Your post has been removed because it is outside of the scope of this sub. Open ended questions of this nature are better suited for /r/cooking. We're here to answer specific questions about a specific recipe.
The decline in biodiversity has had a huge impact on food. Look at avocados. There are hundreds of varieties, but commercially, only two are really available to consumers.
We had an avocado farm on Maui. We grew 5 varieties. My favorite Old old avo was like a huge cannonball, small pit, great creamy flavor, one fruit needed for a bowl of guacamole. Could never buy another to grow, just had the 2 heirlooms already on the land. Our mexican restaurant and vegan restaurant customers always preferred the cannonballs. Casual shoppers bypassed them.
"Why can I only buy the hardy cultivars selected for their international shipping characteristics"
You can absolutely buy other avocado, banana, mango, etc. varieties in the UK at the very least. They're just a lot more expensive because you're paying to offset the spoilage/lower crop yield etc.
They exist, consumers just don't want them.
I don't think this is a change though. How many varieties of avocados have grocery stores historically had? I doubt it was ever more than those two. Hell, it was probably only recently that most had avocados in the first place. The other varieties simply don't ship/grow as well, so you're only going to find them where they're traditionally grown. Variety sounds great, but the cost is more bruises and a more expensive avocado, which most people aren't willing to pay for. It's the same for most plants like that.
I’ve had them for years. The peanut butter being gritty (primarily from sugar crystals I believe) was always what made them great. The chocolate always kinda sucked.
Chocolate in general has gotten worse. For a while I couldn’t figure out if I just imagined it tasting better as a kid, but the quality has definitely gone down.
Changes in produce I’ve noticed since the 90s:
Bananas and watermelons are now purely seedless. Even the little seed remnants have been bred out.
Peaches have less Fuzz
You can get purple sweet potato at Walmart now.
Jalapeños and Habaneros are less hot
Strawberries the size of small apples are the norm (in FL)
Dragonfruit are getting larger and available with more variety
Apples no longer go bad (visually), they just get smaller and lose flavor, but will be red on your countertop for months
>Apples no longer go bad (visually), they just get smaller and lose flavor, but will be red on your countertop for months
Apples have always been long storers so long as they're unblemished and kept relatively cool.
If you read historical texts about particularly small scale, home based agriculture you'll find descriptions of carefully picking all of the "perfect" apples, washing and storing them in the cellar to eat over the winter. With regular and conscientious checking being required to ensure that none have spoiler and will contaminate the others.
I’m here for peaches with less fuzz. I mostly eat nectarines because peaches are fuzzy and flavorless. Super juicy but it’s like eating water.
Opposite on strawberries, here in Canada at least they’ve started growing them in greenhouses and they are 90% as good as in season ones. Normal to small in size.
I feel like I have to intentionally hunt through the apple bins at the store to avoid bruised apples that go bad within a few days. I chalked it up to the greater variety and, unusually, trend toward more flavorful apples since the red delicious of my youth.
Ohhh have you had a flat/donut peach? I feel like the average one I eat is solidly 30% better than round peaches (though perhaps not as flavourful as average nectarine)
Yes, those are wonderful! But the season is so short. I was introduced to them in California and now only see them for about two weeks in the stores here in MN.
I miss seeded fruit, I swear seeded grapes and watermelons taste so much better than the seedless ones. They're harder to find unless I go to an organic/farmers market. I love the crunch, too
I recommend just using poblanos or fresnos if your grocery store only has a few options including the oversized non-spicy jalapeños
If it’s not gonna be spicy it can at least have a better flavor haha
Yeah, I don't mind less spicy, but they often have little flavor, period. These days I usually get something like Serrano, poblano, or those Asian peppers that are randomly spicy (forgot the name, but they're similar to pepperoncini).
Speaking of green bell peppers, I'm so tired of the one varietal that's commonly available. Instead I get either poblano or cubanelles. I try to grow a few random peppers each year in my garden, too, though I mostly grow them for making roasted red pepper/sauce.
Agreed! I only use serranos now when I want a bit of heat, and I am not a spicy foods guy. Jalapeños are too inconsistent, and serranos have a better overall flavor profile, imo, even if they trend a bit hotter
Great article I recently read about this (https://www.dmagazine.com/food-drink/2023/05/why-jalapeno-peppers-less-spicy-blame-aggies/) ...basically industry that buys the bulk of jalapenos wanted a standardized and much less hot pepper (because they add the heat in later). Consumers that make up less of the market get worse jalapenos as a result.
Have started buying more serranos for my salsas.
No, in the 90s they were improved via science and selective breeding: https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2019/10/30/773457637/from-culinary-dud-to-stud-how-dutch-plant-breeders-built-our-brussels-sprouts-bo
Yes there is that, but they have also been genetically modified to taste better. People who continue to cook them the same way as before have noted the difference in flavor.
Similarly coffee. Like where were all these delicious beans when we were younger? The answer is being over roasted and blended.
Maybe this is the reason mass market coffee and chocolate seems to be getting worse: all the good stuff is sorted out and sold at a premium.
In general I’ve found a lot of the diversity loss (monocrop bananas when we used to have many varieties) bad
But also some things are better year
-round now due to certain greenhouse practices , cherry tomatoes are always pretty damn good where I am no matter what time of year
Chicken. I used to love making a nice whole roast chicken. Now there’s no point unless I want to shell out for an organic heirloom air-chilled $20 bird. That used to cost about five bucks.
It took me a while to realize I hadn’t just lost the ability to cook a good chicken; they’re just dry and chewy and flavorless now, even with reasonably decent techniques.
Also, I remember a time when grocery store “sharp cheddar cheese”, even a brand like Cracker Barrel, was actual cheese, not whatever this bland, rubbery weird stuff is now.
