Foods That Used To Be Popular But We Don’t Eat Anymore

History has shaped food trends with oscillating periods of abundance and scarcity. In the 20th century alone, world wars, economic depression, and postwar reconstruction defined and redefined eating habits, making for a vast array of once-essential culinary exploits that today are distinctly things of the past. A greater nutritional awareness beyond mere diet fads has further contributed to the evolution of everyday dietary inclinations, rendering many previous culinary staples obsolete. With a culture currently trending towards fresh and local ingredients whenever possible, many canned and preserved foods — innovations for their time — are not only taken for granted, but no longer sought after, and the same goes for the dishes they once created. 

Pineapple upside-down cake

First surfacing on palates in the 1920s, this topsy-turvy dessert may initially have had more of a luxury association. Pineapple had only recently reached more mainstream status in the 20th century via the establishment of Jim Dole’s Hawaiian Pineapple Company, which efficiently mass-produced canned pineapple, enabling more people to be able to access and afford this tropical ingredient. Dole was soon producing canned pineapple in quantities far greater than the present consumer demand and resorted to advertising strategies in hopes of increasing pineapple consumption. Revolutionary Pie explains that Dole sponsored a contest for the best pineapple-centric recipe, selecting a certain Mrs. Robert Davis’s pineapple upside down cake as the winner. From there, the dessert took off, becoming a household favorite in the following decade.

Pineapple was a tropical take on a much older dessert phenomenon. “Upside down cakes” have been around since the Middle Ages, but Dole’s advertising certainly helped the concept reach a wider pool of consumers. The dessert experienced a surge in popularity mid-century, perhaps due to the call for convenience cooking that prompted home cooks of the 1950s to reach for canned ingredients first. Today, the dish occasionally appears at social gatherings as a potluck dessert, but it does not share the widespread popularity of its retro resurgence. Whether the dessert itself has been a fad that rises and falls, the canned ingredients (and often the maraschino cherries that garnish it) have been unable to fully transcend a retro association.

Meatloaf

Though meatloaf-like predecessors were enjoyed as far back as the days of Ancient Rome, the dish was most popular in northern Europe for centuries; it was the German-descended Pennsylvania Dutch who devised a meatloaf prototype in the States. Their dish, known as scrapple, makes use of all the extraneous parts of meat left over from a butchering session, which then get ground, mixed with fillers, and pressed into loaf tins to be easily sliced and fried in pieces. 

A few major events of the 20th century inspired meatloaf’s mainstream popularity, since it was a humble but versatile dish that was adaptable in times of scarcity. With scant food sources during world wars and the Depression, Americans embraced the meatloaf as a simple but nourishing staple that could feed many on a low budget. The dish remained popular well into the 50s and 60s, when creative cooks embraced meatloaf’s simplicity while experimenting with its versatility.

While meatloaf has by no means disappeared (and even occasionally finds its way into the realm of the gourmet with elaborate renditions incorporating all manner of spices and unusual flavorings), it is no longer a nationwide staple as it once was. Though non-meat meatloaves are nothing new — those maneuvering around war rations once made creative vegetarian versions with nuts and legumes — a growing prevalence of plant-based preferences may be a contributing factor to the traditional meatloaf’s popular decline. While still wholesome and hearty, its heyday has been overshadowed by abundance replacing scarcity.

Tapioca pudding

Derived from the cassava root, tapioca originated in South America. A processed ingredient, it is available in three common forms: seeds, flakes, and pearls. Though tapioca pearls have a different association in the 21st century with the present international boba craze, they were once widely used for a completely different sweet treat. According to the Oxford Companion to Food, “Pearl Tapioca, rather than the quicker cooking flake kind, is preferred for tapioca pudding…”

As a healthful starch, tapioca became popular in the 19th century and, according to John Ayto’s An A to Z of Food & Drink, was valued for its “possession of that elusive quality of Victorians, digestibility.” Considered nutrient-rich and easy to digest, it was often served to children, though its health associations may have been why it was not enjoyed as widely as it was available. The texture, for some, was also off-putting, as cooked tapioca pearls can take on a lumpy consistency. Tapioca pudding as a dessert took off at the end of the 19th century, when Boston’s Susan Stavers achieved a creamier pudding sans lumps by grinding cassava in a coffee grinder. This textural shift was an instant success, and the grinding methodology turned into a lucrative business venture, The Minute Tapioca Company.

Though tapioca pudding is still available ready-to-eat in many grocery stores, the nutrient properties of its early iterations no longer hold up in pudding cups. Tapioca pudding’s former popularity, it seems, has largely been replaced by other trending tapioca products.

Fruitcake

With humble beginnings in Ancient Rome, fruitcake’s origins are practical, irrespective of where it stands on the popularity scale. Smithsonian Magazine reports that its original form was a mashed combination of barley, pomegranate seeds, nuts, and raisins, a portable food with a long shelf life — more or less an ancient power bar. This kind of daily sustenance evolved into more special occasion fare during the Middle Ages and beyond, and was favored by the Victorians who relished fruitcake’s long shelf life due to its dense texture and the spirits infused within. Since fruit itself was a costly commodity at the time, fruitcake was always a dessert for special occasions.

Though fruitcake’s reputation has been somewhat mysteriously besmirched, it does remain popular outside the United States, where it persists as a traditional British wedding cake and has long since become a Bengali culinary fixture for any occasion. However the derision started that prompted fruitcake to become widely despised in the States, hating fruitcake is today as much a holiday tradition as the dessert itself. This has prevented many, on principle, from ever wanting to try fruitcake, with the assumption that it must be awful. Consequently, fruitcake’s decline in popularity may have nothing to do with its merits as a dessert. As chef Carla Hall summarized for Forbes, “I guess it is one of those things that is psychological. It inherently isn’t bad but we all have a stigma associated with it.”

Though fruitcake’s reputation has been somewhat mysteriously besmirched, it does remain popular outside the United States, where it persists as a traditional British wedding cake and has long since become a Bengali culinary fixture for any occasion. However the derision started that prompted fruitcake to become widely despised in the States, hating fruitcake is today as much a holiday tradition as the dessert itself. This has prevented many, on principle, from ever wanting to try fruitcake, with the assumption that it must be awful. Consequently, fruitcake’s decline in popularity may have nothing to do with its merits as a dessert. As chef Carla Hall summarized for Forbes, “I guess it is one of those things that is psychological. It inherently isn’t bad but we all have a stigma associated with it.”

Gelatin salads

Gelatin, that textural oddity that comes from boiling animal skin and bones, was once a status symbol, but this was largely because the process of making it was quite labor-intensive. Though today gelatin persists as a predominantly sweet treat largely associated with Jell-O, an individual brand, there was a time when gelatin dishes were meant to be entirely savory.

Gelatin salads reached peak popularity in the form of aspic, which particularly appealed to the Victorian palate in the form of meals of meat encased in gelatin. Aspics could be works of art, particularly from afar, though up close they might appear a bit unsavory to the contemporary eye.

Eventually, due to a scarcity of resources during the 20th century’s numerous wars and subsequent economic hardships, gelatin escaped its elite origins to become a means of pure sustenance. Congealed salads were a way to stretch meals and reduce waste; leftovers could simply be served in a new form surrounded by a gelatinous casing. Though gelatin-based dishes fit the postwar inclination towards neatness and efficiency that defined many culinary habits of the 1950s, there is little evidence to suggest even then that gelatin salads were actually enjoyed by those who had to eat them. It may go without saying, then, that this meal trend, despite a fairly lengthy history, was never meant to last.