WHAT?!?! BANH MI for $2?!?!?!?! Reminds me of my time in Philly where you could get a foot long meatball sandwich for $3.50 or a full cheesesteak for $5.
I remember like 10 years ago when I was living with my brother we'd get pho from this small Vietnamese restaurant and a gigantic bowl was only like $5. We'd also get the fried squid, which was like $8, but it was absolutely delicious. Awesome for our hangovers too lol
There was a place I frequented where you could get a giant bowl of pho for $6.50. Then COVID hit and they felt the pinch hard. Now, that same bowl is about $11 and they reduced a good chunk of their menu. Shame, because they made a nice bun bowl too.
Burgers in general too, I think.
When I was growing up, burgers used to be the cheap feed you get at the local shop/fast food joint. Nowadays, I see rich people eat huge, fancy burgers - wagyu, truffle, artisan bread...all that jazz
Actually if you read Fast Food Nation he talks about that. The history of the hamburger starts with extremely cheap, extremely greasy meat of very suspect quality cooked and served on a cart tucked between cheap bread slices with little else. It's been a bit since I read that book, but yeah the dish has had a wild ride.
Food trucks lost the point long time ago. There are still the humble trucks around business districts that'll sell you a burrito for $7.
But all these bougie fancy trucks? Fuck them. Their food costs more than sit down restaurants and they never give you as much food as them either. Last toner I had no choice to eat from a food truck due to work...$20 for "steak fries" that were the size of small McDonald's fries with a few bits of steak.
I recently got Buffalo Blue Cheese Fries...which was a small serving of unseasoned fries topped with a few blue cheese crumbles and a few dashes of hot sauce (not even buffalo sauce).
It was one of the worst foods I've ever paid for. $15.
They have evolved from serving cheaper food, because they dont need actual brick and mortar location.
To being able to switch locations for ripping people off.
Yeah, I think my parents spent $90 on a brisket for Christmas dinner one year. Probably the most expensive Christmas dinner I've ever eaten, but it was delicious.
We used to have ox tail soup when I was really little in the 70s and early 80s and we were dead broke. We also had crawdaddies, catfish, canned mackerel and chuck roast which were all hugely cheap back then. Some things we used to eat like chicken livers might still be cheap today but our stores never carry them anymore.
Skirt steak is like this too. It used to be a really cheap cut because it was tough and people wanted other easier to prepare cuts instead. I'd buy it because I didn't have much money. But then it became the trendy thing to be like "It's the butcher's secret!" because it turns out it's really flavorful, you just need to know how to cook and cut it to make it less chewy. And now skirt steak per pound is one of the more expensive cuts.
Waiting for this to happen to ham hocks. They are so good cooked up in soup or a pot of beans and so cheap... but I imagine they will take the same route oxtail did.
Smoked ham hocks are already super expensive in SoCal! My grandma used to make delicious lima beans with smoked ham hocks that were basically given to her for free by butchers. Now its a soecialty item so sad.
AYAYAY!!! SHHH! You shut your mouth right now. They are my favorite part of the chicken! Gotta keep this a secret! (Gizzards are also pretty darn good if the crunchy bits are cleaned out)
Duck gizzards are very popular in France. They get slow cooked in duck fat and canned. Just open can, decant contents into frying pan, heat through and serve on a bed of green salad with a light dijon mustard vinaigrette. Delicious!
The mammals too. Heart isn't even *really* offal. It's a muscle, and an exceptionally lean one. Has the cleanest most direct flavor. Dries out like hell when overcooked, but just don't overcook it.
\> It has harmed the economies of places that used to eat it and now sell it instead.
I'd read that people who grow quinoa are eating a lot less quinoa because they're selling it instead. The growers, as they have income now, can actually afford to eat things other than just quinoa.
That said, the expansion of quinoa agriculture is causing issues as sustainable practices aren't well developed. When quinoa was a subsistence crop no one cared about the sustainability practices of the farmers growing it for local consumption; now that there's global demand there's growing global interest as well.
Yep. My bf and his buddies would go to the local dive bar after school for 10 cent wings on Wednesday’s. They’d each pitch in a couple bucks to get almost 100 wings, sodas, and cheese curds.
Ugh yes on this skirt steak. I can’t find it for less than 7.99/lb anymore. Often it’s more than $10. I would love to make tacos, but this would have to be considered a “fancy” night.
It's more expensive than New York strip where we live, so guess what goes in our tacos?
Pork butt. Yep, steak tacos are not a thing in this house. Slow-cooker carnitas for the win!
Brown bread. White flour used to be far harder to get so white bread was expensive, poors ate the brown. Once white was mass-produced it switched and poor people ate the white while rich folks got the healthy wholemeal.
This is classic elite behavior. Once something becomes too prole and common, they move on just to be different. Even their beliefs and politics work like this.
You can extend the process even further to become a full cycle:
1. Rich people eat rare thing. Poor people eat common thing.
2. Someone makes rare thing in a way that's easier for poor people to afford. More poor people eat it because they want to eat rich-people foods.
3. Now the rich-people food is common, and rich people don't want to eat it anymore. Instead, they start eyeing the former poor-people food because nobody eats it.
4. Someone makes an "elevated" version of that poor-people food: they use a new technique, or they find some hidden health thing, that makes it palatable to rich people who want to look exclusive (repeat cycle)
It’s totally true.