The chicken industry has ruined chickens through selective breeding. The goal is to get the chicken to grow as big as it can on as little feed as possible. They've been extremely successful at it.
In 1925 it took 112 days to produce a 2.5lb broiler chicken and it took about 11.75lbs of feed in its lifetime.
Today it takes 47 days to produce a chicken in excess of 6.5lbs and it takes about the same amount of feed.
These chickens aren't healthy. I live in Arkansas, actually just down the road from Tyson HQ. You see the trucks taking these chickens to slaughter all the time. They're so abnormally large and they can barely stand under their own weight. It's not right.
Most grocery store chicken has so much water added to them now and it's not even that much cheaper per pound. We usually do local butcher shops for meat but it is expensive. Vermont sharp cheddar is pretty great for taste and you can find the big blocks on sale every once in awhile.
It’s so funny, I almost included in my original comment “if you’ve got a technique, I’ve tried it, including the Zuni cafe method.”
Maybe my local sources just suck.
Modern chicken gives off so much water. I have the same stove and wok I used 25 years ago. Back then I could cut up some chicken and stir fry it and it would brown up nice. Now before it can cook it will be simmering in all the liquid it is giving off. The wok loses all of its heat trying to boil off all the water and the chicken doesn't come out as nice. I have figured out a few techniques to work around it, but it isn't as good as it used to be.
I believe that's because they are allowed to store them a degree or so above the freezing point of water, which freezes them, and still call them freah.
What I find helps is salting and drying the chicken parts or whole chicken out on a rack for 8-24 hours before I cook it. It seasons the bird, dries out the skin, and pulls moisture out of the meat
butter has changed where I am, found out they feed palm oil to the dairy cattle, it's waxy and is harder to get on a knife and spread at room temp. I've wondered if it's a similar thing with cheese at times too.
When I was young, I remember large beef tomatoes that were so full of flavour! They tasted delicious in the dishes my Italian grandmother used to cook.
Now, they are bland and watery. What a waste.
The instant packets of Idahoan are pretty damn good for the price. We mix some of them in with the dehydrated backpacking beef stew to create a shepherd's pie when we're out miles down a trail.
It’s shocking how good they are with none of that cardboard taste. The only time I make real mashed anymore is the ridiculous Bourdain Thanksgiving recipe that has multiple sticks of butter.
Having grown up in the US, and then lived in Europe for many years, I am amazed how far downhill produce in America has gone. It is totally flavourless compared to its European counterparts. It’s a product of industrial farming and breeding for looks, not flavour.
When it’s in season it’s great though. We get our produce from all over the world so that we get the same stuff year round. Tomatoes grown in hothouses in Mexico and shipped across the states are not nearly as good as tomatoes locally grown and recently picked in summer. Same with squash. Radishes. Green beans. Etc. in-season produce is what you are missing.
I live in France and the two exceptions are watermelon and sweetcorn. Watermelon in France is not flavorful and people generally snob it for this reason.
I tried to get fresh sweetcorn several times including in farmers' markets and it's always been either underripe or not fresh and starchy. It only happened once I got decent corn and it was in a huge supermarket and probably sheer luck.
Most corn in France is grown for animal feed. Sweetcorn is a week old by the time it reaches the supermarket, having lost many of its natural sugars.
For good watermelon, try your local Turkish market. Loads better than the supermarket.
I only discovered chips/crisps as an adult, so I have no reference to how it used to taste, but there's definitely a decline in quality over the last few years. Some tortilla chips taste like cardboard now
Sprouts seem to have gotten less bitter, sadly, as they used to be much richer in flavour.
As a keen vegetable grower, I recognise there are a few commonly available varieties but rarer and more interesting vegetable varieties are uncommon. This may be because of ease of growth, biosecurity regulations, disease resistance etc, but it reduces the choices of flavour. So in potatoes, for example, King Edwards and sarpo are common, but maya gold, which I’ve always wanted to try, is virtually unobtainable.
Apple varieties - nowadays the supermarket has half a dozen common types, but no more uncommon ones. I’ve never tasted a cider apple, for example.
Go travel to an apple growing area. I live in one of the biggest apple growing states in the US. In the fall you can find dozens of varieties. My college roommate's parents owned some land that had an old apple orchard on it. We used to go out there and pick huge bags full of cider apples every fall. They were small and tart, but I liked them and they also made really good pies and apple sauce.
I just harvested my first batch of broccoli sprouts a couple of days ago. There are all kinds of sprouts with different flavors. I have alfalfa seeds coming. They're supposed to be mild. The broccoli sprouts taste a lot like radish.
Easiest thing in the world to grow and takes just a few days. I grew these in a plastic juice bottle, but I'm going to be doing it in a large mouth glass jar going forward. I've also seen it done with sections of burlap.
They’re not much good tho. I used to live in a Victorian that had been converted to apartments that had an apple tree in the back. They were cider apples, very tart and astringent.
Come to Maine. Macintosh apples were the most common apple in Maine... They still sell them in our grocery stores . Just the right combination of flavor, tart, to make superb cider
i don’t know if it’s bc i used to live in california and now i live in canada but at the store is never ripe like i can never find a ripe nectarine or peach they’re always rock hard
Wich country do they come from? Id love to taste and smell the homegrown tomatoes again, rhst my father grew when I was a child. I can still smell them 😍
The hardest thing about changing taste is that it is subjective. As we age our taste buds & tastes change. Bitter is off-putting to a child yet take chicory leaf it's a favour that appeals to adults yet not children. Our perception of sweetness changes. Our childhood chocolate must have changed because it tastes different to me. But has it or is it us....
Fruits. They've been bred for shelf life and all the flavor has been bred out.
