Did pastries and fast foods use to taste better?

[hedgehog]

I loved the donuts we got at the local donut shop. Whenever I get a donut now, it's a disappointment.

I suspect the reason is here:

Donut: Enriched Unbleached Wheat Flour (Wheat Flour, Niacin, Iron as Ferrous Sulfate, Thiamin Mononitrate, Enzyme, Riboflavin, Folic Acid), Palm Oil, Water, Soybean Oil, Cocoa processed with alkali, Dextrose, Yeast, Contains less than 2% of the following: Natural and Artificial Flavor, Sugar, Leavening (Baking Soda, Sodium Acid Pyrophosphate), Salt, Defatted Soy Flour, Gelatinized Wheat Starch, Mono and Diglycerides, Maltodextrin, Sodium Stearoyl Lactylate, Cellulose Gum, Soy Lecithin, Guar Gum, Xanthan Gum, Enzyme, Sucralose, Eggs, Milk; Chocolate Buttercreme Filling: Sugar, Vegetable Shortening (Palm Oil, Canola Oil, Mono and Diglycerides), Corn Syrup, Water, Cocoa processed with alkali, Corn Starch, Salt, Vegetable Shortening (Partially Hydrogenated Soybean and Cottonseed Oils), Artificial Flavor, Chocolate Liquor, Citric Acid, Guar Gum, Potassium Sorbate (Preservative), Mono and Diglycerides, Sodium Benzoate (Preservative), Polysorbate 60; Powdered Sugar: Dextrose, Corn Starch, Vegetable Oil (Soybean and/or Cottonseed), Palm Oil, Titanium Dioxide (Color), Artificial Flavor.

I doubt McDonald's started out making hamburgers out of anything but the same ground beef the supermarket sells. Fifty years of food science may have increased profits, but it hasn't done anything for taste or quality!

[FSogol]

1. Your reasoning is correct, but also remember: your taste buds get weaker as you get older. n/t

[tridim]

4. The same reason, IMO that broccoli tastes better as you get older.

[Art_from_Ark]

98. Broccoli will never taste better to me

I still hate it as much as I hated it when I was a kid.

[Big Blue Marble]

43. All you have to do is compare homemade doughnuts to commercial ones.

You will taste it has nothing to do with age, and all to do with ingredients.

BTW, I am in my sixties and my taste buds are tasting well. I am fully able
to enjoy the subtleties of great foods and fine wines. And do so often.

Sometimes a zinc deficiency can reduce our ability to taste.
Sometimes it can be loss of nerve function. Either way it is
not normal nor a given experience of aging.

[FSogol]

67. NIH disagrees.

"The number of taste buds decreases as you age. Each remaining taste bud also begins to lose mass (atrophy). Sensitivity to the four tastes often declines after age 60. Usually salty and sweet tastes are lost first, followed by bitter and sour tastes. In addition, your mouth produces less saliva as you age. This causes dry mouth, which can affect your sense of taste."

More at: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/004013.htm

PS. I agree about homemade vs commercial doughnuts. I bake everything (cookies, cakes, bread, pizza dough, etc) myself since it tastes 100x better than store bought.

[SheilaT]

70. You are absolutely right.

Even though I do know that one's ability to taste diminishes with age, I recall noticing about 20 years ago that Dunkin Donuts were no where near as good as they used to be.

I love to bake, and since I live alone sometimes I'll bake a cake or cookies and bring them to work. It's embarrassing just how much my coworkers rave about them. It's clear that the younger ones have never had made-from-scratch in their life, and even the older ones don't much any more.

Plus, it's amazingly easy to bake from scratch. It really is. If you've got time to sit and watch some TV, you've got time to bake something.

I claim that my chocolate chip cookies could bring about world peace.

[nenagh]

109. Wonderful that you treat your coworkers with your home cooked cakes and cookies..

[SheilaT]

111. It's that or eventually weigh 800 pounds.

Doing completely without is, of course out of the question.

[nenagh]

113. ..

[grasswire]

2. wow that donut list is stunning

bread isn't as good as it used to be for the same reason of preservatives, plus the fact that commercial bakeries use a "dough enhancer" that allows a shorter baking time, and the result is a sort of "gooey" bread.

[FarCenter]

30. Half the ingredients are for the chocolate buttercreme filling.

And the titanium dioxide is in the "powdered sugar".

[PDJane]

3. Remember that most processed corn products are GMO.

Titanium Dioxide is a colorant used to make things look whiter after over-processing. The other uses are for things like deodorant and sunblocks, taylor's chalk........like that. And no, the processing improves visual appeal and such, but does nothing for nutrition or normal taste.