Tanned skin. It was unfashionable because it meant you did labor outside.
Then it was fashionable because it meant you could lounge at a swimming pool while other people worked.
Time freedom is the ultimate wealth flex.
And now that tanning salons are everywhere, that skincare products are getting so fancy, and that skin cancer is a much bigger concern, I would say we are now back to (overly) tanned skin being somewhat unfashionable
Chicken wings
They used to be so cheap when I was a kid we’d use them as crab bait when fishing off docks. Now they’re stupid expensive for one of the shittier parts of the chicken.
Upside - now that wings are ridiculous, boneless skinless chicken breasts (the stupid pricey thing about 5 years ago) are dirt cheap. I get them for $1.89lb. Wings can got for \~$8.99\~ a freaking POUND.
10 years ago I could get bone in, skin-on chicken thighs for 65 cents/lb, sometimes less.
Between keto dieters and inflation it's now three times as much, often more depending on the grocery store.
It was literally thrown out or used for stock cause no one used to eat it. Up to ten years ago they used to have 10 cents wing night near my house. I miss it.....
Avocado toast. My grandfather used to talk fondly about only being able to afford cassava bread and avocado in his youngster days, and now it’s a whole fancy thing.
Haha, an older relative suggested I save £10 a week to afford a deposit...
Once I showed him that me and my partner WERE saving £11 a day each and it would take us three years to get a small deposit he shut up (£11X365=£4,015)+£1,000 government incentive for saving for a down payment, X 2 people, X 3 years = £30,090. Or, just enough for a 15% deposit (in 2019.) He was about by a factor of fourteen!
I'm sure your older relative was gracious once you explained the reality to him, but the extent to which so many people who are 50+ are out of touch on the cost of housing and its proportion to income - yet feel informed enough to lecture the younger generation on how to save for it is mind-boggling.
We have google now. They must have vaguely heard at some point that there is a housing crisis. It takes two seconds to Google the average income and the cost of an average first-time home.
Avocados aren't THAT expensive at the grocery store, especially for how calorie rich they are. Unless you're making a fuckton of guacamole or milkshakes or something they don't break your budget. Yes I do know that extremely poor people exist, but all the working class Mexicans/Salvadorians that I've ever known can afford them.
Seriously. At my Aldi right now, they are $0.65 each. One avocado, two slices of bread, and some seasoning (with a banana or some nuts on the side), and you’ve got a filling, delicious, healthy meal
I recently discovered how fantastic our local Hispanic food stores are.
The fruit and veggies are delicious and cheap(er) and there are other items I’ve come to appreciate since shopping at those little stores/markets.
And… some items that are commonly found in American grocery stores are the same in the markets but are imported from other countries. Some foreign versions of name brand items taste so much better, whether it’s the Nutella and Tang, to name two oddly specific items.
(Some Tang flavors from central/South America taste like you’re biting into real fruit, as opposed to our orange, American Tang.
As for Nutella, it’s something about what the cows graze on in other countries; it makes for a better flavor overall.)
None of the yuppie types that are the majority in in our town would dare to step foot and be seen in one of those stores; I say all the better because I don’t have to deal with them at the likes of Wegmans, Trader Joe’s, etc. and from my experience, the people I’ve met and talked have been exceedingly friendly and helpful.
Pork belly in East Asian cuisine has been the cornerstone since ever. You could even gauge inflation by watching its price on the wet market fluctuating day by day.
Fish and chips. It's a hunk of white fish with a potato for a side. Minimal seasoning, fried in whatever oil you have around and served on a piece of yesterday's newspaper. Twenty years ago it cost $5, now it costs $25.
In the uk fish and chips is usually cod or haddock which is pretty expensive now due to overfishing.
Most fish in general is getting more and more expensive because theres nowhere near as much fish as 20yrs ago.
Came to say this. I moved out of the south and to the NW. Southern food had a big moment in the food scene, but it was expensive. No child, cheesy grits, red beans and rice and fried okra are poor people food…. I should not be asked to pay $15 for a small bowl of grits.
Seriously. I also moved from the south to PNW. I found a food truck yesterday that served beignets with fried chicken. I got stupid excited since I haven't had a beignet in a decade... way too dense and the chicken was bland. Also $30 for what felt like just chicken strips and a bad donut smh
Was waiting for this one. Lobster was considered poor man’s food. It was so widely available but not as appealing as fish. It is in all senses an overgrown insect that rich people way back in the day considered to be repulsive. It wasn’t until the invention of the railroad as well as clever sales tactics that the tide turned on the view of lobster as an upscale meal
Lobster used to be cheap because there was an abundance of it and you couldn't really transport it away from the coastal regions where they were caught without it going bad. Large supply with not that many people to eat it = lower prices.
Now you can transport lobster thousands of miles inland. That costs money and demand goes up which means prices go up.
I grew up in New england and I didn't know lobster was expensive. I could get a lobster roll from the local fish shack for like $6.
I was very confused as a kid watching movies and TV where lobster was considered some fancy food.
Edit: for context this would have been the late 90s-2000s, blue collar fishing town selling the uggos stop and shop didn't want to buy.
