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Pop Culture

8 wildly popular dishes from the past that have all but disappeared from restaurant menus

Let's bring some of these babies back!

beef stroganoff, pineapple upside down cake, potato skins
Photo credit: Canva

These dishes used to be standard menu items.

Trends in food come and go, just as they do in fashion and music and home decor, and when dishes slip out of popularity they fade from view. People might make their oldie-but-goodie recipes at home, but we don't see menus-of-old in restaurants and cookbooks are always being updated with new trends. It's usually not until someone mentions a once-popular dish from decades ago that we say, "Oh yeah, what ever happened to that?"

For instance, if you're Gen X or older, you may remember French and Thousand Island dressings being offered as standard choices when you ordered a salad. Today, you'd be hard-pressed to find a restaurant that serves those dressings at all. Changes in nutrition research and health awareness affect these trends, as do pop culture and marketing pushes from various food industries. But sometimes foods just fade in popularity for no obvious reason.

Someone on Reddit asked people to share "a dish that was extremely popular or trendy on restaurant menus but then virtually disappeared," and it's a mouth-watering trip down nostalgia lane. Some of the dishes people named haven't entirely "disappeared" but they definitely aren't as ubiquitous as they once were on restaurant menus.

Which of these babies should we bring back?

Beef stroganoff

beef stroganoffBeef stroganoff is a classic.Photo credit: Canva

It's a classic. Beef? Good. Mushrooms? Good. Pasta? Good. What's not to love about a dish of beef stroganoff on a cold winter's night? That's right. Nothing.

"Nobody serves beef stroganoff anymore."

"I was just in South America, it’s everywhere there, especially in Brazil. There are even stroganoff restaurants in the food courts at the mall."

"There’s a Russian restaurant near me that does it, but they only do it if you schedule it and have a party of 8 or more."

Blackened (and Cajun) everything


blackened chicken and salmonMmmmm, charcoal.Photo credit: Canva

Yes, we really did burn meat to a crisp all over the country for a while there. Blackened chicken, blackened salmon, blackened shrimp—and throw a little kick in there to make it "Cajun." Nothing like some added carcinogens to really whet the appetite, am I right? (Though the Cajun part was pretty darn good.)

"I credit the original cajun gourmet, Justin Wilson for this. Late 80s/early 90s when more & more people were getting cable TV, he had a few different shows that reached coast to coast. Maybe not iconic, but he was pretty popular and inspired people to have a taste of the culture & cuisine he fondly promoted."

"Add a little... on-YAWN!"

"I gar-on-TEE!"

Pineapple upside-down cake

pineapple upside down cakePineapple upside down cake is soooo good when done well.Photo credit: Canva

Hello, sunshine! Sweet, sticky, yummy and pretty to boot. This is one that you really can't judge til you try. So much better than it sounds.

"In 6th grade home EC we made pineapple upside down cake. With jiffy cake mix and canned pineapple and even the v maraschino cherries. I made that on the regular though the 80s and 90s."

"Oh man, thanks for reminding me of this. I think I’m going to make one today. I made them all the time as a kid in the 70s and a young adult in the 80s. I haven’t had one in years!!"

"It's in my regular dessert rotation. I get requests from family, friends and colleagues for pineapple upside-down cake."

Potato skins

potato skinsTater skins. Yum.Photo credit: Canva

These were all the rage for a bit there. They can still be found sometimes, but potato skins—and baked potato bars—are not nearly as popular as they used to be. Potatoes have gone through the ringer many times when it comes to healthy vs. unhealthy, but few people would argue that they're not delicious when topped with some cheese and bacon.

"Potato skins were pretty big in the 80s."

"That's because they had baked potato appeal; 'cause they're made with potatoes and skins that are real!"

Try to eat a baked potato and you'll be stuffed by the end. i bet that's why they're rarely found on menus anymore."