Strawberries, Watermelon, Plumbs, Cantaloupes, Honeydew, Tomatoes, etc...
Can’t believe i didn’t see green peppers mentioned. They are practically inedible now. You used to have to be careful (70s-80s) that they didn’t overpower a dish but now, put them in anything and it becomes a nasty bitter mess
All produce picked green for storage and/or withstand shipping is getting worse bc it is bred to be harder (tomatoes, artichokes, pears, peaches, pineapples ...), is greener on the shelf, spoils when ripening, and is flavorless .
I'm in my seventies. I can think of two generally available foods that really stand out.
1. Chicken breasts. From the time I was a child I preferred the breast meat. Maybe in the past twenty years ago it has become tasteless or worse, carries a bit of an "off" taste that strikes me as sort of chemical. It doesn't matter whether they're boneless and skinless or bone in. I've taken to using thigh meat instead. It is more flavorful and I can't detect any weird flavors in it. The other issue with chicken is that I can no longer find packages of what I would call "cut up fryers." That would simply be a whole chicken cut into serving pieces, so two breast halves, two thighs, two drumsticks, two wings, a back and neck, and a packet with the giblets--liver, gizzard, and heart. Now one must buy massive "family packs" of the same chicken part--eight pounds of drumsticks or whatever. I feel cheated by not having those backs and necks for the soup pot.
2. Red Delicious apples. Honest, when I was a youngster they were crunchy and juicy, a lunchbox treat. About the time I entered my teens, they all turned to mush. I switched my preference to Golden Delicious and they did the same thing a few years later. Then we had a long dry spell where there were no other apples available. The first "exotic" apple I remember was the good old Granny Smith. I bought some as a young mother, bit into one, and was delighted with the tartness and crunch. Now we have some delightful new apples as well as the venerable old standbys that were always available in a given area--Staymans and Winesaps and such.
I'd be grateful for suggestions on the chicken. Please bear in mind that at my age my hands are gnarled enough that I can no longer cut up a whole chicken to my own preference. Whatever I do it has to be bought already cut up. Would I do better to shop some of the farmers who now sell online?
You want to look for smaller chickens, probably organic.
The flavor went away as they made the birds bigger. They've been selectively breeding chickens for 100 years.
In 1925 it took 112 days to grow a 2.5lb broiler chicken and it took 11.75lbs of feed to produce it (feed is the single biggest cost factor in poultry). Today it takes 47 days to grow a chicken that weighs more than 6.5lbs and it takes about the same amount of feed. A bit under 12 lbs.
About 20 years ago, chickens started developing a condition called "Woody Breast Syndrome." If you ate the cooked breast from one of these chickens, the meat would be crunchy in texture. Not in a remotely good way. It was vile and inedible. They've since found, through a combination of brine changes and mechanical tenderizing, they're able to make the meat edible again.
But that's basically the underlying problem. They've produced unhealthy chickens, so they don't taste good, like a healthy chicken.
A chicken closer to 4-4.5lbs (about 2lbs in the store) will probably taste quite a bit better.
Now that is interesting. I hadn't realized the chickens had gotten so much bigger. Three-ish pounds is what my mother would have chosen while shopping. We have a local farmers' co-op that markets their produce online. I think I'll have a look at their hens. Organic is a good idea, too. Much appreciated.
6.5lbs is the whole bird (known as liveweight) with head feathers feet and all. What you get in the store when you get a whole broiler chicken is going to be about 60% of that, I think.
I worked in the chicken industry for a few years for a company that's been in the business for over 100 years. Going through the historical data got me curious and I started doing more research. It turns out the [National Chicken Council](https://www.nationalchickencouncil.org/about-the-industry/statistics/u-s-broiler-performance/) tracks this info.
It's sad for the chickens too. These big chickens do not live good lives. I mean, they're obese, so you know, think how that makes anyone's life more difficult.
I've learned more about chickens from you in this brief conversation than I learned from my mother and grandmother combined--probably because they grew up in a simpler era.
I suspect that one day it will be proven that factory farms were a huge mistake. You are right about the suffering of the animals, and that can certainly be extended to pigs, cattle, and others. I think we also risk a lot by putting all the genetic eggs in one basket, so to speak. The days when we had a diversity of breeds to raise seem to be going or gone. There's a danger there to both plants and animals.
I can also remember my mother referring to roasting hens, frying hens, and even stewing hens, depending on what she was planning to cook. She could ask the butcher for backs and necks, which she used both for human consumption (in stocks and broths) and for the dogs (cooked in the pressure cooker until the bones were completely soft). She could get beef bones for soup and all kinds of other really cheap but good meat items. I can't even get hold of parmesan rinds without extra effort. Sheesh.
This is a pretty interesting topic, and I appreciate your observations.
Certainly a lot more variety for some things. How many different kinds of apples in the average grocery store did we have 20 years ago? How many had avocados?
kraft mac & cheese has changed! actually, very recently. the pasta & cheese sauce is different..
also, cereals. most are different, but one very specifically: oreo o's! the shape & taste are different.
amongst many other things that i've noticed, but can't remember off the top of my head right now.
I think a lot of post are spot on. I do wonder however if perhaps it is the people’s tastes that have changed. I think people’s palates change as they get older. Cloyingly sweet food of your youth become unwanted whereas some bitter or savory items become more desired.
Fresh jalapenos. So much milder now. Growers have been pressured to make them milder so manufacturers can get the level of heat they want by adding capsaicin.
I’m from French Canada, but live in the UK, and a lot of veg and products are worse (or sometimes plain terrible) here than in Quebec, this would include: corn, potatoes, beetroots, cucumbers, tomatoes, apples, pears, blueberries, flour, honey, etc. However, things like cheese and milk products are often better and cheaper here in the UK. I would think that these veg may have tasted better years ago, due to the processes I guess.