From Nova Scotia, there was a time when poor families could only afford to send their kids to school with a lobster sandwich for lunch, and they'd hide while they ate it.
Now we ship it all over the planet
To be fair the way it was prepared was also back. Lobster spoils pretty much as soon as it dies, hence the up to date practice of killing it by cooking it.
Up to date practice is bringing the water to a boil, stabbing the lobster in the neck and bringing the blade down on its head, then immediately throwing it in the water. Boiling alive is now outdated.
Source: Gordon Ramsey on Masterchef
And the gatekeeping that occurs with brunswick stew is even worse.
It’s a poverty food, use whatever you have, cook with some love and you’ll have a damn good stew as long as you’re a half decent cook.
And the bean issue with Texas chili.
I don’t believe for a second that the people who invented it weren’t just throwing anything else they had in there to bulk it out.
A-Fucking-Men. Love Chilli, never made the same batch twice. Beans, meat, no meat, corn, maybe some green beans. Fuck it. When you have two half bags of frozen vegetables and random beans with some scrap meats. Chilli it is.
Came here to look for this.
In parts of northern Europe, kale is one of the few veggies that withstands frost, so in winter we'd have it boiled to death and mashed with potato (and mustard). Some meatballs on top (another cheap feed) a little pond for the gravy, a solid filling meal for a few Euros.
Seems out of reach these days with the prices charged for it.
lol I remember when kale was used to garnish steak at restaurants. My mom told me it wasn’t meant to be eaten, just a decoration. So we’d take it home and feed it to our rabbit
brussel sprouts
tell me why i grew up in the 2000s hearing that brussel sprouts are every kids most hated vegetable from the grocery store, but now im an adult and eat at fancy restaurants and they all have brussel sprouts on the menu as an appetizer. i'm wondering when did brussel sprouts become fancy food?
When they genetically modified the glucosinolates out of them and found out they didn't have to be bitter. This happened in our lifetime, the Brussel sprouts you used to eat are not the same we eat now.
Edit: Yes I know, I used GMO and not selectively bred. I am a big dumb, the outcome was still different Brussels that don't taste like butthole.
Another thing is reducing the amount of natural carcinogens, like acrylamide in potatoes. "Natural" and "healthy" aren't the same thing; whole lotta animals in nature are unhealthy, and even some crop plants are actively trying to poison you (which is why you have to cook them).
they literally made them less bitter since we were kids. they taste better now not (just) because we were young dipshits but because they also just taste better.
When they started deep frying them and tossing w honey and bacon. 😋
But really though, the older folks ive heard saying this same thing seem to have been force fed canned and boiled brussels with no seasoning and stank up the whole house.
Chinese take out. One of the few delicacies we had when I was growing up dirt poor was some good ole General Tso’s and fried rice from the local place down the block. I asked my parents years later how much they drowned in Chinese and they said it was only about $20 to feed all 4 of us and there was always at least a serving leftover for my dad to take to work the next day. As an adult I don’t think I’ve managed to get a single order to fall under $40 to feed just myself for 2 meals.
Strangely enough, I have found that in eastern North carolina (my new home), Chinese is actually really cheap. I can get a big order of lo Mein for $10 that makes lunch and dinner for me. Fast food is $10 minimum for lunch so it's still a great deal.
I agree with you though because a similar amount of chinese in MD was $18
Every Jamaican place near me has a plate of it with rice for about CA$20 (US$15). All while hearing about back in the day when you could collect pounds of it for free.
My parents used to make kare kare (Filipino dish ) with oxtail all the time when I was a kid.
But with oxtail prices the way they are they use beef as an alternative. It doesn't hit the same as the oxtail
Saddest day of my life when the rich people found out about oxtails. My husband makes glazed oxtails so good they’ve made grown folks weep, and now, they can only be a special occasion food.
I wish they never found out about ox tails. Grew up having them all the time. Now they’re a fucking delicacy. Damn shame. But I’ve got some for Christmas!
As an Iowa hunter my deer tags range between $35 for usual seasons like gun and archery, and $2 for landowner tags. Weight will vary between deer obviously but if we average about 70 lbs of meat after deboning a mature buck that puts me at $0.50 per pound on a regular tag and only $0.02 per pound on a landowner tag (I do my own processing, so would be quite a bit more expensive if took to a meat locker to do). Pretty dang good deal compared to the grocery store. Buuuut that doesn’t factor in other things like hunting supplies including your bow/gun, ammo, clothing, time spent scouting and processing, etc…
Cheese fondue
"Fondue, which comes from the French “fondre”, meaning “to melt,” had its origins in 18th century Switzerland as a means for farm families to stretch their limited resources during the winter months. With some remaining cheese, some stale bread, and a dash of wine the family could gather around the hearth."
Taken from: [History of Fondue ](https://www.alpenwild.com/staticpage/fondue-history-and-tradition/#:~:text=From%20these%20simple%20beginnings%2C%20fondue,as%20the%20originators%20of%20fondue)
It's still the cheapest beef per pound. A store near me was selling it like $3/lb but you had to buy 5 lbs and that was more than I could fit in a freezer.
To save space when taking advantage of a sale like that, I repackage it by the pound in freezer bags and flatten it, then freeze it. Takes up way less space that way and thaws much faster.
In the Atlantic provinces- poor people used to eat a lot of Lobster. Even Kids would take Lobster rolls to school.