Salad bars

salad barAnybody miss salad bars?Photo credit: Canva

Ah, the salad bar. The pandemic really messed with this one. They used to be found in most grocery stores, and then pre-COVID there was a big boom of restaurants that were just enormous salad bars. Yet another thing the 'rona stole from us.

"Salad bars. In the 80s every restaurant had one, even some fast food burger places like Wendy’s."

"I love salad bars. I remember the Soup n' Salad chain. That was good."

"Salad bars were all the craze. Nice restaurants to Wendy’s. Salad bars everywhere!"

Quiche

quicheSheesh, quiche was popular.Photo credit: Canva

Ah, the French egg pie we all knew and loved. Maybe we still do, and maybe we make them at home, but quiches aren't the staple menu item at restaurants that they used to be.

"Quiche. Back in the 80’s."

"Quiche, In the late 70s and the 80s. Every fern bar restaurant like TGI Fridays featured quiche, and people were cooking quiche. The popularity of quiche even inspired the title of the book Real Men Don’t Eat Quiche. That book inspired the humorous meme of "Real Men Don’t (fill in the blank).'"

"I still make quiche once in awhile. It's ridiculously easy."

Sun-dried tomatoes and pesto

pesto pasta with sun dried tomatoesIs there anything more 90s than a sun-dried tomato and pesto pasta?Photo credit: Canva

Right around the time when we were all sudden super into Gregorian chants for like a year, sun-dried tomatoes were being put into everything. Pesto, too. Roasted peppers, too. It's like our collective inner Italian came out with flags a-flying.

"I can’t think of a specific dish but there was a period in the 90s when pesto was EVERYWHERE and so were roasted red peppers."

"Sun dried tomatoes were freaking EVERYWHERE for a while there."

"They even had sun dried tomatoes flavored potato chips."

Fondue

fondue potFondue was all the rage in the 60s and 70s.Photo credit: Canva

There are fewer foods more fun than fondue, but you just don't see it much anymore—with one notable exception. The Melting Pot is an all-fondue restaurant chain, so fondue-lovers do have a place to go if they want to dip all the things in melted cheese (and then in chocolate for dessert).

"My mom told me about how after the 70’s she’s fine not touching fondue ever again. Everyone got a fondue pot for their wedding which they used precisely twice before it found its way into storage."

"People are talking about fondue in the '80s and '90s, but it got really popular in the 1960s. My family got a fondue pot then even tho we weren't very trendy food-wise. But being able to cook beef and melt cheese in it ticked all of my dad's boxes!"

"Hot pot is the new fondue."

What else should be added to this list?

food
Parenting

Devastated dad shares why he didn't tell his 10-year-old daughter it was her birthday

“I don’t know if we made the right decision…It’s killing us.”

@kylephilippi/TikTok

“Today’s her birthday, and we’re pretending like it’s just another day."

Kid’s birthdays are both lovely moments of celebration, and potential sources of stress for any parent, for various reasons. For dad Kyle Philippi (whom we’ve previously covered for dressing up as Jafar to cure his friend of an irrational phobia), his daughter’s 10th birthday was particularly full of anguish—since he didn’t tell her it actually was her birthday.

In a video posted to his TikTok that amassed close to 3 million views, the concerned dad shared his unique plight that brought him to this unusual decision: his daughter’s birthday falls on Jan 2, over winter break, meaning most kids wouldn’t be able to attend her birthday party. Two years prior, the Philippi found this out the hard way, when they tried to throw a party on the day, and no one showed.

“She was devastated,” Philippi let out through a sigh.

@kylephilippi We’re about 60/40 on whether this was a good idea… #birthday #parenting #parentingtips#autism #autismawareness #autismacceptance #auditoryprocessingdisorder #surprisebirthday #birthdayparty ♬ original sound - Kyle Philippi

Then last year, they tried a different approach. Instead of a big social gathering on Jan 2, they had a more intimate environment of just the family and one close friend, followed by a proper party once winter break was finished. At this point Philippi explained that his daughter is on the spectrum and had auditory processing disorder—so even though she had fun at both events, she still couldn’t understand why her friend couldn’t show up on her actual birthday, and was still disappointed. That’s never what any parent wants for their kid.