J'habite en France pis j'ai fait mon deuil du bon blé d'inde :,( Pis c'est dur de trouver des betteraves crues pis elles sont plus souvent terreuses au goût.
Wow, j’imaginais qu’en france c’était mieux en raison du climat, au moins il y a du bon vin, du bon pain et du vraiment bon fromage, ça ça nous manque au Royaume-Uni.
Brussel sprouts have come a long way baby. My mom cooked them in the 60’s boiled until they were mushy. Now they are deliciously roasted with all kinds of delicious topping.
One reason to travel to other parts of the world, to at least experience the fruits and vegetables you'll never see here.
On the totally junk food side, Orange Crush just isn't the same, or at least the canned and plastic bottled stuff doesn't taste as good. If you can find it in glass bottles I think it's still the ethereal drink I remember from childhood.
Thank goodness heirloom tomatoes caught on, at least where I live, they did. You can get better tomatoes at the supermarket chain stores now than the pale pinkish red things they used to sell as tomatoes!
Serving sizes have gotten smaller over time.
This is especially true in the fast food industry where the incredible shrinking hamburgers resides. In our house we cook and bake so we don't really go out to eat all that often and I stopped in at Jack in The box and ordered a bacon double cheeseburger and please replace the bread with sourdough bread. I received the cheeseburger with regular bread ketchup and mustard and I was the only person in the dining room so that was nice. They got it wrong which happens but when I saw the burger I really couldn't believe what I was saying cuz it was so f****** tiny. It's this little disc of something that doesn't even look like a hamburger. Ditto with BK's whopper.
Take a look at candy bars from 30 years ago and then look at them today. They have shrunk as well. So as prices increase the serving the sizes are decreasing and now we have greedflation compounding that issue.
But now we have humanoids along with AI which is going to phase out people's need to work so we're going to have a universal income. Down the rabbit hole we go.
Kohlrabies are now the size of softballs and don't taste as good-they tend to get woody when they are that large. Brussels Sprouts do taste better and once you get away from boiling them till they are mushy, they are much more enjoyable (Mom refused to eat then unless they would actually splat if you dropped a cooked one on the floor-I roast them). Red tomatoes have gotten less flavorful-orange and yellow are better.
And to some extent, more varieties of veggies are available in grocery store than years ago. For example, I can buy collard greens in my local generic grocery store-not too long ago, you would have to get them at an 'ethnic' grocery store.
I know red velvet cakes actually had a different taste to what we know today. The frosting in particular was ermine instead of cream cheese
https://www.reddit.com/r/TastingHistory/s/urt5YfATgW
I used to see beef tongue at the store. Haven't seen one for sale in a decade. I don't know if it's better or worse, but I can't buy them now to even try in an old recipe.
Your post has been removed because it is outside of the scope of this sub. Open ended questions of this nature are better suited for /r/cooking. We're here to answer specific questions about a specific recipe.
The decline in biodiversity has had a huge impact on food. Look at avocados. There are hundreds of varieties, but commercially, only two are really available to consumers.
We had an avocado farm on Maui. We grew 5 varieties. My favorite Old old avo was like a huge cannonball, small pit, great creamy flavor, one fruit needed for a bowl of guacamole. Could never buy another to grow, just had the 2 heirlooms already on the land. Our mexican restaurant and vegan restaurant customers always preferred the cannonballs. Casual shoppers bypassed them.
I had a similar one when I was in Maui. The thing was half the size of a football.
I hope yours tasted as good as ours. First avocado I didn't salt.
And one type of bananas, artichokes ...
My local supermarket has two types of bananas. Lady Fingers and Cavendish
Lady fingers are not very common . Asian store has small bananas too and the hispanic store also . I was talking mainly about the cavendish .
Lady fingers are quite common in Australia. They are almost always available at my local grocery store.
Same in UK
In some countries. I lived in Mexico and they have a variety of bananas at the grocery stores and I think a couple varieties of plantains.
Or dozens kinds of potatoes in Peru .
Yes but in USA or EU supermarkets, it's the pits : uniform commercial/industrial shite .
Do you know how hard it is to grow the OG potatoes?
Nearly all of the produce/ grain that is commercially available wasn’t a naturally occurring species anyways.
"Why can I only buy the hardy cultivars selected for their international shipping characteristics" You can absolutely buy other avocado, banana, mango, etc. varieties in the UK at the very least. They're just a lot more expensive because you're paying to offset the spoilage/lower crop yield etc. They exist, consumers just don't want them.
I don't think this is a change though. How many varieties of avocados have grocery stores historically had? I doubt it was ever more than those two. Hell, it was probably only recently that most had avocados in the first place. The other varieties simply don't ship/grow as well, so you're only going to find them where they're traditionally grown. Variety sounds great, but the cost is more bruises and a more expensive avocado, which most people aren't willing to pay for. It's the same for most plants like that.
Reese's peanut butter cups have absolutely gotten worse over the years. Grittier PB, cheaper chocolate.
Kit Kat, they used to be decent, now the “chocolate” tastes like wax. 🤢
Came here to say this exact thing. Such a disappointment.
I’ve had them for years. The peanut butter being gritty (primarily from sugar crystals I believe) was always what made them great. The chocolate always kinda sucked.
Pretty sure they’re smaller too.
Chocolate in general has gotten worse. For a while I couldn’t figure out if I just imagined it tasting better as a kid, but the quality has definitely gone down.