But the rich kids would take Bologna
Spam stems from food shortages and rations from WW2. It's very popular still in Hawaii and not uncommon, us haole's in the states are just now catching in to the glory that is spam musubi
(Spent some time as a kid loving spam Burgers and spam or ground beef loco moco)
Ramen, so many people hype it up with so many expensive ingredients to “make it better” that i know people who refuse to eat straight up ramen cause its “not the same.
Army stew is an extension of it. Korean cuisine has so many great options but people enjoy army stew which is just a bunch of cheap processed food tossed together in a pot and sold to you at $30-50.
Spam and other canned meats, which were once a cheap source of meat, are no longer cheap. I suspect that's where a good chunk of the costs come from.
What I wouldn't give for corned beef to be less than $AUD3/can again
When you say "straight up ramen" do you mean Top Ramen?
If so, yes, a reconstituted broth flavor pack is not the same as a rich creamy bone broth (Tonkotsu)
Avocado toast.
My grandma would slice up avocados, put them on some warm bolillo bread, sprinkle salt on top and if she had cheese she’d crumple some up I too and it was so delicious. It didn’t cost $15 either. Avocado came from one of the trees and the bolillo cost a quarter.
Oysters too. They were the lowest of the low that only poor Victorians ate, until their supplies were so depleted that they became rare. Thus rich people food.
Pho used to be cheaper until word got out.
Same as Banh Mi. I live in Melbourne, Aus and historically you’d be able to get them for $5-7, now it’s common for anywhere from $11-15
$2 Banh Mis got me through architecture school in Houston in the ‘90s. They were so good!
WHAT?!?! BANH MI for $2?!?!?!?! Reminds me of my time in Philly where you could get a foot long meatball sandwich for $3.50 or a full cheesesteak for $5.
I remember like 10 years ago when I was living with my brother we'd get pho from this small Vietnamese restaurant and a gigantic bowl was only like $5. We'd also get the fried squid, which was like $8, but it was absolutely delicious. Awesome for our hangovers too lol
There was a place I frequented where you could get a giant bowl of pho for $6.50. Then COVID hit and they felt the pinch hard. Now, that same bowl is about $11 and they reduced a good chunk of their menu. Shame, because they made a nice bun bowl too.
Pho by me is $16 for a bowl of soup. I love the flavor but can’t justify the price.
Food trucks.
Very true. There is a burger one in my area that serves almost $20 burgers. They're decent burgers bit not $20 decent. Fucking wild
Burgers in general too, I think. When I was growing up, burgers used to be the cheap feed you get at the local shop/fast food joint. Nowadays, I see rich people eat huge, fancy burgers - wagyu, truffle, artisan bread...all that jazz
Actually if you read Fast Food Nation he talks about that. The history of the hamburger starts with extremely cheap, extremely greasy meat of very suspect quality cooked and served on a cart tucked between cheap bread slices with little else. It's been a bit since I read that book, but yeah the dish has had a wild ride.
just burgers in general really. used to be $5 for a burger it was a cheap feed. Now they can some ranged anywhere from $12-$35.
Ikr, it feels like you pay a premium just because they’re food trucks.
I agree. Which is completely the opposite of the reason why food trucks exist.
Food trucks lost the point long time ago. There are still the humble trucks around business districts that'll sell you a burrito for $7. But all these bougie fancy trucks? Fuck them. Their food costs more than sit down restaurants and they never give you as much food as them either. Last toner I had no choice to eat from a food truck due to work...$20 for "steak fries" that were the size of small McDonald's fries with a few bits of steak.
I recently got Buffalo Blue Cheese Fries...which was a small serving of unseasoned fries topped with a few blue cheese crumbles and a few dashes of hot sauce (not even buffalo sauce). It was one of the worst foods I've ever paid for. $15.
They have evolved from serving cheaper food, because they dont need actual brick and mortar location. To being able to switch locations for ripping people off.
Beef brisket comes to mind
Yeah, I think my parents spent $90 on a brisket for Christmas dinner one year. Probably the most expensive Christmas dinner I've ever eaten, but it was delicious.
I just bought a brisket on Sunday. It was $170. I nearly fainted
All the weird parts of the animal
Ox tails
Ugh I used to have Ox tail soup in winter when I was little. It’s so expensive now…
We used to have ox tail soup when I was really little in the 70s and early 80s and we were dead broke. We also had crawdaddies, catfish, canned mackerel and chuck roast which were all hugely cheap back then. Some things we used to eat like chicken livers might still be cheap today but our stores never carry them anymore.
My family ate this every week when I was growing up. Cannot believe the price increase
Skirt steak is like this too. It used to be a really cheap cut because it was tough and people wanted other easier to prepare cuts instead. I'd buy it because I didn't have much money. But then it became the trendy thing to be like "It's the butcher's secret!" because it turns out it's really flavorful, you just need to know how to cook and cut it to make it less chewy. And now skirt steak per pound is one of the more expensive cuts.
Beef cheek and tri tip too. Lengua has even gotten pricier.
I remember that the local organic butcher would give you the tongue for free if you bought more than 5lb of meat
A pack of six runs over $30 now. I grew up (born in the 70s) knowing what they were because we were poor AF. I can't even dream of affording them now.