To make matters more sensitive, Philippi shared that his daughter was beginning to not be invited to other classmates' parties, and suspected that part of why she yearns to have a party with all her friends there was because “she knows she’s not getting to go to everyone else’s birthday.”

Hence why Philippi and his wife decided to try something new by simply not acknowledging the birthday until they can do a party with his daughter’s school friends. Understandably, though the choice was made with the best of intentions, when Jan 2 came, there were tons of conflicting feelings.

Photo credit: Canva

“I don’t know if we made the right decision. But here we are,” Philippi shared. “Today’s her birthday, and we’re pretending like it’s just another day…and it’s killing us.”

Down in the comments people—especially those with special needs kids, or were autistics themselves—were quick to reassure Philippi that he made a tough, but right call.

“As an autistic person who struggles with birthdays, you’re doing the right thing. it’s a little unconventional, but so are kids like us!! keep it up,” one person wrote.

Another added, “these ‘decisions’ are so hard but you are doing great by taking it all into consideration and trying to do what will help her feel great on her birthday.”

It seems the real thing worth noting here is that Philippi and his wife are trying to make their kid’s birthday the best it can be for her, and that’s truly admirable. Odds are nearly every parent can relate to this on some level. And for parents with neurodivergent kiddos, that can often mean navigating uncharted territory. Maybe they’ll try a different approach next year. Maybe not. What matters is they’re trying.

And from the looks of it, the actual birthday wasn’t a total wash. In a follow up video, we see that Philippi’s daughter got her favorite chicken wings for dinner, and got to plan her upcoming birthday…which will apparently be Raggedy Ann themed.

@kylephilippi Replying to @mamamcsorley1 She ate her favorite meal today and we continued to plan out her ultimate birthday party in 9 days 🙂 #birthday #parenting #parentingtips #autism #autismawareness #autismacceptance #auditoryprocessingdisorder #surprisebirthday #birthdayparty ♬ original sound - Kyle Philippi

Naturally, Philippi will be going as Raggedy Andy, per his daughter's request.

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Internet

A 1965 invention for 'centrifugal birth' has been brought to life and it's terrifying

The invention would spin the mother around so fast that it would force the baby to be shot out into a net.

Photo credit: Canva and U.S. Patent

A 1965 child birth invention brought to life is terrifying

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to give birth while you're strapped inside an F-15 fighter jet doing a flat spin? Neither have most people who have given birth but that didn't stop someone from inventing something just as concerning. "The Blonsky Device," which should probably be named the baby catapult machine, was invented by George and Charlotte Blonsky in 1965.

The two were trying to find a way to help ease the process of birthing a child as the process looks incredibly painful and can take more than 24 hours at times. Their hearts were in the right place, though their idea probably should have stayed as pillow talk, alas, it did not. The couple scurried to the patent office to secure their invention before anyone else could come up with the same idea.

The Blonsky Device is certainly an interesting way to aid in helping a baby descend the birth canal. What makes the invention so peculiar? Well, doctors would need to manually strap a laboring mother to a metal table, securing her by her wrists, ankles and a heavy duty chest plate. The table then elevates and tilts before it begins to spin until it reaches 8 G-force, which is equivalent to what fighter jet pilots experience.

Flying Top Gun GIF by XboxGiphy

Yes, they planned to take a pregnant person and spin them to use centrifugal force to "aid" in childbirth. If you were worried about the baby, calm your fears. A net is placed just below the mom's feet to catch the newborn being delivered at 8 G-forces, and incase no one notices and infant being shot into the net, there's a bell that will ding to let doctors know the baby has arrived.