[MrScorpio]

5. The four years I spent in Europe gave me the opportunity to get away from all of that crap

A lot of it is actually banned over there.

You tend to see more fresh products and fewer processed foods

When I got back after my tour there, the first thing I noticed was how much salt and sickly sweetness was in American food.

A little later, I took a trip to Alabama, where I was immersed in the three basic staples of Southern Cuisine; salt, sugar and fat.

I'll tell you this though, even Mickey Deaths tasted better in Europe than it does in the states.

Do you know why we are so fucked up with obesity and disease?

It's the combination of bad food and lots of it.

We are killing ourselves with that shit... And of course, we're subsidizing the very people who are killing us.

[FunkyLeprechaun]

35. I've lived in the UK for 7 years

And do come home to the US as much as I can. I've basically stopped eating American bread because I noticed how sweet it was (whole wheat bread from Hy-Vee).

I've even begun to prefer the UK McDonald's (and I don't even eat there THAT much) to its American counterpart, the UK M&Ms to its American counterpart, the UK KitKats to its American counterpart, and heck even the UK Diet Coke to its American counterpart. Every single time I come home, ALL the food seem very sweet to me and that was after 6-10 months of living in the UK.

The only American food that I prefer is chewing gum!

[mockmonkey]

42. I've heard that...

the Brits think that Hershey bars are gross is that true?

[FunkyLeprechaun]

46. Yep!

N/T

[kentauros]

49. The big "chocolate" bar manufacturers in America

use as little chocolate in their "product" as they can get away with. I'd agree with the Brits on the quality of Hershey chocolate.

So, if you want good-quality chocolate, expect to pay multiple dollars for a bar of chocolate. Usually, that also means it's fair trade and possibly organic. Now while most here hate Whole Foods with a passion, I go there partly to get my chocolate fix, and for brands I can't get at my local Kroger, such as the one I'm eating now, Theo Congo Vanilla Nib

I've been eating on this one for several days, too. Most people 'consume' Hersheys chocolate. There isn't much 'savoring' going on

[u4ic]

99. I'm Canadian and I think that

it's like eating brown wax.

[vanlassie]

110. My British son in law thinks " it tastes like sick."

Which I understand to mean like vomit.

[u4ic]

128. An apt description!

[vanlassie]

129. Ruined it for ME! He brings me Malteasers...ummm!

[IrishAyes]

54. Maybe it's the plutocracy's answer to overpopulation

They want enough overpopulation to set us at each other's throats and keep us distracted and fractured, but not so many excess people that they're likelier to rise up in spontaneous, overwhelming combustion that would indeed sweep aside everything in its path. A very dangerous balancing act.

[Major Nikon]

100. Europe is starting to get much like the US

France had to undergo an renaissance of sorts to bring back neighborhood bakeries. In general you can still find better ingredients in Europe, but in many respects they are turning into the US as far as cheap crappy food goes. When consumers prefer cheap over quality, that's exactly what they are going to get.

[defacto7]

108. Add to that....

Ever had Guinness in Ireland? There is no comparison here. It is divine. It's not pasteurized. Everything here must be pasteurized and it wrecks Guinness.

Ever had a wine hangover? That headache? Only in America. In Italy, France anywhere in Europe I have never had a hangover from wine. Why? By law, wine must contain sulfates here. It changes the taste and gives that headache. If it's imported from overseas, sulfates are added. Wine contains no sulfates overseas and that is a taste you cannot enjoy here.

[SomethingFishy]

6. Mmmmm donuts...

My local donut shop deep fries their donuts. Not good. Our local Kroeger (King Soopers in my part of the country) actually makes really good "raised" donuts.

However the best donuts are easily Tim Hortons. Not many of them in the states though...

Don't know about "fast food" as I don't eat much of it. Pizza but that is always best from someplace local.

[CrispyQ]

20. I think KS raised donuts are good, too.

They used to have really good pastry, but that was long ago. Oh man, once a week they had this blackberry pastry . . . I think it was on Thursday's & I always made a point of stopping by that day.

[SomethingFishy]

73. Have you tried the "soft cookies"?

They are in the packaged bakery section. They are so thick they are more like Muffin Tops than cookies, and man are they good.. The Apple Cinnamon are addicting... They also have Lemon, Pumpkin, Chocolate Chocolate Chip and Cranberry...

[naturallyselected]

63. When did you last eat a Tim Hortons doughnut?

Tim Hortons are plentiful here in Maine (two in my small town), and the quality of the doughnuts is all over the place. They get partially cooked doughnuts from Canada, and microwave them, then frost, or sugar, or whatever. Sometimes the end result is good, most times they taste dough-y or over-microwaved. I still like their apple and blueberry fritters, but if they leave them in the microwave just too long, they taste anything but fresh. Definitely not the Tim Hortons doughnuts of the past.