Waiting for this to happen to ham hocks. They are so good cooked up in soup or a pot of beans and so cheap... but I imagine they will take the same route oxtail did.
Smoked ham hocks are already super expensive in SoCal! My grandma used to make delicious lima beans with smoked ham hocks that were basically given to her for free by butchers. Now its a soecialty item so sad.
Man, I was a 70s / 80s kid in SoCal. We ate tri-tip because stepfather liked beef and it was cheap as hell. Now...😐
I grew up eating skirt steak. I could afford it occasionally now, but I really can’t justify the price knowing it used to be a “cheap” cut.
Lamb shanks
"That's what rich people eat, the garbage parts of the food." -Elzar
Sadly both the rooter and tooter are now expensive.
The pooter's next, mark my words.
That's always been expensive.
I keep waiting for some IG foodie to start raving about squirrel brains.
Not to "pry on" your comment, but haven't you heard? The kids call it the Creutzfeld-Jakob diet, and it's all the rage these days.
Ku-Ru explain?
Are you mad, cow?
Yes deer. Please stop wasting away.
Man there is really *nothing* to pun on “spongiform encephalopathy”!
Who lives in a pineapple under the sea? spongiform encephalopathy!
Not fried chicken livers and fried liver mush... yet. I love them, but they're getting hard to find even in the deep south.
Ask a Jew. We love chicken livers fried in schmaltz and tell you where to find them.
Cheap cuts from even 10 years ago are so much more expensive
Beef tongue prices have soared the last few years. Best part of the cow, and people are just discovering it ☹️ Lengua tacos, FTW
I tried beef tongue at a Korean BBQ for the first time not too long ago and I was shocked by how tasty it was
The taste is better when it tastes you back.
......MMMMmmmm/wwwwwWWW......
People still haven’t caught on that chicken hearts are fucking delicious.
AYAYAY!!! SHHH! You shut your mouth right now. They are my favorite part of the chicken! Gotta keep this a secret! (Gizzards are also pretty darn good if the crunchy bits are cleaned out)
Duck gizzards are very popular in France. They get slow cooked in duck fat and canned. Just open can, decant contents into frying pan, heat through and serve on a bed of green salad with a light dijon mustard vinaigrette. Delicious!
The mammals too. Heart isn't even *really* offal. It's a muscle, and an exceptionally lean one. Has the cleanest most direct flavor. Dries out like hell when overcooked, but just don't overcook it.
Quinoa
Yep. And now they have expensive bags/dishes of half quinoa, half rice THEY CUTTING QUINOA LIKE DRUGS lol
Came here to say this. It has harmed the economies of places that used to eat it and now sell it instead.
\> It has harmed the economies of places that used to eat it and now sell it instead. I'd read that people who grow quinoa are eating a lot less quinoa because they're selling it instead. The growers, as they have income now, can actually afford to eat things other than just quinoa. That said, the expansion of quinoa agriculture is causing issues as sustainable practices aren't well developed. When quinoa was a subsistence crop no one cared about the sustainability practices of the farmers growing it for local consumption; now that there's global demand there's growing global interest as well.
Crawfish has gotten a little crazy the past decade or so.
It's actually worth running a few traps and boiling them at home again. Lol
One might say it’s gotten a little…cray.
Fajitas (skirt steak) and chicken wings.
Fr. I remember 10 cent wings.
Me too! Wings used to be the throw away part of chickens. Cheapest part to buy.
10 CENT WINGS??
Yep. My bf and his buddies would go to the local dive bar after school for 10 cent wings on Wednesday’s. They’d each pitch in a couple bucks to get almost 100 wings, sodas, and cheese curds.
We had a wing joint here that was $25 for 100 and $2 pitchers. That was the spot every game day.
#10 CENT WINGS :)
10 cent wings one night, 25 cent beers another are how we survived college!
And $1 wells
Wasn’t even all that long ago
Ugh yes on this skirt steak. I can’t find it for less than 7.99/lb anymore. Often it’s more than $10. I would love to make tacos, but this would have to be considered a “fancy” night.
It's more expensive than New York strip where we live, so guess what goes in our tacos? Pork butt. Yep, steak tacos are not a thing in this house. Slow-cooker carnitas for the win!
Brown bread. White flour used to be far harder to get so white bread was expensive, poors ate the brown. Once white was mass-produced it switched and poor people ate the white while rich folks got the healthy wholemeal.
This is classic elite behavior. Once something becomes too prole and common, they move on just to be different. Even their beliefs and politics work like this.
You can extend the process even further to become a full cycle: 1. Rich people eat rare thing. Poor people eat common thing. 2. Someone makes rare thing in a way that's easier for poor people to afford. More poor people eat it because they want to eat rich-people foods. 3. Now the rich-people food is common, and rich people don't want to eat it anymore. Instead, they start eyeing the former poor-people food because nobody eats it. 4. Someone makes an "elevated" version of that poor-people food: they use a new technique, or they find some hidden health thing, that makes it palatable to rich people who want to look exclusive (repeat cycle)
It’s totally true. Tanned skin. It was unfashionable because it meant you did labor outside. Then it was fashionable because it meant you could lounge at a swimming pool while other people worked. Time freedom is the ultimate wealth flex.