Aside from the obvious dangers of this invention, there are so many questions. Will the net be large enough to catch the baby? What happens if the mom has to vomit? Do they stop the table for cervical checks? Thankfully, for birthing people around the world, there has never been a reason to answer these questions because the invention never made it beyond the patent stage.


But the curiosity on how the contraption works and what it would look like has been answered by Science Gallery Dublin, who built a life-sized replica of the machine, and Hashem Al-Ghaili who generated a video of how it would work. Al-Ghaili's video has racked up 4.4 million views on TikTok with actual humans that have given birth weighing in with their thoughts on the device.

"Okay not only is that insane I don’t even wanna think of the fluids that’ll be sprayed 360°," one person says.

"Can you imagine the contraction pain and then the table is just spinning?! Bruh I’d be so mad," another laughs.

"I got overstimulated when the nurse kept rubbing my leg. I fear I'd crash out if I just started spinning out of nowhere," one woman writes.


"I felt like I was gonna throw up the whole time was in labor and I can’t imagine adding spinning to it. I would just be a mess," a different mom adds.

"Yes. Females all over the world have been birthing offspring for millions of years and a man somewhere went, 'I have a better way for women to give birth,'" someone else chimes in.

Many assumed that there was no woman involved in the invention of this hazardous contraption, but it was co-invented by Blonsky's wife, Charlotte. In their defense, they did not have children of their own and sexual education was limited in the 60s, so it's very likely they only had a general idea of how babies were born.

not ready baroness von sketch GIFGiphy

The idea came to them after they witnessed an elephant spin while giving birth. One would gather the elephant was not spinning at any level of G-force given the size and weight of the elephant, as well as...physics. This detail didn't stop the Blonskys from getting creative and thanks to their willingness to think outside the box–way outside the box, we can look back and have a giggle. No babies or birthing people were harmed.

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Education

Teacher of the year explains why he's leaving district in unforgettable 3-minute speech

"I'm leaving in hopes that I can regain the ability to do the job that I love."

Lee Allen

For all of our disagreements in modern American life, there are at least a few things most of us can agree on. One of those is the need for reform in public education. We don't all agree on the solutions but many of the challenges are undeniable: retaining great teachers, reducing classroom size and updating the focus of student curriculums to reflect the ever-changing needs of a globalized workforce.

And while parents, politicians and activists debate those remedies, one voice is all-too-often ignored: that of teachers themselves. This is why a short video testimony from a teacher in the Atlanta suburb of Gwinnett County went viral. After all, it's hard to deny the points made by someone who was just named teacher of the year and used the occasion to announce why he will be leaving the very school district that just honored him with that distinction.

In a video carried by Fox5 Atlanta, 2022 Gwinnett County Public Schools Teacher of the Year Lee Allen breaks down what he sees as the overriding problems in the county's school system. While his comments are specific to that of Gwinnett County, it's virtually impossible to not see the overlap across all of America and how the problems have become exponentially more challenging as students have migrated back to in-person learning.

"At the end of this year, I will be leaving Gwinnett County Schools, leaving behind the opportunity to submit for state teacher of the year, roughly $10,000 in salary, and most importantly, the students and colleagues I've built strong relationships with," Allen, a math teacher at Lawrenceville's Archer High School, says at the beginning of his remarks. "I'm leaving in hopes that I can regain the ability to do the job that I love."

