Modern foods our grandmothers wouldn’t eat

For us, “the product is in short supply” means that there is no buckwheat on the shelves for two whole days. Or it is there, but the choice is small. Etc.

At the same time, many people of the older generation, those who grew up in the 70s and 80s, still go to supermarkets as on a tour. We asked our mothers and grandmothers to walk through the modern grocery rows and remember what would have surprised them if it appeared on the counter even before the collapse of the USSR.

Cereals in boiling bags

It is now to cook a portion of buckwheat – it’s a matter of 20 minutes. I boiled water, salted it, threw in a bag of cereals and just wait. And before it was a whole process: first sort it out, then calcine in a dry frying pan and only then cook. However, cereals in ordinary packages have not gone anywhere either, but their quality is much better, and it is not at all necessary to bother in this way.

Ready minced meat

It was sold at Cookery in large frozen briquettes. But they rarely bought it: every self-respecting housewife had a meat grinder at home. Our parents simply did not have such luxury as buying chilled fresh minced meat in a hypermarket.

Sliced ​​bread

Another pampering, as our grandmothers would say. Why buy already sliced ​​bread, or if there are no knives at home? Anyway, all these pits, tortillas, cereals with chia seeds … There is white, and there is dark. What else does? But now it is tasty, convenient and healthy. And, by the way, the same grandmothers take such packages with pleasure.

Tea bags

Another invention for the lazy. But what about Krasnodarsky? “Georgian”? “Indian”? There was even a gradation in Soviet houses. Scarce “with an elephant” – on the table for guests. The simpler one can be left for every day. Today, the art of brewing loose leaf tea has not gone anywhere. And tea bags are an opportunity to get your favorite drink quickly and with any taste. And without the nasty tea leaves constantly creeping into your mouth.

Ready meals

From something similar that was in Soviet stores, the participants in our experiment remembered only bouillon cubes. They were on sale back in the late 60s, although they were not at all like modern ones. The first such cubes were sold by weight and without a wrapper.

But about the “Doshirak”, “Rollton” and others like them, even at the end of the 80s have not yet heard. That would have laughed at you then, if you told me that for mashed potatoes it is not necessary to cook and crush potatoes, but it is enough to pour boiling water over the dry powder in a plastic cup. By the way, instant porridge also appeared on the market only in the late 90s.

Exotic fruits and vegetables

One could have given a Soviet hostess a thousand avocado recipes, but she would not have prepared any of them. Simply because the avocado itself was not in ordinary shops of the Union. However, like mango, grapefruit, kiwi and much more. Bananas were the biggest exotic, and they were sold mainly on the streets, otherwise the queue would not fit in the store.

Yoghurts

For the first time, yogurt in its modern sense appeared in Russia in the early 90s. The first Russian manufacturer was Wimm-Bill-Dann.

Yes, in Soviet times there was fruit kefir that tasted like it. There were sour milk curdled milk, “Snezhki” – also something similar, but not the same. But the yogurt, the kind we are used to, was definitely not there. But now you can choose for every taste and wallet: yogurt has become one of the most favorite products.

Packaged juices

Pasteurized, long shelf life. Such people also appeared in modern Russia. More precisely, they poured here in the mid-90s to replace the soluble “Invita”, “Yupi” and “Zuko”. Initially they were exported from abroad, but in 1994 “J7” appeared, the first packaged juice of Russian production.

By the way, the current juice of the era of the USSR still cannot be compared. That one – apple, grape, tomato, sold in three-liter bottles, with an unprepossessing label and for some reason in vegetable stores, was perhaps the most delicious.

Bottled water

Yes, until the end of the last century we simply would not have been understood. Why bottle water if it is not carbonated, not mineral? Why sell regular drinking water when there is always a tap and running water? Nevertheless, from the mid-90s, this market began to gain momentum. Let’s keep silent that many plastic bottles actually contain the same tap water, and simply state the fact: this was definitely not the case in Soviet stores.

Meat and cheese cuts

“If in Soviet times we had asked for cheese in slices in a store, and even in branded packaging, we would have received psychiatric help,” laughs one of the participants in our experiment. – However, bought by weight sausage – “Doctor’s” or “Tea” – could be asked to cut. But that would be a favor on the part of the seller. And in the best case, a loaf of sausage would be chopped into several pieces. ” 

Here we add that with the assortment of cheeses and sausages, in principle, it was not as interesting as it is now. No, in Gastronome No. 1 in Moscow or in Eliseevsky in Leningrad, you could buy loin, brisket, and perhaps even brie with camembert. But few were shopping there. And in ordinary stores there was no such variety.

“We were lucky to get some sausages,” Soviet housewives recall. – For some reason they were a delicacy. But there were a lot of sausages. “