Fortunately for me, a doughnut addict, we have a local shop, Frosty's, that makes just about the best doughnuts I have ever had (and I've had way too many). The shop was formerly owned by right-wing Christian fundamentalists, and they had fundie pamphlets all over the shop, along with those delicious doughnuts. But the shop, and the recipes, were sold a couple of years back. The fundie literature is all gone, but the great doughnuts remain.

[SomethingFishy]

72. I was in upstate NY last week and a friend from Canada

came across the border and brought me a dozen.. I've never had any in the states, I didn't even know there were TH's in the states.. Maybe there is a difference in the ones from Canada, the dozen she brought me were good.. at least the ones I ate..

I too am a donut junkie. I spend a lot of time on the road, we mostly get Dunkin on the road and those things are no better than eating a twinkie.. I wish we had a local place like you do, barring that King Soopers does a good job of holding me over...

[upaloopa]

7. Years ago I worked for a CPA firm. We had to work on

an audit of a Burger King in OH.
I had to do my audit work papers in the back room of the Burger King.
While I was there the manager and another worker were trying to figure out how little amount of syrup they could get away with and the drink would still taste like a coke.
They also called the young kids that worked for them into the back room to fire them on some trumped up charge just before they were eligible for benefits.
I use to see those kids leave crying and could not say a word.

[IrishAyes]

60. Sounds like McDeath's

Whose CEO just offered a budget for the low-wage slaves that listed zero for heat and zero for food. Corporatism is fast shedding its thin veneer of 'ethics' which was only meant to impress customers and allay their concerns in the first place. Now they see no need for even a fig leaf. If this isn't class war, someone please tell me what is. Well, I did see a funny 'toon somewhere showing rifle-toting British hunters on elephants; one of the hunters says, "It's only class warfare if they fire back."

[jberryhill]

8. Yes and no

Sweets of all kinds taste better when you are younger. It's why tastes change over time.

[Shrike47]

9. French fries used to taste better because they were fried in lard.

You're right about food processing and preservatives; the longer the food can last, the further it can ship, the less tasty it is.

We're in fresh raspberry season here. No shelf life but oh, are they good!

[MineralMan]

10. Beef Tallow, more likely.

That's what McDonalds used, until fairly recently.

[SomeGuyInEagan]

61. Not fried in beef extract, but it was added to the fries until about ten years ago ...

... as a spray coating in the processing before quick-freezing (and they got sued and lost a settlement for it).

They switched to frying in veggie oil in the '80s/early '90s depending on location. Before that, it was beef tallow. The switch from tallow to veggie oil was a dramatic change in the flavor and they caught some flak for it from some of the owner-operators as well as some of the general public.

[MineralMan]

62. I knew it was beef tallow at some point.

I still use lard in some things, like biscuits. I don't make biscuits often, but when I do, my guests rave over them. I never reveal the secret behind their flaky goodness, though. I don't make them for my vegetarian or vegan guests, though. I have other recipes for them, and follow their restrictions.

But real southern-style biscuits made with lard...well, they're something special.

[SomeGuyInEagan]

93. Pie crusts made with lard ... incredibly flaky and tasty.

Not so healthy, though. But, man, yeah, they have a quality about them.

[Stonepounder]

71. Make your own raspberry jam and jelly from those fresh raspberries!

You will be absolutely amazed how good homemade jams and jellies made from ripe fruit taste compared to the stuff you buy at the store. If you have never made homemade jam or jelly, don't panic. It is really pretty easy to do and your jams and jellies will last just about forever (at least a couple of years if stored in a cool, dark place).

[Arugula Latte]

116. And freezer jam is even easier to make.

I freeze it in small containers so I'm sure to use it up within a couple weeks of opening.

http://www.dessertnowdinnerlater.com/2013/05/low-sugar-strawberry-freezer-jam-tips.html

[MineralMan]

11. Where did you find that ingredients list?

It looks like something from a box of store donuts, rather than donuts from a bakery or real donut shop. If you buy boxed donuts from a commercial bakery, that's what you get. If you buy them at a real bakery, fresh out of the hot oil, the list will be different.

[hedgehog]

13. It's from a famous donut chain -

which unfortunately is expanding into sandwiches and ice cream. It's a classic case of bad but cheap franchises driving out good local food. I really hate going anywhere on a long trip - you could gain 10 pounds but still be starving from the road food!