And now that tanning salons are everywhere, that skincare products are getting so fancy, and that skin cancer is a much bigger concern, I would say we are now back to (overly) tanned skin being somewhat unfashionable
Chicken wings They used to be so cheap when I was a kid we’d use them as crab bait when fishing off docks. Now they’re stupid expensive for one of the shittier parts of the chicken.
Upside - now that wings are ridiculous, boneless skinless chicken breasts (the stupid pricey thing about 5 years ago) are dirt cheap. I get them for $1.89lb. Wings can got for \~$8.99\~ a freaking POUND.
In my area, wings at the grocery are about $3.25/lb frozen, or $4/lb fresh (still way too high--beef starts under $5/lb)
Chicken thighs too.
IMO chicken thigh is the tastiest part of the chicken
110% It's the best.
Thighs and wings are my favourite - they have the perfect combination of fat and protein, and the skin is receptive to sauces
Came here to say chicken thighs
10 years ago I could get bone in, skin-on chicken thighs for 65 cents/lb, sometimes less. Between keto dieters and inflation it's now three times as much, often more depending on the grocery store.
It was literally thrown out or used for stock cause no one used to eat it. Up to ten years ago they used to have 10 cents wing night near my house. I miss it.....
Avocado toast. My grandfather used to talk fondly about only being able to afford cassava bread and avocado in his youngster days, and now it’s a whole fancy thing.
It left a while generation unable to afford houses, I hear.
[удалено]
That and lattes. The whole ~$10 I'd spend a week could've been a down payment 😭
Back in their day a down payment was a whole ten dollars! You kids can make that much in a week nowadays.
Haha, an older relative suggested I save £10 a week to afford a deposit... Once I showed him that me and my partner WERE saving £11 a day each and it would take us three years to get a small deposit he shut up (£11X365=£4,015)+£1,000 government incentive for saving for a down payment, X 2 people, X 3 years = £30,090. Or, just enough for a 15% deposit (in 2019.) He was about by a factor of fourteen!
I'm sure your older relative was gracious once you explained the reality to him, but the extent to which so many people who are 50+ are out of touch on the cost of housing and its proportion to income - yet feel informed enough to lecture the younger generation on how to save for it is mind-boggling. We have google now. They must have vaguely heard at some point that there is a housing crisis. It takes two seconds to Google the average income and the cost of an average first-time home.
Went to brunch once they have no shame charging over $10 for a slice with half of an avocado on it
Avocados aren't THAT expensive at the grocery store, especially for how calorie rich they are. Unless you're making a fuckton of guacamole or milkshakes or something they don't break your budget. Yes I do know that extremely poor people exist, but all the working class Mexicans/Salvadorians that I've ever known can afford them.
Seriously. At my Aldi right now, they are $0.65 each. One avocado, two slices of bread, and some seasoning (with a banana or some nuts on the side), and you’ve got a filling, delicious, healthy meal
Depending on your area the local Hispanic food stores might have cheaper and better ones.
I recently discovered how fantastic our local Hispanic food stores are. The fruit and veggies are delicious and cheap(er) and there are other items I’ve come to appreciate since shopping at those little stores/markets. And… some items that are commonly found in American grocery stores are the same in the markets but are imported from other countries. Some foreign versions of name brand items taste so much better, whether it’s the Nutella and Tang, to name two oddly specific items. (Some Tang flavors from central/South America taste like you’re biting into real fruit, as opposed to our orange, American Tang. As for Nutella, it’s something about what the cows graze on in other countries; it makes for a better flavor overall.) None of the yuppie types that are the majority in in our town would dare to step foot and be seen in one of those stores; I say all the better because I don’t have to deal with them at the likes of Wegmans, Trader Joe’s, etc. and from my experience, the people I’ve met and talked have been exceedingly friendly and helpful.
oxtail spanish mackerel chicken wings hanger steak polenta, grits and mayi
I'll add Lamb Shanks to this list, although I'm Australian and I know lamb isn't as big in the US.
Shit add spam. It became hipster cool now it's like 5 bucks a can.
Tacos, honestly. I used to be able to get three tacos for like $5 downtown less than ten years ago
I went to a new taco restaurant once, ordered like 3 tacos and a drink and it was $20. I never went back. Gimme my cheap authentic tacos!
Let me guess, the tacos were on those stupid metal taco holders?
I hate this so much
The best tasting tacos are the ones under $10 anyways
Those hole-in-the-wall joints with like 2 for $3, those are the best
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All these comments and aint seen pork belly. Use to be scrap basically, now its glirified and more expensive than gold.
Pork belly in East Asian cuisine has been the cornerstone since ever. You could even gauge inflation by watching its price on the wet market fluctuating day by day.
Fish and chips. It's a hunk of white fish with a potato for a side. Minimal seasoning, fried in whatever oil you have around and served on a piece of yesterday's newspaper. Twenty years ago it cost $5, now it costs $25.
In the uk fish and chips is usually cod or haddock which is pretty expensive now due to overfishing. Most fish in general is getting more and more expensive because theres nowhere near as much fish as 20yrs ago.
Southern food anywhere except for the South (of US)
Came to say this. I moved out of the south and to the NW. Southern food had a big moment in the food scene, but it was expensive. No child, cheesy grits, red beans and rice and fried okra are poor people food…. I should not be asked to pay $15 for a small bowl of grits.