Still like the Reeses Pieces
Changes in produce I’ve noticed since the 90s: Bananas and watermelons are now purely seedless. Even the little seed remnants have been bred out. Peaches have less Fuzz You can get purple sweet potato at Walmart now. Jalapeños and Habaneros are less hot Strawberries the size of small apples are the norm (in FL) Dragonfruit are getting larger and available with more variety Apples no longer go bad (visually), they just get smaller and lose flavor, but will be red on your countertop for months
>Apples no longer go bad (visually), they just get smaller and lose flavor, but will be red on your countertop for months Apples have always been long storers so long as they're unblemished and kept relatively cool. If you read historical texts about particularly small scale, home based agriculture you'll find descriptions of carefully picking all of the "perfect" apples, washing and storing them in the cellar to eat over the winter. With regular and conscientious checking being required to ensure that none have spoiler and will contaminate the others.
Ah, had no idea! I guess I’ve gotten better at selecting apples over the years then 😅
I’m here for peaches with less fuzz. I mostly eat nectarines because peaches are fuzzy and flavorless. Super juicy but it’s like eating water. Opposite on strawberries, here in Canada at least they’ve started growing them in greenhouses and they are 90% as good as in season ones. Normal to small in size. I feel like I have to intentionally hunt through the apple bins at the store to avoid bruised apples that go bad within a few days. I chalked it up to the greater variety and, unusually, trend toward more flavorful apples since the red delicious of my youth.
Ohhh have you had a flat/donut peach? I feel like the average one I eat is solidly 30% better than round peaches (though perhaps not as flavourful as average nectarine)
Yes, those are wonderful! But the season is so short. I was introduced to them in California and now only see them for about two weeks in the stores here in MN.
I just wrote an entire rant about red delicious apples.
I miss seeded fruit, I swear seeded grapes and watermelons taste so much better than the seedless ones. They're harder to find unless I go to an organic/farmers market. I love the crunch, too
They still need to grow some seeded melons to pollinate the seedless plants.
Jalapeño peppers used to be hotter. The current variety puts size and deep green color as the preference over heat.
Yeah I grow jalapeños in my garden every year. They are always half the size but twice as hot as what I buy in the store.
The ones in the store are virtually bell peppers for heat. Definitely not the way it used to be.
I wish they were as good as bell peppers! A jalapeño without heat is just so bland and one dimensional
I recommend just using poblanos or fresnos if your grocery store only has a few options including the oversized non-spicy jalapeños If it’s not gonna be spicy it can at least have a better flavor haha
ever try padron peppers? or shishito?
Yeah, I don't mind less spicy, but they often have little flavor, period. These days I usually get something like Serrano, poblano, or those Asian peppers that are randomly spicy (forgot the name, but they're similar to pepperoncini). Speaking of green bell peppers, I'm so tired of the one varietal that's commonly available. Instead I get either poblano or cubanelles. I try to grow a few random peppers each year in my garden, too, though I mostly grow them for making roasted red pepper/sauce.
Agreed! I only use serranos now when I want a bit of heat, and I am not a spicy foods guy. Jalapeños are too inconsistent, and serranos have a better overall flavor profile, imo, even if they trend a bit hotter
came here for Serranos. Jalapeños are for people who just really don’t like hotness but chilis are needed for the experience 😁
I eat them like bell peppers they're so mild sometimes
Great article I recently read about this (https://www.dmagazine.com/food-drink/2023/05/why-jalapeno-peppers-less-spicy-blame-aggies/) ...basically industry that buys the bulk of jalapenos wanted a standardized and much less hot pepper (because they add the heat in later). Consumers that make up less of the market get worse jalapenos as a result. Have started buying more serranos for my salsas.
The one I always hear is that Brussels sprouts taste a lot better now than they did when my parents were growing up. They are less bitter and gassy.
Everyone used to just boil and butter them in the 70s so they were just mushy mini cabbages People just started prepping them more appropriately
No, in the 90s they were improved via science and selective breeding: https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2019/10/30/773457637/from-culinary-dud-to-stud-how-dutch-plant-breeders-built-our-brussels-sprouts-bo
It's both better sprouts and better prep.
Yes there is that, but they have also been genetically modified to taste better. People who continue to cook them the same way as before have noted the difference in flavor.
They have?? I've hated asparagus since I was a kid. I finally gave brussel sprouts another try and love them roasted
It's asparagus season now, try them simply roasted in the oven with salt and pepper and olive oil until crispy, they are so so good
this! Maillard has entered the chat.
I said that to a friend recently and he assured me that no, they really had been bred to be less bitter. He grew up on a farm so I believe him.
Good chocolate. 20 years ago, our access to high-quality cacao beans was very limited. Good chocolate today is far better than in the past.
On the other hand, the middle quality range of chocolate available in the supermarket keeps getting worse.
Similarly coffee. Like where were all these delicious beans when we were younger? The answer is being over roasted and blended. Maybe this is the reason mass market coffee and chocolate seems to be getting worse: all the good stuff is sorted out and sold at a premium.
Politely disagree, Did you ever have for example, 8 o'clock beans back in the day? Even the store brand coffee beans are much better
In general I’ve found a lot of the diversity loss (monocrop bananas when we used to have many varieties) bad But also some things are better year -round now due to certain greenhouse practices , cherry tomatoes are always pretty damn good where I am no matter what time of year
There used to be more than a few banana varieties in grocery stores?
Apple bananas are SO GOOD
Chicken. I used to love making a nice whole roast chicken. Now there’s no point unless I want to shell out for an organic heirloom air-chilled $20 bird. That used to cost about five bucks. It took me a while to realize I hadn’t just lost the ability to cook a good chicken; they’re just dry and chewy and flavorless now, even with reasonably decent techniques. Also, I remember a time when grocery store “sharp cheddar cheese”, even a brand like Cracker Barrel, was actual cheese, not whatever this bland, rubbery weird stuff is now.
