The 80s, myth and reality?

[2jakes]

I never had the urge to take up smoking. Both my grandfathers smoked, but one of them developed emphysema. Toward the end, he was on oxygen constantly, was bedridden, thin as a rail, and didn't even have the breath to eat. That cured me of *ever* wanting to smoke.

In the military, a pack of cigarettes was about 20¢ at the base exchange.
Everybody was buying them along with the Zippo lighters. Including yours truly.

I don’t know why, but I never tried smoking when I was a teenager in school.
I got terribly sick to my stomach when I first tried it in the military.
Grass once and hated the smell.
On occasions I have tried the meerschaum pipes because i like the color as it changes
to a darker hue.
But I haven’t picked up a pipe in 20 years.

 

[ChrisB]

Just like in any era, people forget the bad stuff.
There is the threat of nuclear war hanging over our heads. Everywhere you went, commercially, had a smoking and non-smoking section. Pretty much everyone dealt with second hand smoke everywhere they went. I like the music, and still do. Some of the cars were kind of neat. Plenty of good movies, and loved shows like Miami Vice.
Other than that, it's not a time I really enjoyed all that much culturally.

Indeed, that was a time when they were considering abandoning Mutual Assured Destruction for the concept of a “winnable” nuclear war. I’m not sure how you would determine who the victor was, maybe the one whose rubble glowed less.

 

[Juanito]

Smoking...that reminds me of another (early) 1980s fad: Clove Cigarettes from about 1982 to 1985.

 

[2jakes]

Smoking...that reminds me of another (early) 1980s fad: Clove Cigarettes.

Clove chewing gum!

 

[Juanito]

All this talk about "fresh" food reminds me of yet another thing that exploded in the 1980s--the proliferation of Salad Bars that were essentially full blown buffets at lower end restaurants from Wendys, to Rax Roast Beef, to a host of others. I distinctly remember the fanfare associated with the implementation of the salad bar at Wendy's in 1980 or 81. Even the Burger King had a salad bar.

Nothing like giving bare handed patrons unfettered access to everyone's food! Too many cherry tomatoes? Just take them off you plate and put them back!

 

[scottyrocks]

I was in my 30s when I first ate lobster. It was very rich & filling.
I have tasted oyster. Once.

Lobster, for me, was one of the marks of increased mobility once I got my driver's license at 17, a job, and my own car.

Suddenly, I was able to travel at will out of my immediate area, make new friends, and visit new places.

For the sake of this discussion, let's put the year at 1980 when this started. I was a junior in college. One of those friends, an 'experienced' lobster consumer, turned a few of us on to it who had not, for whatever reasons, had it previously. He even taught me how to eat it. That first time was a real battle.

For me, it was a revelation. My parents, as it could be obvious by now, were a) not wealthy, and b) not experimental when it came to food, so that completely ruled out lobster, as well as other seafood, which I had never had as a child.

Back then (early '80s), you could get a complete lobster dinner at a particular local diner - soup, salad, main course with two sides, dessert, coffee, and even a glass of wine, for $10.95. It seemed too good to be true, and it was a treat.

I know that at least one of us, who lives in Maine, has said that lobster is no big deal, but to us, not of the extreme northeast, it was and is still a delicacy, and always savored on the rare occasions I have one.

 

[2jakes]

Lobster, for me, was one of the marks of increased mobility once I got my driver's license at 17, a job, and my own car.

Suddenly, I was able to travel at will out of my immediate area, make new friends, and visit new places.

For the sake of this discussion, let's put the year at 1980 when this started. I was a junior in college. One of those friends, an 'experienced' lobster consumer, turned a few of us on to it who had not, for whatever reasons, had it previously. He even taught me how to eat it. That first time was a real battle.

For me, it was a revelation. My parents, as it could be obvious by now, were a) not wealthy, and b) not experimental when it came to food, so that completely ruled out lobster, as well as other seafood, which I had never had as a child.

Back then (early '80s), you could get a complete lobster dinner at a particular local diner - soup, salad, main course with two sides, dessert, coffee, and even a glass of wine, for $10.95. It seemed too good to be true, and it was a treat.

I know that at least one of us, who lives in Maine, has said that lobster is no big deal, but to us, not of the extreme northeast, it was and is still a delicacy, and always savored on the rare occasions I have one.

I'd like a glass of wine, but after two swallows, everything is silly funny and I start
laughing and can’t stop!

 

[scottyrocks]

All this talk about "fresh" food reminds me of yet another thing that exploded in the 1980s--the proliferation of Salad Bars that were essentially full blown buffets at lower end restaurants from Wendys, to Rax Roast Beef, to a host of others. I distinctly remember the fanfare associated with the implementation of the salad bar at Wendy's in 1980 or 81. Even the Burger King had a salad bar.

Nothing like giving bare handed patrons unfettered access to everyone's food!

I don't even know if salad bars originally had sneeze guards - the plastic roof-like covers you had to look through and reach under to prevent . . . well, you know what <ugh>.

Of all the times I have eaten from salad bars I don't think I have ever seen anyone put their hands on the goods in the bins, although that means nothing.

 

[scottyrocks]

I'd like a glass of wine, but after two swallows, everything is silly funny and I start
laughing and can’t stop!

Ah, so you're a cheap date! haha

 

[2jakes]

Ah, so you're a cheap date! haha

So I’ve been told on many occasions!