Normally, one might assume teacher pay is the overriding issue for educators like Allen. But he makes it clear that he is, in fact, leaving money on the table to avoid what he deems as unacceptable changes to the student body and how the district manages its teachers and the learning environment. Here are his main grievances, in order:

  • "First issue at hand is student apathy and disrespect for school rules and norms. … We have an alarming number of students that simply do not care about learning and refuse to even try."
  • "We are also experiencing incredible disrespect and refusal to follow basic school rules. There is little to no accountability or expectation for grades or behavior placed on students or parents. Rather than being asked what the student can do to improve their understanding, teachers are expected to somehow do more with less student effort."
  • Cell phone use. Teachers simply cannot compete with the billions of dollars tech companies pour into addicting people to their devices. Phones allow constant communication, often being the spark that fuels fights, drug use and other inappropriate meetups throughout the day. We need a comprehensive district plan with support behind it in order to combat this epidemic and protect the learning environment."
  • "Lastly, there is a huge disconnect between administrators and teachers. The classroom in 2022 is drastically different from just three years ago. Most administrators have not been in a classroom full-time in years or even decades. Many teachers do not feel understood, valued or trusted as professionals from administrators and the decisions that they make."

While Allen points fingers at administrators and student behavior, he also says that the pressures put on both students and teachers alike by COVID-19 had a catastrophic impact on learning. "The pandemic has acted as a catalyst and turned a slow negative trend into an exponential crisis," he says.

But he also offers some solutions, stating, "I won't list complaints without offering ideas for improvement."

  • All administrators should spend at least one week in a high needs classroom, "without a suit, without people knowing your title and in the same room, all day, for an entire week."
  • Prioritizing smaller class sizes.
  • Greater transparency from the district in terms of needs and expectations and goals.

"We all want the same thing and we cannot accomplish this without supporting one another," he says near the end of his remarks.

With more than 400,000 views already, it's clear his remarks resonated with people not just inside his school district.

There's almost nothing more important than how we educate our children. And while the national political debate centers on areas of far less importance generated to gin up controversy and campaign fundraising, it's families and local leaders who will need to do the heavy lifting of reprioritizing the fundamental principles of learning and leadership if we want an American educational system that can compete on the global stage in 2022 and beyond. After all, when literal award-winning educators like Allen are walking away, it's clear something more needs to be done.


This article originally appeared three years ago.

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Parenting

Mom shares really unique 'anxiety attack' approach for dealing with toddler tantrums

This actually makes a lot of sense.

@newenglandrunnr/TikTok

If you don't deal with anxiety, this tip might not be for you.

TikTok has been a gold mine for finding lesser known, but highly effective parenting tips, especially when it comes to dealing with tantrums. While we still have the app, let’s offer one more! Coming from a mom who goes by @newenglandrunnr, this tantrum tip is certainly unique, but makes so much sense.

Her advice, which was also something she found on TikTok, is for parents to treat a kid's meltdown “like anxiety attacks” within themselves. For her, that means whenever her son is having a tough time, she gives him an ice cube and lets him throw it in the bathtub.

“Instantly calms him down,” she said. “He instantly wants to do it because he’s able to throw something, and then the cold from the ice cube tricks the nervous system into calming down because it distracts it. [It is] the best calming technique that I’ve ever found. So if you’re looking for a way to calm kids’ meltdowns, just treat it like how you would anxiety for yourself.”

This is apparently a physical self-soothing technique that works during her own anxiety attacks, and it’s this aspect of “treating the body’s response” that works on the all-circuits firing, emotional overwhelm feeling that both anxiety and tantrums can elicit. After that is regulated, then parents can talk about why that behavior “is not acceptable,” she also noted.


@newenglandrunnr Also works at daycare because they just have him splash cold water on himself 👍🏻
♬ original sound - newenglandrunnr

While the specific ice-cube trick is super nifty, just the general concept of using anxiety reducing tactics for tantrums is genius in and of itself. Lots of fellow parents commended the idea in the comments

“It’s all about co-regulation at this stage!” one person wrote. “They are experiencing life for the first time. Regulate with them and they’ll learn skills for life.”

“It’s also teaching a healthy outlet for anger/frustration/anxiety so he doesn’t let it bottle up,” added another.

Many even shared their own similar strategies.

“My 3 year old and I have started using something similar to the Bluey episode where they gather all their angry and upset then throw it far away,” wrote one person. “It makes him laugh when I do it and then he forgets he was mad.”