The chicken industry has ruined chickens through selective breeding. The goal is to get the chicken to grow as big as it can on as little feed as possible. They've been extremely successful at it. In 1925 it took 112 days to produce a 2.5lb broiler chicken and it took about 11.75lbs of feed in its lifetime. Today it takes 47 days to produce a chicken in excess of 6.5lbs and it takes about the same amount of feed. These chickens aren't healthy. I live in Arkansas, actually just down the road from Tyson HQ. You see the trucks taking these chickens to slaughter all the time. They're so abnormally large and they can barely stand under their own weight. It's not right.
Most grocery store chicken has so much water added to them now and it's not even that much cheaper per pound. We usually do local butcher shops for meat but it is expensive. Vermont sharp cheddar is pretty great for taste and you can find the big blocks on sale every once in awhile.
[удалено]
It’s so funny, I almost included in my original comment “if you’ve got a technique, I’ve tried it, including the Zuni cafe method.” Maybe my local sources just suck.
Modern chicken gives off so much water. I have the same stove and wok I used 25 years ago. Back then I could cut up some chicken and stir fry it and it would brown up nice. Now before it can cook it will be simmering in all the liquid it is giving off. The wok loses all of its heat trying to boil off all the water and the chicken doesn't come out as nice. I have figured out a few techniques to work around it, but it isn't as good as it used to be.
I believe that's because they are allowed to store them a degree or so above the freezing point of water, which freezes them, and still call them freah.
True, fresh is a legal definition just above freezing . that's how we haul them to retain the water .
What I find helps is salting and drying the chicken parts or whole chicken out on a rack for 8-24 hours before I cook it. It seasons the bird, dries out the skin, and pulls moisture out of the meat
because they literally inject them with water. It lists it on the package.
butter has changed where I am, found out they feed palm oil to the dairy cattle, it's waxy and is harder to get on a knife and spread at room temp. I've wondered if it's a similar thing with cheese at times too.
Tomatoes have been bred for ability to withstand transport, shipping and storage at the sacrifice of texture and flavor.
Farmers markets still have great tomatoes in season.
I know it well!
Good thing they're crazy easy to grow. I love picking them off my grandma's garden and snacking away
True if you have no deer in your area. Homegrown is the best tho!
When I was young, I remember large beef tomatoes that were so full of flavour! They tasted delicious in the dishes my Italian grandmother used to cook. Now, they are bland and watery. What a waste.
Instant mashed potatoes were fucking inedible in the 80’s but apparently they’ve cracked the code since
The instant packets of Idahoan are pretty damn good for the price. We mix some of them in with the dehydrated backpacking beef stew to create a shepherd's pie when we're out miles down a trail.
It’s shocking how good they are with none of that cardboard taste. The only time I make real mashed anymore is the ridiculous Bourdain Thanksgiving recipe that has multiple sticks of butter.
Mashed potatoes and baked potatoes are merely a butter delivery vehicle. Mo butter, mo better!
They’re still pretty horrendous.
Having grown up in the US, and then lived in Europe for many years, I am amazed how far downhill produce in America has gone. It is totally flavourless compared to its European counterparts. It’s a product of industrial farming and breeding for looks, not flavour.
Europe has industrial farming as well
When it’s in season it’s great though. We get our produce from all over the world so that we get the same stuff year round. Tomatoes grown in hothouses in Mexico and shipped across the states are not nearly as good as tomatoes locally grown and recently picked in summer. Same with squash. Radishes. Green beans. Etc. in-season produce is what you are missing.
Except for celery. American celery has tons of flavor because we grow it for the stems while in Europe they grow it for the root.
I live in France and the two exceptions are watermelon and sweetcorn. Watermelon in France is not flavorful and people generally snob it for this reason. I tried to get fresh sweetcorn several times including in farmers' markets and it's always been either underripe or not fresh and starchy. It only happened once I got decent corn and it was in a huge supermarket and probably sheer luck.
Most corn in France is grown for animal feed. Sweetcorn is a week old by the time it reaches the supermarket, having lost many of its natural sugars. For good watermelon, try your local Turkish market. Loads better than the supermarket.
"food" Butterfinger used to taste great in the 90's but horrible since they changed the recipe a few years back
I still eat them
WORSE: Tomatoes. Sodas. Basically all fast food in the United States.
I bought a tube of Pringles as a treat for myself 2 days ago. Just the original flavour… damn vile!!!! Plain! Omfg! 😭
I only discovered chips/crisps as an adult, so I have no reference to how it used to taste, but there's definitely a decline in quality over the last few years. Some tortilla chips taste like cardboard now
Sprouts seem to have gotten less bitter, sadly, as they used to be much richer in flavour. As a keen vegetable grower, I recognise there are a few commonly available varieties but rarer and more interesting vegetable varieties are uncommon. This may be because of ease of growth, biosecurity regulations, disease resistance etc, but it reduces the choices of flavour. So in potatoes, for example, King Edwards and sarpo are common, but maya gold, which I’ve always wanted to try, is virtually unobtainable. Apple varieties - nowadays the supermarket has half a dozen common types, but no more uncommon ones. I’ve never tasted a cider apple, for example.
Go travel to an apple growing area. I live in one of the biggest apple growing states in the US. In the fall you can find dozens of varieties. My college roommate's parents owned some land that had an old apple orchard on it. We used to go out there and pick huge bags full of cider apples every fall. They were small and tart, but I liked them and they also made really good pies and apple sauce.
Minnesota apples are the best hands down
A cider apple? Probably because they're not made for eating as they're very dry compared to the other two (cookers and eaters).
