This made me think about my MIL and her 11 siblings. Their mother convinced them radishes were a "treat" even though she grew them by the bushel (for sale).

To this day, her grandchildren savor radishes because Grandma would dole them out only if they were good.

Fresh asparagus

Soda. It was a small luxury at home that we didn't often have, and it would have been absolutely indulgent to order one in a restaurant.

Fruit cocktail

Anonymous wrote:Shrimp.

Farmed Asian shrimp has changed everything.

Buy 40 pounds next time youre down on the outer banks. They freeze well.

Pepepridge Farm. If we had a cake of theirs instead of the normal Sara Lee pound cake for random company, it was Special Company coming!

And my dad liked the Stella D'Oro Swiss fudge cookies so much but only got them on vacation. So once a year.

Maybe it was just my social circles, but I really don't remember seeing either avocados or mangos around when I was growing up.

Shrimp.

Farmed Asian shrimp has changed everything.

Non store brand anything
Seafood

All of the ones you listed resonate with me, OP, other than the jarred artichokes. I don’t think we ever had those when I was a kid. But fresh ones? Amazing and rare.

I’ll add strawberries. Loved it when my mom bought those at the store.

Brie. I eat it on any day (I mean still not often), but it doesn’t have to be a holiday.

Even pepper jack cheese. Was a party food, but I love it for every day.

Pomegranate seeds

Steak and burgers. Not fancy but they were celebration or holiday/party foods.

Nowadays I throw together a presentable charcuterie on any given weekend, but it would have been super special / rare growing up. That’s probably all of us.

Chinese food - I grew up in a very small midwest town, without a lot of diversity, so when the Chinese restaurant opened, it was a real treat & experience.

My order - sweet & sour chicken (or pork), fried rice, eggroll, egg drop soup + fortune cookie

I grew up in the Soviet Union. So… almost everything?

Sushi and espresso come to mind.

What food was a fancy treat for you growing up that would not be considered fancy now? It can either be that the food isn't fancy for anyone now because it is more available, or just isn't for you anymore because you have a bigger budget, or whatever. It can also be that the food was fancy for you, whether or not "fancy" for anyone else (so people don't oppress a nice thread with nonsense about this or that food being "tacky ... so it isn't fancy").

I was eating raspberries today and thinking about how my grandfather considered them a very fancy treat. He and my grandmother would have ice cream each night and would occasionally buy frozen raspberries which they would thaw and then serve on their ice cream and they found this very decadent. I think that for him this arose out of the days when you had fresh raspberries when they were on the bushes, and the rest of the year you didn't. Also, I think frozen raspberries were pretty expensive back then.

Anyhoo, to start us off, this comes to mind:

avocados
artichokes (either the fresh ones, which would be steamed and leaves dipped in lemon-butter, or the jarred marinated ones)
brie cheese
pomegranates
asparagus
blue cheese (Roquefort!) salad dressing
frozen yogurt