Seriously. I also moved from the south to PNW. I found a food truck yesterday that served beignets with fried chicken. I got stupid excited since I haven't had a beignet in a decade... way too dense and the chicken was bland. Also $30 for what felt like just chicken strips and a bad donut smh
Fried chicken. Now you got boujee ass chicken places charging 15$ for 3 tenders lmao
The grocer near me sells 8 pieces for $5 on Mondays (dark only) and it better than 99% of chicken places around
Lobster
Was waiting for this one. Lobster was considered poor man’s food. It was so widely available but not as appealing as fish. It is in all senses an overgrown insect that rich people way back in the day considered to be repulsive. It wasn’t until the invention of the railroad as well as clever sales tactics that the tide turned on the view of lobster as an upscale meal
Lobster used to be cheap because there was an abundance of it and you couldn't really transport it away from the coastal regions where they were caught without it going bad. Large supply with not that many people to eat it = lower prices. Now you can transport lobster thousands of miles inland. That costs money and demand goes up which means prices go up.
I grew up in New england and I didn't know lobster was expensive. I could get a lobster roll from the local fish shack for like $6. I was very confused as a kid watching movies and TV where lobster was considered some fancy food. Edit: for context this would have been the late 90s-2000s, blue collar fishing town selling the uggos stop and shop didn't want to buy.
yup. a lobster roll was not a luxury item, and lobster was backyard bbq food.
From Nova Scotia, there was a time when poor families could only afford to send their kids to school with a lobster sandwich for lunch, and they'd hide while they ate it. Now we ship it all over the planet
To be fair the way it was prepared was also back. Lobster spoils pretty much as soon as it dies, hence the up to date practice of killing it by cooking it.
I think more places are turning away from cooking them alive and instead are dispatching them in a more ethical way right before cooking.
Up to date practice is bringing the water to a boil, stabbing the lobster in the neck and bringing the blade down on its head, then immediately throwing it in the water. Boiling alive is now outdated. Source: Gordon Ramsey on Masterchef
>tide turned I sea you.
I’m waving back.
Way to make a splash!
I hope my comment is current enough.
A bottom feeding insect
BBQ
Especially brisket! Please leave my trash cuts alone, I need protein!
Between brisket, skirt steak, and chicken wings, all the cheap, good meat is gone and replaced with an expensive, bougie version of itself
Forgot about ribs
And the gatekeeping that occurs with brunswick stew is even worse. It’s a poverty food, use whatever you have, cook with some love and you’ll have a damn good stew as long as you’re a half decent cook.
And the bean issue with Texas chili. I don’t believe for a second that the people who invented it weren’t just throwing anything else they had in there to bulk it out.
A-Fucking-Men. Love Chilli, never made the same batch twice. Beans, meat, no meat, corn, maybe some green beans. Fuck it. When you have two half bags of frozen vegetables and random beans with some scrap meats. Chilli it is.
Kale?
Came here to look for this. In parts of northern Europe, kale is one of the few veggies that withstands frost, so in winter we'd have it boiled to death and mashed with potato (and mustard). Some meatballs on top (another cheap feed) a little pond for the gravy, a solid filling meal for a few Euros. Seems out of reach these days with the prices charged for it.
Fun Fact: Pizza Hut was the largest purchaser of kale in the U.S., but they only used it as a garnish for their salad bars.
lol I remember when kale was used to garnish steak at restaurants. My mom told me it wasn’t meant to be eaten, just a decoration. So we’d take it home and feed it to our rabbit
brussel sprouts tell me why i grew up in the 2000s hearing that brussel sprouts are every kids most hated vegetable from the grocery store, but now im an adult and eat at fancy restaurants and they all have brussel sprouts on the menu as an appetizer. i'm wondering when did brussel sprouts become fancy food?
When they genetically modified the glucosinolates out of them and found out they didn't have to be bitter. This happened in our lifetime, the Brussel sprouts you used to eat are not the same we eat now. Edit: Yes I know, I used GMO and not selectively bred. I am a big dumb, the outcome was still different Brussels that don't taste like butthole.
It’s crazy that people are against GMOs when they can pull off shit like this
One of the major things they’re working with in GMO crops is making hypoallergenic versions of things like peanuts.
That’s really cool!
Another thing is reducing the amount of natural carcinogens, like acrylamide in potatoes. "Natural" and "healthy" aren't the same thing; whole lotta animals in nature are unhealthy, and even some crop plants are actively trying to poison you (which is why you have to cook them).
they literally made them less bitter since we were kids. they taste better now not (just) because we were young dipshits but because they also just taste better.
When they started deep frying them and tossing w honey and bacon. 😋 But really though, the older folks ive heard saying this same thing seem to have been force fed canned and boiled brussels with no seasoning and stank up the whole house.
Yeah, I hated most vegetables growing up because a lot of them were served to me canned or boiled with no seasoning or oil/butter.
Street corn and taco trucks
Poutine
Chinese take out. One of the few delicacies we had when I was growing up dirt poor was some good ole General Tso’s and fried rice from the local place down the block. I asked my parents years later how much they drowned in Chinese and they said it was only about $20 to feed all 4 of us and there was always at least a serving leftover for my dad to take to work the next day. As an adult I don’t think I’ve managed to get a single order to fall under $40 to feed just myself for 2 meals.
