Vintage Things That Will NOT Disappear In Your Lifetime

[Trenchfriend]

I usually won't eat fish because that's what it tastes like: fish.

Sour rollmops(herring), buddy, sour rollmops!! Try it, made in Wisconsin or wherever it is further known in the US, or imported from Europe.
Ok, there are two groups. The one (like me) like it very sour, the other like it with less amount of vinegar and more herring-taste.
You have to find the correct balance.

And absolute no danger of fox-tapeworm!

 

[Zombie_61]

I grew up with lobster as a routine thing -- it was cheap, it was something you had in the summer with corn on the cob, and I honestly never understood what the big deal was about it. The taste wasn't anything particularly special, and the effort you had to go to actually get the meat out of the thing didn't seem to be a particularly efficient way to spend suppertime.

My wife loves lobster tail, but she's a "fussy eater" and won't/can't eat it if it's still in the shell. Years ago we were on a weekend getaway in San Diego and stopped for a mid-afternoon lunch at a favorite restaurant called the 94th Aero Squadron. My wife thought she had ordered the lobster tail, but turned a shade of green when the server delivered an entire lobster to our table. After we explained the dilemma to our server, she quickly looked around the room then said she'd come back in a few minutes and walk my wife through the procedure. Sure enough she returned, placed a cloth napkin over my wife's plate "so she wouldn't have to look at it", then proceeded to explain to my wife how to eat a lobster step-by-step. The server did have to leave the table two or three times to check on other customers, but otherwise stayed with us for 45 minutes while my wife ate her first (and only) whole lobster. To show our gratitude we left that server one heck of a tip.

I like using siracha in place of mayonnaise in my tuna fish salad. Siracha also makes a good replacement for spaghetti sauce, just mix some in with plain pasta (maybe a bit of grated cheese) till it looks like spaghetti sauce...

The thing I like most about Sriracha sauce isn't it's flavor or spiciness, but the way it enhances the flavor of whatever you put it on. Chicken fried rice, spaghetti, Mongolian barbecue, Arroz con Pollo, whatever--squirt a little Sriracha here and there and mix it in, and suddenly the flavor of whatever you're eating is more pronounced.

 

[BlueTrain]

I think the idea is that if something is "new and improved," then that's what it's called in marketing. If it isn't, then you call it "classic." But sometimes, people use the term classic to mean the way something was when they were a certain age and really nothing else. If you roll your blue jeans up four inches the same way you did when you were ten years old, then that's classic.

Using the term "original" has a different connotation. It might mean that the producer of a certain product was the first to make it, at least under a certain name, and everything else is an imitation. For example, I'm looking at a poster of hot sauces. There are about 90 different brands of hot sauces on this poster. One is labeled "Sontava! The Original Habanero Pepper Hot Sauce." Another is labeled "Crazy Cajun Original Piquante Sauce." Yet another is labeled "Melinda's Original Habanero Pepper Sauce." Another one is "The Original Louisiana Hot Sauce." One is "Outerbridge's Original Sherry Peppers Sauce." Finally, one is labeled "Papa Joe Authentic Caribbean Scotch Bonnet Red Pepper Sauce."

None are labeled New and Improved nor at an labeled Classic.

 

[LizzieMaine]

The fad for "Classic" branding goes back to the greatest marketing debacle of the twentieth century, "New Coke." When "Coca-Cola Classic" came along that opened the door for rebranding a whole slew of tired old products as "classic" this and "classic" that, a practice which is as annoying now as it was thirty years ago. Brand managers leaped and frisked and capered with excitement over the prospect of inifnite line extensions, but the rest of us just yawned.

Meanwhile, "Coke Classic" no longer exists -- that branding was quietly shed about eight years ago, and now it's just plain "Coca-Cola" again.

 

[BlueTrain]

Or as they say in the South, "Co-Cola."

There is an irritating trend of making very ordinary names legal trademarks. I suppose it's entirely legal and so on, but from a logical standpoint, it comes across as mean. No one has done this but imagine someone making a trademark of "white bread." That would mean that no one else that makes white bread could call their product white bread anymore. Unfortunately, I can't think of a good example right now. But I'll bet you can!

 

[vitanola]

Or as they say in the South, "Co-Cola."

There is an irritating trend of making very ordinary names legal trademarks. I suppose it's entirely legal and so on, but from a logical standpoint, it comes across as mean. No one has done this but imagine someone making a trademark of "white bread." That would mean that no one else that makes white bread could call their product white bread anymore. Unfortunately, I can't think of a good example right now. But I'll bet you can!

