Breyers ice cream!! "real vanilla bean!" That was a super special treat. This was in the 1980s.
And when I recently looked at a carton of Breyers I saw it's now labeled "frozen dairy dessert." It doesn't even qualify as a real ice cream those days.

Those entemans cupcakes! Now they would be considered way too processed and have been superseded by fancy cupcake shops. But darn they were good. And a treat (they had special ones for different holidays)

Anonymous wrote:They’re still pretty pricey but we considered a good perfectly ripe avocado to be a a huge treat.

I didn’t even have an avocado until I was a teenager and went out West. I grew up in SE DC.

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Anonymous wrote:Macadamia nuts. They were only gifts from people, rarely, traveling to Hawaii.

Oh, good one!

Macadamia nuts were my mother's fave, and they were very much a luxury. We rarely had them, and when we did they were hers lol -- we could have a few but that was it.

I only had these once in my younger life, when a relative brought them back from Hawaii.

Avocados were such a luxury that I didn't even know what one looked like until the 1990s.

Millennials get so confused about the boomer reaction to "avocado toast" lol ... but they truly were a luxury. Not at all like now.

I have a 50s Era cookbook geared toward rich housewives throwing dinner parties and one of the salads is half an avocado, cut up and returned to the shell, drizzled with chili sauce. To be served before the lobster Newburg.

We may be headed back there in avocados being a luxury.

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

Except smoke fish and artisanal pickles right? That’s fancy here but I remember people eating ieither of those in the streets very casual.

I also grew up in former soviet union but we always had berries, in season only obv, and pomegranates were very normal for our family, and freshly baked bread that was bought every other day. Definitely smoked fish all the time. The big thing was that industrial food production wasn't available, so you ate very seasonally - a feast for the eyes in the summer, and mashed potatoes with sauerkraut and smoked fish in winter.

They’re still pretty pricey but we considered a good perfectly ripe avocado to be a a huge treat.

Anonymous wrote:Salmon and avocados.

Salmon, yes! Before cheap farmed salmon became common, you really could only get it seasonally from Alaska or the PNW, and it was pricey! I remember people serving molded salmon mousse (from canned salmon) at parties and even that was considered a fancy party food.

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Anonymous wrote:Yes to Ritz crackers!

We were upper middle class or higher and ate at country clubs and fancy restaurants all the time. When we traveled we stayed at top hotels and went to high end restaurants . I was used to ordering filet mignon, duck, lobster, snow crab, escargot , shrimp cocktail etc. However ritz crackers with some sort of cream cheese dip on them was a huge treat. Same for sliced hickory farms summer sausage. My parents would receive a bunch of these boxes from friends around the holidays. My siblings and I were thrilled.

Summer sausage and cheese was my fave thing about Christmas. And the Hickory Farms box would also come with some spicy sweet mustard that was delicious.

Originally Hickory Farms sold "beef sticks". They were 10000 x better than summer sausage. They stopped selling beef sticks altogether and I remember there were lots of people upset about it and there were lots of posts all over the internet. We never knew why they stopped.

I also loved those strawberry hard candies.

Kiwi fruit

Looked like alien pods when I was a kid in 70’s. Now they’re everywhere

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Macadamia nuts. They were only gifts from people, rarely, traveling to Hawaii.

Oh, good one!

Macadamia nuts were my mother's fave, and they were very much a luxury. We rarely had them, and when we did they were hers lol -- we could have a few but that was it.

I only had these once in my younger life, when a relative brought them back from Hawaii.

Avocados were such a luxury that I didn't even know what one looked like until the 1990s.

Millennials get so confused about the boomer reaction to "avocado toast" lol ... but they truly were a luxury. Not at all like now.

I have a 50s Era cookbook geared toward rich housewives throwing dinner parties and one of the salads is half an avocado, cut up and returned to the shell, drizzled with chili sauce. To be served before the lobster Newburg.

Salmon and avocados.

Imported Italian/French/English cheese.

Berries. Berries are so cheap these days relative to how much they cost in the 1980s-1990s. I had a comfortably off childhood but we did not eat berries every day the way we do now.

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Anonymous wrote:Yes to Ritz crackers!

We were upper middle class or higher and ate at country clubs and fancy restaurants all the time. When we traveled we stayed at top hotels and went to high end restaurants . I was used to ordering filet mignon, duck, lobster, snow crab, escargot , shrimp cocktail etc. However ritz crackers with some sort of cream cheese dip on them was a huge treat. Same for sliced hickory farms summer sausage. My parents would receive a bunch of these boxes from friends around the holidays. My siblings and I were thrilled.

Summer sausage and cheese was my fave thing about Christmas. And the Hickory Farms box would also come with some spicy sweet mustard that was delicious.

NP. I still love Hickory Farms. My 80+ year old mom buys me a gift pack from them every Christmas and I look forward to it all year.

I remember going out to lunch with my mom at a particular restaurant and she would order “seafood salad” and I feel like it was a pasta salad with pieces of crab (or likely Pollock) and maybe baby shrimps in it? I didn’t particularly like it, but I always ordered the same thing because it seemed like such a treat to her that it made me feel fancy and grownup

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Anonymous wrote:Trifle!

It was the fanciest dessert you could imagine. It still it very nice, not dissing it or saying I eat it every day.

But it was SO fancy.

What was the dessert in restaurants that was served flambe that was popular in the 80s? Did it have peaches or cherries or something with liquor? They would light it on fire at the table? To me that was fancy.

Bananas foster. It is still fancy! Or crepes Suzette. New Orleans food was hugely fancy in the 80s, thanks to Paul Prudhomme who was basically the second celebrity chef.

PP here. Not thinking of bananas foster, but yes that is fire-by-the-table dessert as well. Maybe I'm remembering baked alaska?

If anyone is from the LA area Lawry’s or Charlie Brown Steakhouse was a big treat.