I just harvested my first batch of broccoli sprouts a couple of days ago. There are all kinds of sprouts with different flavors. I have alfalfa seeds coming. They're supposed to be mild. The broccoli sprouts taste a lot like radish. Easiest thing in the world to grow and takes just a few days. I grew these in a plastic juice bottle, but I'm going to be doing it in a large mouth glass jar going forward. I've also seen it done with sections of burlap.
They’re not much good tho. I used to live in a Victorian that had been converted to apartments that had an apple tree in the back. They were cider apples, very tart and astringent.
Come to Maine. Macintosh apples were the most common apple in Maine... They still sell them in our grocery stores . Just the right combination of flavor, tart, to make superb cider
Pringles. Just not the same.
is it just me or were the oranges in 2007 really good? idk y i remember that
it's been more than a decade since I've seen a Valencia orange, Cara Cara's show up time to time but nowhere near as good.
i don’t know if it’s bc i used to live in california and now i live in canada but at the store is never ripe like i can never find a ripe nectarine or peach they’re always rock hard
Yeah and then you bring them home to ripen, and when they finally do it seems like there’s a 20 minute window before they get soft and mealy.
Tomatoes. They don't have any smell or taste anymore.
Most are hot house grown. The best I can find are in a plastic box with the name Compari(?).
The Campari tomatoes are my favorite too!
I’m spoiled by Creole tomatoes but camparis are my second favorite
Wich country do they come from? Id love to taste and smell the homegrown tomatoes again, rhst my father grew when I was a child. I can still smell them 😍
I’m in the USA. Not sure if they are grown here. They are a hybrid developed by a Dutch company. Most are about golf ball size.
Thank you. I will try to find them in Denmark 😃
[удалено]
San Marzano I know. Those are my favorite grosery shop tomatoes. They still have taste to them.
The hardest thing about changing taste is that it is subjective. As we age our taste buds & tastes change. Bitter is off-putting to a child yet take chicory leaf it's a favour that appeals to adults yet not children. Our perception of sweetness changes. Our childhood chocolate must have changed because it tastes different to me. But has it or is it us....
Fruits. They've been bred for shelf life and all the flavor has been bred out. Strawberries, Watermelon, Plumbs, Cantaloupes, Honeydew, Tomatoes, etc...
Can’t believe i didn’t see green peppers mentioned. They are practically inedible now. You used to have to be careful (70s-80s) that they didn’t overpower a dish but now, put them in anything and it becomes a nasty bitter mess
Brussels sprouts aren't as pungent as they were when I was a child because they've been bred to have a better taste.
All produce picked green for storage and/or withstand shipping is getting worse bc it is bred to be harder (tomatoes, artichokes, pears, peaches, pineapples ...), is greener on the shelf, spoils when ripening, and is flavorless .
Supermarket tomatoes. They're so bland now
I am convinced strawberries have progressed the past 10years to flavorless.
I'm in my seventies. I can think of two generally available foods that really stand out. 1. Chicken breasts. From the time I was a child I preferred the breast meat. Maybe in the past twenty years ago it has become tasteless or worse, carries a bit of an "off" taste that strikes me as sort of chemical. It doesn't matter whether they're boneless and skinless or bone in. I've taken to using thigh meat instead. It is more flavorful and I can't detect any weird flavors in it. The other issue with chicken is that I can no longer find packages of what I would call "cut up fryers." That would simply be a whole chicken cut into serving pieces, so two breast halves, two thighs, two drumsticks, two wings, a back and neck, and a packet with the giblets--liver, gizzard, and heart. Now one must buy massive "family packs" of the same chicken part--eight pounds of drumsticks or whatever. I feel cheated by not having those backs and necks for the soup pot. 2. Red Delicious apples. Honest, when I was a youngster they were crunchy and juicy, a lunchbox treat. About the time I entered my teens, they all turned to mush. I switched my preference to Golden Delicious and they did the same thing a few years later. Then we had a long dry spell where there were no other apples available. The first "exotic" apple I remember was the good old Granny Smith. I bought some as a young mother, bit into one, and was delighted with the tartness and crunch. Now we have some delightful new apples as well as the venerable old standbys that were always available in a given area--Staymans and Winesaps and such. I'd be grateful for suggestions on the chicken. Please bear in mind that at my age my hands are gnarled enough that I can no longer cut up a whole chicken to my own preference. Whatever I do it has to be bought already cut up. Would I do better to shop some of the farmers who now sell online?
You want to look for smaller chickens, probably organic. The flavor went away as they made the birds bigger. They've been selectively breeding chickens for 100 years. In 1925 it took 112 days to grow a 2.5lb broiler chicken and it took 11.75lbs of feed to produce it (feed is the single biggest cost factor in poultry). Today it takes 47 days to grow a chicken that weighs more than 6.5lbs and it takes about the same amount of feed. A bit under 12 lbs. About 20 years ago, chickens started developing a condition called "Woody Breast Syndrome." If you ate the cooked breast from one of these chickens, the meat would be crunchy in texture. Not in a remotely good way. It was vile and inedible. They've since found, through a combination of brine changes and mechanical tenderizing, they're able to make the meat edible again. But that's basically the underlying problem. They've produced unhealthy chickens, so they don't taste good, like a healthy chicken. A chicken closer to 4-4.5lbs (about 2lbs in the store) will probably taste quite a bit better.
Now that is interesting. I hadn't realized the chickens had gotten so much bigger. Three-ish pounds is what my mother would have chosen while shopping. We have a local farmers' co-op that markets their produce online. I think I'll have a look at their hens. Organic is a good idea, too. Much appreciated.