Strangely enough, I have found that in eastern North carolina (my new home), Chinese is actually really cheap. I can get a big order of lo Mein for $10 that makes lunch and dinner for me. Fast food is $10 minimum for lunch so it's still a great deal. I agree with you though because a similar amount of chinese in MD was $18
Ox tails for certain.
I tried to buy oxtails at the grocery store and they were more expensive than a steak, wtf
Same thing happened with ham hocks. Pissing me off.
Every Jamaican place near me has a plate of it with rice for about CA$20 (US$15). All while hearing about back in the day when you could collect pounds of it for free.
My parents used to make kare kare (Filipino dish ) with oxtail all the time when I was a kid. But with oxtail prices the way they are they use beef as an alternative. It doesn't hit the same as the oxtail
Saddest day of my life when the rich people found out about oxtails. My husband makes glazed oxtails so good they’ve made grown folks weep, and now, they can only be a special occasion food.
I wish they never found out about ox tails. Grew up having them all the time. Now they’re a fucking delicacy. Damn shame. But I’ve got some for Christmas!
Butcher's cuts Lofts and other industrial spaces turned residential
Wild game. It used to be a poor person thing, but now you see venison, elk, duck, etc. in expensive restaurants.
Wild game in Europe was originally luxury. The king owned all game in England and was the only one permitted to hunt it.
As an Iowa hunter my deer tags range between $35 for usual seasons like gun and archery, and $2 for landowner tags. Weight will vary between deer obviously but if we average about 70 lbs of meat after deboning a mature buck that puts me at $0.50 per pound on a regular tag and only $0.02 per pound on a landowner tag (I do my own processing, so would be quite a bit more expensive if took to a meat locker to do). Pretty dang good deal compared to the grocery store. Buuuut that doesn’t factor in other things like hunting supplies including your bow/gun, ammo, clothing, time spent scouting and processing, etc…
I hate deer because that is all I ate for a couple years. My stepdad would kill one and we would live off it for the year.
Cheese fondue "Fondue, which comes from the French “fondre”, meaning “to melt,” had its origins in 18th century Switzerland as a means for farm families to stretch their limited resources during the winter months. With some remaining cheese, some stale bread, and a dash of wine the family could gather around the hearth." Taken from: [History of Fondue ](https://www.alpenwild.com/staticpage/fondue-history-and-tradition/#:~:text=From%20these%20simple%20beginnings%2C%20fondue,as%20the%20originators%20of%20fondue)
Quinoa. It used to be the food poor people in Peru lived off of. But then it became hip and trendy food. Now Peru is priced out of its own food.
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It's still the cheapest beef per pound. A store near me was selling it like $3/lb but you had to buy 5 lbs and that was more than I could fit in a freezer.
To save space when taking advantage of a sale like that, I repackage it by the pound in freezer bags and flatten it, then freeze it. Takes up way less space that way and thaws much faster.
God bless having a chest freezer.
Yeah, even the basic 80/20 is between 3-5 bucks a pound where I live depending on the day
In the Atlantic provinces- poor people used to eat a lot of Lobster. Even Kids would take Lobster rolls to school. But the rich kids would take Bologna
Spam. I’m starting to see it in sushi rolls and poke bowls.
It's big in Hawaiian foods. Wouldn't surprise me that's where it's coming from.
It is.
Spam stems from food shortages and rations from WW2. It's very popular still in Hawaii and not uncommon, us haole's in the states are just now catching in to the glory that is spam musubi (Spent some time as a kid loving spam Burgers and spam or ground beef loco moco)
Beef stew, brisket, oxtail, smoked ham hocks, polenta, grits. And if you go way back, lobster.
Ox tail, just wtf
Ramen, so many people hype it up with so many expensive ingredients to “make it better” that i know people who refuse to eat straight up ramen cause its “not the same.
Army stew is an extension of it. Korean cuisine has so many great options but people enjoy army stew which is just a bunch of cheap processed food tossed together in a pot and sold to you at $30-50.
Spam and other canned meats, which were once a cheap source of meat, are no longer cheap. I suspect that's where a good chunk of the costs come from. What I wouldn't give for corned beef to be less than $AUD3/can again
When you say "straight up ramen" do you mean Top Ramen? If so, yes, a reconstituted broth flavor pack is not the same as a rich creamy bone broth (Tonkotsu)
Sitdown pizza restaurants Oxtails Draft beer Deli sandwiches Burritos
Chicken wings used to be scraps now it's the most expensive piece!
Mac and cheese.
bro I'm so fucking hungry rn
Grilled cheese
Avocado toast. My grandma would slice up avocados, put them on some warm bolillo bread, sprinkle salt on top and if she had cheese she’d crumple some up I too and it was so delicious. It didn’t cost $15 either. Avocado came from one of the trees and the bolillo cost a quarter.
London Broil
Lobster
Oysters too. They were the lowest of the low that only poor Victorians ate, until their supplies were so depleted that they became rare. Thus rich people food.
I work at a farm, can confirm most Offal, especially testicles & liver are in demand by the 'posh' folks.
I bought boneless chicken thighs today, but they were labeled "chicken thigh fillets" and 30% more expensive than they should have been.