Vintage Things That Have Disappeared In Your Lifetime?

[rue]

Here's a brief history of the fortune cookie. As there's more or less an ongoing debate as to whether the fortune cookie originated in L.A. or San Francisco, the almond cookie was invented in L.A. in 1951.

Mmmmm... almond cookies..... :essen:

 

[Wally_Hood]

How about Macaroni Grill? There's one not far from me.

We actually like the Macaroni Grill; if it's faux-Italian or not, I can't say, but we go there when we would like a nice dinner (nice being in opposition to, say, Carrow's or Subway). For our family a recent tradition is going to Macaroni Grill on Christmas Eve; it's to offset the missing family members and to give Missus a break from cooking. By the way, V. C., we hit the one in Cerritos.

 

[Flicka]

I've been quite a lot in Italy (admittedly only in Rome, Tuscany and Sardinia, all of which have distinctly different flavours) and I've always been confused over American Italian food as it doesn't seem to be at all like anything I've encountered there (or here, admittedly). This rather explains it.

It's funny with Chinese food, because again, Chinese food in Sweden it's nothing like American Chinese food, but then not really like Chinese Chinese food either, or so the Chinese people I've met tell me. Admittedly, they've all been from Hong Kong or Schezuan.

When I grew up, my parents were considered very avant-garde for cooking various exotic dishes (like using recipes from Ethiopia where my grandparents lived as well as the Balkans and Indonesia etc). For restaurants... I actually remember when the first Indian restaurant in Sweden opened and one of my best friends from a small town didn't encounter pizza until she started university! For me, going to a high school where over 50% had non-Swedish-born parents, that just sounded crazy when I heard it.

Now you can find all sorts of exotic ingredients in the shops and tons of restaurants from all over. I have one Japanese, one Thai, one pizza joint and one Lebanese restaurant within 500 metres. Things have changed!

 

[LizzieMaine]

Yeah, but try to find a place that serves good pork chops and mashed potatoes. Someday I'd like to open an exotic "American" restaurant specializing in my own native cuisine.

As for fortune cookies, I used to write them. And for source material, I cribbed a lot of ideas from the Book of Proverbs. That's faux-Chinese by way of ancient Hebrew by way of working-class New England white girl. Who says the "Melting Pot" is dead.

 

[scottyrocks]

Hi

I have no clue if Olive Garden is authentic Italian or now, I've never been to Italy, AND I'm mostly German.

I Love Olive Garden's soup and salad lunch special. They usually have 5-6 types of soup, including a potato soup with spinach greens and a little sausage in it (Love it). I can eat their salad, but hey iceberg lettuce is iceberg lettuce.

Later

The OG unlimited salad is a great thing. It's fresh and and delicious, imo. The cooked meals are too salty, though, hence my previous comments on blood pressure.

 

[Flicka]

Yeah, but try to find a place that serves good pork chops and mashed potatoes. Someday I'd like to open an exotic "American" restaurant specializing in my own native cuisine.

For lunch, almost all restaurants serve Swedish food here (both the pizza place and the Lebanese do, for example). But I also know lots of restaurants where you can get gourmet Swedish food like pickled herring, meatballs and mash, and Biff Rydberg, which is about as traditionally Swedish as you can get (or raggmunk or Wallenbergare or... You get the picture). Closest place to me is a seaside place about 10 min walk away. They have all kinds of traditional stuff, with a slight emphasis on fish.

When I was a child, people dined out maybe once a year. Now they eat out more like once a week, so there's been a huge surge in restaurants in the past 15 years. But people still like traditionally stuff - to be honest, more so now than when I grew up, when faux-French was norm for better dinners.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

Yeah, but try to find a place that serves good pork chops and mashed potatoes. Someday I'd like to open an exotic "American" restaurant specializing in my own native cuisine.

Strangely enough, such a place would probably be a much greater success in London, Paris or Tokyo than Down East.

The dearth of "native cuisine" is apparently not limited to the US. I love looking at different parts of the world on Google Earth's streetview and I've noticed that in the UK that the once ubiquitous fish and chips shop has been largely replaced by the pizza/kebab shop on practically every High Street (the British equivalent of Main Street).

 

[John in Covina]

Chinese food in NYC is way different than Chinese food in Los Angeles. The best Chinese I have had was in Downtown Plattsburgh, NY around 1976 or so. My friends there said the Chinese in Montreal Canada was even better.

 

[John in Covina]

I miss clean cut appearances of professional athletes. Today many athletes look like drug crazed thugs or enforcers for motorcylce gang drug carrtels.

