I just bought a little beef jerky. Haven’t had any in quite a while. It was supposed to be spicy. What I got was something sweet, rubbery and gummy, with barely a hint of heat. (In the US) W.t.f.
When I was a kid, jerky was dry AF, thin, salty, tooth-rippingly tough sometimes, never sweet unless you specifically got a teryaki flavor or something. If you wanted spicy, it was covered in pepper and your mouth would be on fire after just a couple pieces. It was awesome.
Now it’s sugary and chewy. Why people gotta put sugar on everything? Can’t find that dry, thin, peppery stuff anywhere.
What food of yours has disappeared or been wrecked in order to appeal to more people?
Ben & Jerry’s Kahlua flavored ice cream. That was the absolute best!
You’ll be happy to know that good old fashioned delicious tooth buster beef jerky is still widely available.
Haven’t found it. Guess I haven’t visited the right truck stop convenience store.
You can indeed find it at finer truck stops and old conveniences stores in the middle of no where. These days I just order by mail. This might be what you seek https://msmeats.com/pages/the-original-1945-cowboy-jerky-dry-tough-and-proudly-old-school
Even that appears to have a higher moisture content than what I recall. It does look good, though.
This is closer: https://www.oldworldjerky.com/our-jerky/
Except they say “crispy”. The stuff I recall could be crispy, but it was also more fibrous and could be chewy. Just not very uniform the way these brands strive to be.
Potato skins chips. I gorged myself on them aa a kid and can’t find them easily anymore. The ones I found tasted like regular chips.
I spent a fair bit of time in hospitals as a kid and subsequently, because the two are somehow linked, ate a lot of grapes.
I genuinely swear to you, thirty years ago white grapes used to be delicious, and unless they were getting old and gross, they weren’t even particularly sweet. Their flavour wasn’t strong, the skin was fruity and the flesh was slightly sour, but they were so refreshing and watery, and if they’d been in the fridge, crunchy too! Oh and they had pips! I used to try and swallow the pips whole as spitting them was gross, but ngl I even kinda miss the crunchy tannins they bought to the experience.
In some mad fit of nostalgia not too long ago, I bought all the green grapes I could find online that I could get delivered to me. I spent like £80 on grapes.
Grapes suck now. They are all so obnoxiously sweet, every variety I could get my hands on tasted like juice concentrate, and they’re all freaking huge now too. Fuck whoever decided grapes needed to taste like ‘cotton candy’, you ruined grapes.
Yep. They’re generically hard and sweet. They’ve lost their distinct flavor. They’re not bad, but they’re not great, either.
We live in an area where there are a lot of different kinds of farms. When fruit is in season, even grapes, they’re incredible. They taste “real”. I miss how fruit used to be good and not bred to maintain looks and survive shipping.
I know what you mean. There’s a street market near me that occassionally gets in the most fantastic produce, it’s a bit hit or miss though, even for seasonal as they rarely have the same stuff in each week.
But I still think about that perfect, sun warmed, juicy af yellow melon I bought there a few summers back. That taste was something else, it was like melon³, like there was just so much more melon to this melon. No yellow melon has even come close since then.
Your tastes change as you old. Can’t tolerate as much sweet but still dull enough that you need more heat to feel anything.
Yeah but fruit has also been selectivly bred to be much, much sweeter too though. Zoos now can’t feed fruit to animals evolved to eat it as the sugar content has gotten so high.
This is me with berries, at least at my local supermarkets. I didn’t even realize how bad it was until I had blackberries right off the bush at a friend’s house. Now I only ever get them frozen or (when I can splurge a little) at a farmer’s market.
Last time I had Oreos was about two years ago. They must have changed the recipe for the cookies because it tasted so bad — even when I dunked it in milk… If anyone lives in Japan, Noir is a way better alternative.
Tomatoes.
Back then: the home grown ones of my mom were the normal thing. Strong taste, a little sour maybe.
Nowadays: only water with only a slight remembrance of tomato. Thick and hard wax on the outside.
Hard and sometimes pithy on the inside.
Agreed.
Cadbury Creme Eggs were one of my favorites as a kid in the 80’s. Soft chocolaty shell, with creamy goodness on the inside.
Now it’s a chalky brown husk with a nasty grainy gritty paste in the middle. 🤮
Truth. Cadbury used to be great back in the day. I liked their candy shell milk chocolate eggs too. It’s crap now.
Healthy food.
Vanilla coke. The older version tasted like proper vanilla and now it tastes just bad.
When I was a kid, I liked McDonald’s pizza happy meals (I still remember the song from the advertisements). I doubt middle-aged-adult me would like it, but I weirdly want to try it again. I’m sure there’s other stuff from the '80s and '90s, but I can’t immediately think of it.
That would be fun if you could try the actual food for real again and see if it was decent or just kid rose-colored glasses thinking it was awesome.
The only place in the USA where you can still get a McPizza is the “Epic McD’s” in Orlando Florida.
I’d go with junk food generically. While some of it has to do with changing tastes as I get older, most junk food has gotten so bad that it’s not even tempting. Now ice cream is trying to join that mess, but there are still a few brands worth enjoying.
On the other hand, Trader Joe’s dark chocolate peanut butter cups are truly amazing, in a way Reese’s could never even dream
When I was a kid, jerky was dry AF, thin, salty, tooth-rippingly tough sometimes, never sweet unless you specifically got a teryaki flavor or something.
Look for local brands. I saw something like that just last year. You gotta keep it in your mouth for a while before it’s soft enough to chew. National brands aim for the lowest common denominator.
Old El Paso taco seasoning. I think they changed it a long time ago. I’m sure it was cost considerations, and not broader appeal.
I’ve tried making my own but I can never get it quite right.
Entenmann’s chocolate cake with the black and white frosting. You can still get chocolate cake but the icing is just not the same.
Drake’s Devil Dogs. There used to be so much cream filling that I could run my fingers down each side and still leave plenty in the middle.
I highly recommend purchasing a dehydrator and making one’s own beef (or other) jerky. You can get a good ehyrdeator for like $100 or so. The only downside is how expensive beef is, currently. That said, you’ll still save a massive amount of money per pound, and it’s amazing.
