kind of the very definition of an old school upscale restaurant. It was indeed tender and buttery, coated with a crunchy breading.

You can order chicken Kiev from Yelloh! (formerly known as Schwan’s). My parents used to order a lot from them. I recall liking them.

We went on a Caribbean cruise for our tenth anniversary last year. On the last night of the trip the wait staff brought out the traditional dessert of baked Alaska. There was a whole production: a parade up the aisles of the dining hall, music, and the ceremonial lighting of the cake. It was great!

There’s a whole restaurant chain devoted to that.

How was the restaurant in general? I recently saw a review that ripped them, basically stated they were trading on their good name from the past, including worn design.

I had heard that as well, so I tempered my expectations going in. But I still wanted to experience the Russian Tea Room at least once in my life.

The food was good… but probably not as good as you would expect at that price point. The Chicken Kiev itself was good, as I already described earlier in the thread. It served with mashed potatoes with a mushroom sauce, and steamed vegetables, which seems kind of uninspired. And by steamed vegetables, I mean two carrots and a piece of broccolini. Mom had the beef stroganoff; their version is noodles in a creamy mushroom sauce with a piece of braised beef short rib on top, rather than chunks of beef in the sauce. It was extremely tender and she had no complaints. Dad is about the least adventurous eater I know, and he had the RTR burger. (On that note, I question whether using Wagyu beef in a burger really makes a difference, since you’re just grinding it up anyway). My sister, being vegetarian, had the mushroom stroganoff, which I’m pretty sure was the same as Mom’s, but without the piece of beef on top (come to think of it, that’s probably why they do it that way; they can offer a vegetarian version without changing the sauce). She complained that the portion was small and she was still hungry after eating it.

So yeah, overall the food was decent enough, but I would say it was more like food you could get at a good mid-range restaurant for fine dining prices.

But going to a fine dining restaurant isn’t just about the food it’s about the whole experience. The service was impeccable, as one would expect at a fine dining establishment.

And then, of course, there is the ridiculously opulent over the top decor. Sure it’s old fashioned, but that’s kind of what you expect from the Russian Tea Room.

I see them on menus all the time, but they are called Mollejas.

You can find—or at least, you used to be able to; I haven’t looked recently—frozen individual Chicken Cordon Bleu and Chicken Kiev for relatively cheap. And I’ve seen at least one, and possibly both, of these served in a college cafeteria not too long ago. Presumably they’re not hard to buy premade and bake as many as you need in a tray in the oven.

I haven’t made it in decades, but it used to be my go-to for special occasion dinners. No idea what ever became of my big bottle of kirschwasser.

Teriyaki Shish Kabob

Maybe it isn’t forgotten, don’t know but it is my go to dinner when having company. Homemade teriyaki uses sake, soy sauce, brown sugar, ginger and garlic.

Had it at our wedding rehearsal at our home. Had two grills going outside, in the rain. My Brother and BIL did the cooking. They didn’t mind as they where the only smokers and could not smoke in the house.

Liver and onions. They seem to have died out with the type of restaurant that served it.

I’ve had it twice in the last ten years. Once in the only restaurant/gas station/grocery store for miles in Nova Scotia, and the other in a restaurant in Tidewater Virginia with a mostly military clientele.

Used to be more common in the 1980s.

Hah! The turkey farm/store near us sells teriyaki marinated kebabs of turkey meat. I grill teriyaki kebabs at least twice a month.

There is a small store near us that sells the best beef I’ve ever had. We are spoiled and can’t go back to grocery store beef. It’s crazy expensive. It doesn’t help that I use tenderloin to do this. It’s about $2/oz. So $16 for a single fillet.