Oh, yes! Just imagine some ginks trademarking common terms like "Kleenex", "Trampoline", "Victrola", "Heroin", "Escalator" or "Linoleum"!

 

[LizzieMaine]

Or "Aspirin." Bayer Aspirin. Or as Arthur Godfrey used to say, "Bare Ass Prin."

 

[BlueTrain]

Kleenex isn't a good example and neither is Aspirin. Before, it would have been called simply tissue paper, if in fact, it existed before Kleenex came along. Aspirin might have been called headache pills or something, or as they say in the army, "all purpose capsules." But let's say your name is Joe and you open a restaurant. You call it "Joe's Restaurant." Then somebody else comes along and opens a restaurant on the other side of the country and opens a restaurant named "Joe's." As in "Eat at Joe's." They prosper and begin opening more restaurants around the country, having sewed up the name "Joe's Restaurant" nice and tight with a trademarked name. They open one in your town out close to the airport. Then one day you get a letter from a big law firm telling you to stop calling your restaurant "Joe's Restaurant."

That wasn't what I meant when I mentioned trademarking an ordinary name but the Texas Roadhouse did that. It wasn't founded in Texas and isn't headquartered in Texas but they own the name now.

 

[Fading Fast]

My wife loves lobster tail, but she's a "fussy eater" and won't/can't eat it if it's still in the shell. Years ago we were on a weekend getaway in San Diego and stopped for a mid-afternoon lunch at a favorite restaurant called the 94th Aero Squadron. My wife thought she had ordered the lobster tail, but turned a shade of green when the server delivered an entire lobster to our table. After we explained the dilemma to our server, she quickly looked around the room then said she'd come back in a few minutes and walk my wife through the procedure. Sure enough she returned, placed a cloth napkin over my wife's plate "so she wouldn't have to look at it", then proceeded to explain to my wife how to eat a lobster step-by-step. The server did have to leave the table two or three times to check on other customers, but otherwise stayed with us for 45 minutes while my wife ate her first (and only) whole lobster. To show our gratitude we left that server one heck of a tip....

Kudos to the waitress and you for tipping her well. That said, the simpler solution, IMHO, would have been had she just taken it away, de-shelled it (a pro can do it in under five minutes) and brought your wife back just the meat. But heck, if she was up for giving a tutorial and your wife wanted it - that was nice of her.

The fad for "Classic" branding goes back to the greatest marketing debacle of the twentieth century, "New Coke." When "Coca-Cola Classic" came along that opened the door for rebranding a whole slew of tired old products as "classic" this and "classic" that, a practice which is as annoying now as it was thirty years ago. Brand managers leaped and frisked and capered with excitement over the prospect of inifnite line extensions, but the rest of us just yawned.

Meanwhile, "Coke Classic" no longer exists -- that branding was quietly shed about eight years ago, and now it's just plain "Coca-Cola" again.

The line-extension thing is still going stupid strong and while I've been sucked into a few (I have no shame when it comes to Oreos and have tried most of the variations - as I tell my girlfriend, at least they're not drugs), I do yawn through most.

But the strategy must be successful as many, many brands in many, many different products keep doing it and a lot of those variations seem to attract enough customers to survive.

It does speak to a "we're running out of fresh ideas" issue, but after The Boys beat the line-extension horse to death, they'll find another ride I'm sure.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I won't be satisfied until I see the return of Classic Uneeda Biscuits.

 

[sheeplady]

I've never eaten a whole lobster, and I've only had it "plain" (as in, not a dip or an ingredient in something) once. I was a kid then, it was some sort of treat for something from one of my 4h leaders when she took me out to dinner (at red lobster).

Normally a $17 meal for a person makes me a bit queasy, so that's probably why I've never had it again (and where I live it's much more than $17 for a lobster). $12 or sometimes $15 is my common max for a meal. Although I enjoy food (really and truly) I know price doesn't always equal better taste. I also admit I'm a cheap date, which does not bother my husband.

 

[Trenchfriend]

How much costs old-fashion "real" pistachio-icecream n the US?

 

[Zombie_61]

Kudos to the waitress and you for tipping her well. That said, the simpler solution, IMHO, would have been had she just taken it away, de-shelled it (a pro can do it in under five minutes) and brought your wife back just the meat. But heck, if she was up for giving a tutorial and your wife wanted it - that was nice of her...