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

Another added, “My favorite for my oldest is to enter a complain-off and we take turns venting about all the things we’re mad about. She needs to see that I understand emotionally what she's going through.”

“My favorite tantrum advice was to say something wrong because they’ll want to correct you,” was a third option, while a fourth said, “I had a breakthrough with a kid who was known for historic tantrums when I asked her ‘do you know how to/need help calming down’ instead of just telling her ‘calm down.’”

Hopefully this bit of advice can not only help stop tantrums in their tracks, but also help parents stay sane while in the throes of them. The next time logic has flown the coop and only screams of rage remain, maybe try throwing logic out the window and opt for something else instead.

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Health

Scientific study suggests black coffee reduces risk of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease

Great news for the caffeinated (and decaf drinkers, too)

Photo credit: Canva

Unsweetened coffee could reduce your risk of dementia.

Reach for that second cup. Recent research from The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition suggests that older folks that drink a higher intake of unsweetened black coffee reduce their risk of Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, and other forms of dementia.

The author of the study, Tingjing Zhang, wanted to see if there were any associations or correlations between neurodegenerative diseases and coffee consumption. Zhang’s team of researchers studied data acquired from UK Biobank, a giant database of biomedical information from individuals living in the United Kingdom. The group looked at the health, genetics, and lifestyle of 204,847 individuals aged 40 to 69, analyzing their food and beverage intake within a 24-hour period five different times during a calendar year.

Those who consumed at least one coffee beverage were considered coffee drinkers, and out of those coffee drinkers they were further classified as consumers of unsweetened coffee, consumers of sugar-sweetened coffee, and consumers of artificially sweetened coffee if they consistently had their coffee solely in one of those classifications. This was to see if there was any variation of health data within those sub-groups, too.

The results showed that those that drank unsweetened coffee had 29% to 30% lower risk of Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, and related dementia, along with a 43% lower risk of dying from those conditions compared to the non-coffee drinkers in the study. Those who drank unsweetened decaf had a 34% to 37% percent chance of lowering their risk of those afflictions along with a 47% lower risk of related mortality compared to non-coffee drinkers. Unfortunately for coffee drinkers that needed sugar or artificial sweeteners, there didn’t appear to be any reduced risk of those diseases or mortality regarding them.

While this appears to be great news for those who drink black coffee, it shouldn’t be taken as hard evidence of correlation, at least not until further studies confirm it. But coffee can be healthy for people aside from just these potential physical health benefits.


Three people drinking coffee and laughingCoffee is a good excuse for any social interaction.Photo credit: Canva

Coffee is good for our social health. According to Dr. Kirtly Parker Jones of the University of Utah, coffee is a social catalyst that brings us together in so many different environments and contexts. It’s a great way for coworkers to take a break together, or conversely a friendly method for bosses and employees to discuss issues with both guards down. Meeting up at a coffee shop is a great first date, catch-up with a friend, or introduction to a potential new business partner. Blue collar, white collar, any collar color tends to have coffee involved in their work life.

Coffee is good for our heart, too. Not just cardiovascularly, but spiritually. Humans are ritualistic and one ritual for many is the first cup of coffee of the day. It’s usually a quiet moment to reflect and get your mind ready with that first sip. It’s the pause before the action, or for some the ritual includes grinding the coffee beans and making the coffee themselves with a French press.

A woman sipping coffee alone.Sipping coffee on your own counts as a reflective morning ritual.Photo credit: Canva

Further studies might disprove the data found regarding Alzheimer's or Parkinson’s disease, but even if that gets outright debunked, there are other reasons why coffee can be good for you. So unless your doctor tells you otherwise, have a cup of coffee with some friends, coworkers, or just by yourself. Just be careful about how much cream and sugar you add.

Hands hold coffee mugs, cheeringCoffee brings us together.Photo credit: Canva

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