 

[LizzieMaine]

All that seemed to start around the time ballplayers starting considering themselves "athletes." Baseball was a better game when the players had to sell fishing rods at Sears in the off-season.

 

[scottyrocks]

Chinese food in NYC is way different than Chinese food in Los Angeles. The best Chinese I have had was in Downtown Plattsburgh, NY around 1976 or so. My friends there said the Chinese in Montreal Canada was even better.

'Round these parts, people will tell you there are two words when it comes to Chinese food in NY: Wo Hop!

 

[Wally_Hood]

For lunch, almost all restaurants serve Swedish food here (both the pizza place and the Lebanese do, for example). But I also know lots of restaurants where you can get gourmet Swedish food like pickled herring, meatballs and mash, and Biff Rydberg, which is about as traditionally Swedish as you can get (or raggmunk or Wallenbergare or... You get the picture). Closest place to me is a seaside place about 10 min walk away. They have all kinds of traditional stuff, with a slight emphasis on fish.

When I was a child, people dined out maybe once a year. Now they eat out more like once a week, so there's been a huge surge in restaurants in the past 15 years. But people still like traditionally stuff - to be honest, more so now than when I grew up, when faux-French was norm for better dinners.

Biff Rydberg, second base for the St. Louis Browns?

 

[Wally_Hood]

I miss clean cut appearances of professional athletes. Today many athletes look like drug crazed thugs or enforcers for motorcylce gang drug carrtels.

Cf. when Penn State played Miami in the Fiesta Bowl. Shirt, tie, blazer, recent haircuts vs. gangsta style.

 

[jamespowers]

I went to Olive Garden one time and that was enough

I wish I had your problem. I used to get dragged to that place at least once a month many years ago.:eusa_doh:

I miss a world where there was at least a semblance of propriety. Now it seems like the opposite is the case. You are expected to air dirty laundry and act crass.

 

[John in Covina]

All that seemed to start around the time ballplayers starting considering themselves "athletes." Baseball was a better game when the players had to sell fishing rods at Sears in the off-season.

It's funny that in the good old days the guys played extraordinary baseball but they also played hard and alot. There are pitching records that can't be broken because the prevailing theme is to pull a pitcher after 100-120 pitches. I think there was one guy that pitched in 4 games in one world series. You probably won't see that in a long time.

 

[John in Covina]

One thing that has changed is with the use of rubber for the soles of a lot of footwear these days, my carpets and rugs get filthy pretty fast. It's like todays shoes and sneakers are a rubber stamp for dirt, grease, oil and schmutz in general.

 

[jamespowers]

One thing that has changed is with the use of rubber for the soles of a lot of footwear these days, my carpets and rugs get filthy pretty fast. It's like todays shoes and sneakers are a rubber stamp for dirt, grease, oil and schmutz in general.

Which is one of the reasons I don't wear them much.

 

[LizzieMaine]

It's funny that in the good old days the guys played extraordinary baseball but they also played hard and alot. There are pitching records that can't be broken because the prevailing theme is to pull a pitcher after 100-120 pitches. I think there was one guy that pitched in 4 games in one world series. You probably won't see that in a long time.

Even in recent times, it was common for a starting pitcher -- an ordinary pitcher, not a star -- to go over 300 innings a year, and have ten or fifteen complete games out of 30 starts. Nowadays any complete game pitched by anyone is a cause for comment. I think it's mostly a matter of owners coddling their expensive toys rather than any particular concern for the well-being of the pitcher himself. A ten-million dollar arm won't do you ten cents worth of good if it's on the disabled list.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

One thing that has changed is with the use of rubber for the soles of a lot of footwear these days, my carpets and rugs get filthy pretty fast. It's like todays shoes and sneakers are a rubber stamp for dirt, grease, oil and schmutz in general.

One reason that I can think of for rubber soles on shoes & boots it that you are less likely to slip on surfaces when compared to leather soles. I know that it's nearly inpossible to find work boots without rubber soles.

 

[Flicka]

One thing that has changed is with the use of rubber for the soles of a lot of footwear these days, my carpets and rugs get filthy pretty fast. It's like todays shoes and sneakers are a rubber stamp for dirt, grease, oil and schmutz in general.

You know, us Swedes, we don't wear shoes indoors. It's socks only, or change into special 'indoors shoes'. I think the idea of walking indoors - on carpets even! - in shoes you've used in the streets is pretty disgusting.