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I remember when tortillas were in the ethnic food aisle

I feel like the late 1990s/early 2000s were a high point for restaurant food. Innovation was high, food sourcing was more varied, and complexity of taste was valued. Now it’s just salt and ingredients from the same 3 food supply companies. And climate change is affecting produce.

I mean this nicely but that’s a wild wild take. Ingredients are so much better now - restaurant and grocery store wise and we all are much better at cooking it.

There was excellent food back then, and it was somewhat accessible, but it wasn’t the routine available stuff. I lucked out with Chef Chu’s down the road growing up and the SF Bay Area expensive restaurants weren’t that expensive. Just had to drive to SF or Berkeley. Berkeley by 87 was booming…

Cheap commercial space post 2009

I'm still shocked that no one seems to talk about this. Food was so bad before.

gonna guess a combination of huge geography, sparse population density?

Watched Groundhog Day and Bill Murray is mad he can't get a cappuccino in Punxsutawney. I've gotten a decent latte in towns 1/5 the size

Yes. The store part, specifically.

I remember grocery shopping in 1993 (ish) and buying fresh cilantro and the clerk commenting that I must be making something very exotic.

😱😱😱

My dad makes *amazing* Brussel sprouts at xmas. Sadly, my gran complains about them being "underdone..." Unrelated, I genuinely wonder if bans on indoor smoking etc, leading to people being able to taste stuff other than just "salt" is why seasoning your own food and stuff has fallen out of favour

Brussels sprouts in the eighties were something to be avoided... boiled, mushy, bitter. Now it's like a top 5 dish on any menu.

Video phone calls went from an unfathomable futuristic fantasy technology to an annoyance in like 20 years.

As someone in an Italian heavy area, it is insane to me to hear people tell me they need to go to a specialty store to get cheeses and other ingredients I find basic. I've also noticed Asian ingredients I'd never expect ten years ago at my grocery store.

Gelatin started as a status symbol because it was extremely labor intensive, which implied you had a large kitchen staff. Jell-O and the fridge democratized gelatin, but the process was gradual, so for a while only the richer end of the middle class could afford the fridge required to make it.

Halcyon days of 2012 craft cocktail scene 😭

The boomers did start it tbh they just did it boomerly

When you grow up on Shake N Bake you learn self-defensively My mother's meatloaf could collapse upon itself and become a black hole

No idea how I could've survived had I lived back then without all this good diversity of food from around the world 😅

there's way more of zoomers than you think bud lol

Why thank you. Being the last year of a generation is a curious experience. I get all the drip of being a Millenial, but can relate to Gen Z. But I also didn't grow up on a tablet and still have an attention span. Honestly besides the economy fucking me over specifically it's cool culturally

This monstrosity should kill nostalgia.

I like watching old TV shows when the actors go into a grocery store. I was watching an episode of Streets of San Francisco and just marveled at how... not good the selection was. Me, if you teleported me from a 1986 grocery to a 2026 grocery.

🫡

The surprise Cuban vacation was a perk, not a problem.

My elementary age kids are sick of hearing about how good the fruits and veggies and school lunches are compared to the “olden days” (early 90s). Green beans are edible now- miraculous!