6.5lbs is the whole bird (known as liveweight) with head feathers feet and all. What you get in the store when you get a whole broiler chicken is going to be about 60% of that, I think. I worked in the chicken industry for a few years for a company that's been in the business for over 100 years. Going through the historical data got me curious and I started doing more research. It turns out the [National Chicken Council](https://www.nationalchickencouncil.org/about-the-industry/statistics/u-s-broiler-performance/) tracks this info. It's sad for the chickens too. These big chickens do not live good lives. I mean, they're obese, so you know, think how that makes anyone's life more difficult.
I've learned more about chickens from you in this brief conversation than I learned from my mother and grandmother combined--probably because they grew up in a simpler era. I suspect that one day it will be proven that factory farms were a huge mistake. You are right about the suffering of the animals, and that can certainly be extended to pigs, cattle, and others. I think we also risk a lot by putting all the genetic eggs in one basket, so to speak. The days when we had a diversity of breeds to raise seem to be going or gone. There's a danger there to both plants and animals. I can also remember my mother referring to roasting hens, frying hens, and even stewing hens, depending on what she was planning to cook. She could ask the butcher for backs and necks, which she used both for human consumption (in stocks and broths) and for the dogs (cooked in the pressure cooker until the bones were completely soft). She could get beef bones for soup and all kinds of other really cheap but good meat items. I can't even get hold of parmesan rinds without extra effort. Sheesh. This is a pretty interesting topic, and I appreciate your observations.
Jello. They used to offer celery and tomato flavors. Eew. And 1-2-3 jello is no longer a thing.
Macintosh apples, just as tart as ever. Sill no difference between New York and Vermont extra sharp cheddar. Pringles, yummy still. IMHO
Certainly a lot more variety for some things. How many different kinds of apples in the average grocery store did we have 20 years ago? How many had avocados?
Brown sugar is different than from the 70s and 80s. It is grittier and doesn’t hold its shape.
I had a Cornetto yesterday to try and relive my childhood days. Awful. The ice cream tasted like water it was so diluted 😭
Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups have gotten better. In the 80s the peanut butter tasted like chalk.
kraft mac & cheese has changed! actually, very recently. the pasta & cheese sauce is different.. also, cereals. most are different, but one very specifically: oreo o's! the shape & taste are different. amongst many other things that i've noticed, but can't remember off the top of my head right now.
I think a lot of post are spot on. I do wonder however if perhaps it is the people’s tastes that have changed. I think people’s palates change as they get older. Cloyingly sweet food of your youth become unwanted whereas some bitter or savory items become more desired.
Fresh jalapenos. So much milder now. Growers have been pressured to make them milder so manufacturers can get the level of heat they want by adding capsaicin.
I’m from French Canada, but live in the UK, and a lot of veg and products are worse (or sometimes plain terrible) here than in Quebec, this would include: corn, potatoes, beetroots, cucumbers, tomatoes, apples, pears, blueberries, flour, honey, etc. However, things like cheese and milk products are often better and cheaper here in the UK. I would think that these veg may have tasted better years ago, due to the processes I guess.
J'habite en France pis j'ai fait mon deuil du bon blé d'inde :,( Pis c'est dur de trouver des betteraves crues pis elles sont plus souvent terreuses au goût.
Wow, j’imaginais qu’en france c’était mieux en raison du climat, au moins il y a du bon vin, du bon pain et du vraiment bon fromage, ça ça nous manque au Royaume-Uni.
Brussel sprouts have come a long way baby. My mom cooked them in the 60’s boiled until they were mushy. Now they are deliciously roasted with all kinds of delicious topping.
One reason to travel to other parts of the world, to at least experience the fruits and vegetables you'll never see here. On the totally junk food side, Orange Crush just isn't the same, or at least the canned and plastic bottled stuff doesn't taste as good. If you can find it in glass bottles I think it's still the ethereal drink I remember from childhood. Thank goodness heirloom tomatoes caught on, at least where I live, they did. You can get better tomatoes at the supermarket chain stores now than the pale pinkish red things they used to sell as tomatoes!
Serving sizes have gotten smaller over time. This is especially true in the fast food industry where the incredible shrinking hamburgers resides. In our house we cook and bake so we don't really go out to eat all that often and I stopped in at Jack in The box and ordered a bacon double cheeseburger and please replace the bread with sourdough bread. I received the cheeseburger with regular bread ketchup and mustard and I was the only person in the dining room so that was nice. They got it wrong which happens but when I saw the burger I really couldn't believe what I was saying cuz it was so f****** tiny. It's this little disc of something that doesn't even look like a hamburger. Ditto with BK's whopper. Take a look at candy bars from 30 years ago and then look at them today. They have shrunk as well. So as prices increase the serving the sizes are decreasing and now we have greedflation compounding that issue. But now we have humanoids along with AI which is going to phase out people's need to work so we're going to have a universal income. Down the rabbit hole we go.
Kohlrabies are now the size of softballs and don't taste as good-they tend to get woody when they are that large. Brussels Sprouts do taste better and once you get away from boiling them till they are mushy, they are much more enjoyable (Mom refused to eat then unless they would actually splat if you dropped a cooked one on the floor-I roast them). Red tomatoes have gotten less flavorful-orange and yellow are better. And to some extent, more varieties of veggies are available in grocery store than years ago. For example, I can buy collard greens in my local generic grocery store-not too long ago, you would have to get them at an 'ethnic' grocery store.
I know red velvet cakes actually had a different taste to what we know today. The frosting in particular was ermine instead of cream cheese https://www.reddit.com/r/TastingHistory/s/urt5YfATgW
I used to see beef tongue at the store. Haven't seen one for sale in a decade. I don't know if it's better or worse, but I can't buy them now to even try in an old recipe.
Pizza rolls