It was so long ago that I can't recall the details, but we asked about that and the server explained that some sort of health code prevented the staff from touching shellfish such as lobster after it had been served to the customer; this is why she offered to instruct my wife rather than do it herself. And just in case anyone might be wondering, the server did say that she could bring my wife a different meal, but that we would still have to pay for the lobster because my wife had made the mistake, not anyone at the restaurant. I think that, more than anything else, was what convinced my wife to give it a try; lobster ain't cheap, y'know. Besides, it would have been a shame to let such a fine meal go to waste.

 

[ChiTownScion]

I won't be satisfied until I see the return of Classic Uneeda Biscuits.

Never had one, but from the looks of 'em in a quick online search they resembled hard tack.

I have a tin hard tack press with which I used to be able to crank out a batch at a time of the infamous square worm castles. The original dough recipe calls for just flour, water, and salt... and while they have an eternal shelf life, biting into one directly could easily result in broken teeth (Hence, the practices of either dunking them in your coffee until soft, or frying them in bacon grease in an iron skillet over the campfire.). If you add a generous amount of shortening to the dough recipe, they are more suitable for eating... but then you lose that shelf life of which I mentioned.

 

[LizzieMaine]

They were honest-to-god soda crackers, and were kind and settling to an angry stomach. And they had a texture that I've never found in any other cracker -- they were crisp, but dense, with a completely neutral flavor that was excellent with cheese. I used to eat them by the boxful, and I actually drove all the way to New Hampshire once to restock when I couldn't find any in Maine.

They were Nabisco's first and best product, and those buffoons at Kraft lost a lifelong customer when they discontinued them some years back.

 

[sheeplady]

I hope to god that crest never gets rid of its "regular paste" toothpaste. Although it gets harder and harder to find on any given shelf because they have 50 other varieties now.

I remember when cool mint gel hit the shelves near me as a kid. Eww.

 

[Trenchfriend]

I hope to god that crest never gets rid of its "regular paste" toothpaste. Although it gets harder and harder to find on any given shelf because they have 50 other varieties now.

I remember when cool mint gel hit the shelves near me as a kid. Eww.

Did manufacturers already change from classic paste to gel-like paste, like in Europe?

 

[LizzieMaine]

Weird novelty toothpastes were a product of the Boomer era -- the idea being to make them "kid friendly" so as to encourage the little whelps to brush regularly. "Stripe" brand toothpaste was one of the earliest of these, the gimmick being that it was a regular paste and a colored paste that came out in a twisty stripe pattern much to the amazement of the under-10 set. The "gel" craze started a bit later, in the '70s, and has yet to let up. The "brand extension" Boys latched on and never let go.

Toothpaste in the Era was a much simpler commodity -- it was always a white compound with a touch of grittiness, and very slightly flavored. Ipana had a slight wintergreen flavor, while Pebeco and Listerine were rather tart and medicinal. Pepsodent had a distinct soapy-alkaline taste. The closest thing to a novelty was the "ribbon" tube used by Colgate, which had a slotted aperture at the end which caused the paste to extrude out in a flat ribbon rather than a cylindrical mass -- supposedly this made it stay on the brush better.

I gave up on toothpaste a long time ago, when the flavors got so sicky-sweet they made me gag. I brush my teeth with a sprinkling of plain baking soda.

 

[Fading Fast]

I hope to god that crest never gets rid of its "regular paste" toothpaste. Although it gets harder and harder to find on any given shelf because they have 50 other varieties now...

My only criteria now are that it's Crest or Colgate with fluoride. I used to try to find and stick with the simple one I liked, but now - because it, as you noted, is so confusing with all the variations - I just buy one of those two brands of almost any variety that's on sale as long as it isn't some crazy flavor. I've been doing this for years so that now, honestly, they all taste about the same to me. Everything I've read is fluoride is the only thing that really matters and, with most local waters fluorinated, even that doesn't matter that much.

 

[Zombie_61]

...I gave up on toothpaste a long time ago, when the flavors got so sicky-sweet they made me gag. I brush my teeth with a sprinkling of plain baking soda.

I had never heard of brushing one's teeth with baking soda until I saw Sam Elliott do it in a movie in the late 1980s. Not long after I discovered a toothpaste with the Arm & Hammer logo on it, so I thought I'd give it a try; been using it ever since. It's pretty much as Miss Lizzie described--a white compound with a touch of grittiness, and a relatively mild sweet/salty taste that's far more tolerable than the sickly sweet and gooey gel types.