 

[Nobert]

I know that at least one of us, who lives in Maine, has said that lobster is no big deal, but to us, not of the extreme northeast, it was and is still a delicacy, and always savored on the rare occasions I have one.

Not only not a big deal but, until about a generation ago, considered bottom-feeding garbage fish. Someone mentioned to me that when she was a kid, if your parents packed lobster in your lunch, you hid it from the other kids. It was a sign of scuzzy poverty that you had to resort to Cockroach of the Sea.

 

[scottyrocks]

Not only not a big deal but, until about a generation ago, considered bottom-feeding garbage fish. Someone mentioned to me that when she was a kid, if your parents packed lobster in your lunch, you hid it from the other kids. It was a sign of scuzzy poverty that you had to resort to Cockroach of the Sea.

haha, yes indeed, I was referencing Ms. LMaine, who has said essentially the same thing. I have found it very interesting that something so delicious to so many has been thought of as something so horrible by others, especially sociologically.

 

[2jakes]

haha, yes indeed, I was referencing Ms. LMaine, who has said essentially the same thing. I have found it very interesting that something so delicious to so many has been thought of as something so horrible by others, especially sociologically.

Catfish!

 

[LizzieMaine]

Yep. I thought tobacco was disgusting and a repulsive habit from my earliest memories -- I clearly remember being two years old and carefully extracting each of my father's Chesterfields from the pack, dunking them in a jug of Clorox, and then reinserting them into the pack and placing the pack carefully back in his jacket pocket, so much did I hate their poisonous stench. Watching my grandfather go from a healthy, well-built man to a 90 pound skeleton with skin on, who sat on the edge of his bed every morning coughing up pieces of his lungs into a slopjar only convinced me further.

The day he died, in 1980, my mother -- a smoker since she was sixteen -- flushed her last carton of cigarettes down the toilet and has never touched another one since. I think it's the most courageous thing she's ever done.

 

[Harp]

Catfish!

Cajun pan-fried blackened, spiced, potatoes, draft beer.

 

[LizzieMaine]

haha, yes indeed, I was referencing Ms. LMaine, who has said essentially the same thing. I have found it very interesting that something so delicious to so many has been thought of as something so horrible by others, especially sociologically.

I'll eat one if I have to, but we had it so often when I was a kid that it lost all interest. I live in a town where even the greasiest of greasy spoon lunchrooms has a lobster tank next to the cash register, so anyone who comes here expecting any kind of mystique surrounding the creature will have it stripped away fast. Although if you do ever come up here, I'll show you where to go to buy it off the boat for less than a pound of hamburger.

 

[LizzieMaine]

All this talk about "fresh" food reminds me of yet another thing that exploded in the 1980s--the proliferation of Salad Bars that were essentially full blown buffets at lower end restaurants from Wendys, to Rax Roast Beef, to a host of others. I distinctly remember the fanfare associated with the implementation of the salad bar at Wendy's in 1980 or 81. Even the Burger King had a salad bar.

Nothing like giving bare handed patrons unfettered access to everyone's food! Too many cherry tomatoes? Just take them off you plate and put them back!

Ah, the 80s -- the period that added the phrase "sneeze guard" to the language. Doesn't that set my appetite just a-tingle.

 

[Edward]

Oysters have made the same journey in the UK from poor people food (in the Victorian era) to delicacy. Lobster has, more recently, become something that cna easily be picked up in one of the big-brand forzen foods supermarkets, though it's not for me: I can't do seafood. The smell alone turns me, no matter how fresh, but if I try to eat anything thattaste like fish or seafood I will involuntarily retch and can't swallow it. I'm the same with mellon and most cheese. I figure if my body rejects it so harshly, it's for good reason, so I stay away from it.

I never had the urge to take up smoking. Both my grandfathers smoked, but one of them developed emphysema. Toward the end, he was on oxygen constantly, was bedridden, thin as a rail, and didn't even have the breath to eat. That cured me of *ever* wanting to smoke.

I know a few people who have had similar experiences. I consider myself lucky that I was never in a peer group where there was a pressure to smoke; if anything, it was actively looked down on by most of us. I love my pipe, but I light up so rarely I highly doubt it can do any perceptible harm. The irony is, though, that given there have been a fair few instances of terminal cancer in the family on both sides, I've pretty much accepted that I'll have it in some form at some point, depsite never having smoked a cigarette in my life. Or been intersting enough to do much that was all that much of a health risk, for that matter.

 

[BlueTrain]

I generally don't like any form of seafood, not having grown up near the ocean. The only "seafood" I ever ate was another typically 1950s food, fish sticks. The current varieties aren't bad when smothered in tartar sauce.

One food that is so typically American all the way from here to Peru is corn, meaning Indian corn or as the sophisticated Wikipedia calls it, "maize." Yet I understand that until recently, it was only considered fit for animals in Europe. In some parts of the New World, it's a primary food source and to think that someone wants to make fuel out of it.

 

[scottyrocks]

Oh my God, fish sticks.

They were one of those things that my Mom bought, mainly because my brother liked them. Lay them out on an aluminum pan and pop 'em in the oven for what, 20 minutes at 350? It seemed like greasy bread crumbs with some hint of fish flavor.

It wasn't until the '90s, when I was in Blackpool, England that I discovered ground zero for fish-n-chips, with malt vinegar, no less. Holy moley, it was another epiphanical moment.