[MineralMan]

17. Go to your local bakery, instead. Try different ones until you

find good donuts and then keep going there. I'm sure you're referring to Dunkin Donuts. In fact, I Googled the first section of your ingredients list and it led me to DD. They use chain-wide mixes to make their donuts, and they contain preservatives that are not necessary to make donuts. That stuff is there to keep old bags of the donut mix from spoiling.

Donuts are made of flour, sugar, milk, eggs, yeast, and butter. The rest are additives. Some are in the flour, and some go into the mix to make it last a long time on the shelf.

You get what you get from chains. Find a bakery that makes donuts fresh every morning. Get the real thing, instead of the factory equivalent.

[Nay]

55. Just remember, the local bakery may buy its donuts wholesale from a chain. 40 years ago I worked the

early shift at a local bakery. The Dunkin' Donuts truck used to come by in the alley in back, and I'd let him in to deliver donuts. The bakery owner served them up as his own. One day the DD guy came in the front door right before opening time, and the owner got all over his ass because he was afraid his customers would see the DD truck!

So, the donuts you buy at a local bakery may be DD, or worse.

[MineralMan]

85. Ask. I don't assume anything.

[BainsBane]

81. The Baker's Wife

Has good cake donuts. Yes, it's a Minneapolis bakery, but aren't most of the best bakeries in Minneapolis? Butter Bakery and Patisserie 46 are fantastic but they don't carry donuts.

I have gone to that one on W. 7th that has all the fancy donuts, but I'm not that crazy about the taste of their base dough.

[BainsBane]

34. stick to honest bakeries

Local, not chains. Frequent a bakery where someone makes their goods fresh daily.

[AtheistCrusader]

53. Which one?

I'd guess Dunkin', or Crispy Crème...

[Cleita]

12. The very original McDonalds burger circa 1950 was quite tasty. My mom and

I would go eat there for a treat. This was before Ray Kroc bought the place in San Bernardino, a single store then, and expanded it into an empire. Today the burger tastes like various layers of flavored cardboard, IMHO.

[hedgehog]

14. Fast food was a treat for us back in the 60's.

[Skittles]

33. A & W

OMG

[Cleita]

37. I went to school in tenth grade with the daughter of one of the franchise owners of A & W.

She used to work for dad on Saturdays frying hamburgers. Sometimes I used to hang out with her and help out in the kitchen. I got paid in root beers.

[Skittles]

75. OMG OMG OMG

I CANNOT IMAGINE!!!! One of those root beers was a supreme, cherished rare treat during the times I was in America as a child - aw I can still remember them so vividly

[Art_from_Ark]

101. I remember going to the now long-defunct A&W drive-in

for a jug of root beer on a hot summer day, probably 1968 or so. It was a super treat for a 4th of July picnic.

"Those were the days, my friend,
We thought they'd never end..."

[Skittles]

103. so strange, that song quote

I have the same Amerian A&W memory from the 60's, and I have a vivid memory of Mary Hopkins when I lived in England in 1968

[Nay]

58. Biff Burger in FL! What a treat once every couple of weeks! nt

[WCGreen]

36. Big Mac's and Whoppers have become uneatable....

[AtheistCrusader]

57. Whoppers haven't changed, for me, in 20 years.

Taste exactly the same to me. A constant in the universe, that I cherish, on the rare occasions I allow myself to eat such garbage treats.

[WCGreen]

66. I'm talking 30 - 35 years ago...

[closeupready]

15. Of course these ingredients diminish flavor. Common sense.

I ALWAYS read the list of ingredients, and if I see something I don't recognize or if I see too many acronyms, I simply leave it on the shelf.

[hedgehog]

16. It's a good way of purging your cupboard of fattening foods!

[closeupready]

18. Yes indeed - I cook fresh most of the time, and brown bag

because I don't trust most food vendors in Midtown - so much junk.

When I make my meals, it's nothing but simple, natural things. And I'm in really good shape, in part due to my 'obsession' with eating healthy.

[Punkingal]

19. Everything used to taste better.

[pecwae]

21. I was just thinking

the same thing about fruits and vegetables. I haven't had a really good watermelon or cantaloupe in a long time. This year's tomatoes aren't tasting as they should.

Don't know about snacks and I don't eat fast food, but having just returned from Europe I can tell a huge difference in many foods here as opposed to there. The dairy products are especially different; so fresh in Austria, so bland here.

[closeupready]

22. I'm reading "Much Depends on Dinner" - by a Margaret Visser, from 1986,

and she explains the history of some very common food products, like butter, or corn, and turns out, it's not your imagination - many of these products in the US have inferior flavor (vs. Europe) due to homogenization, pasteurization, standardization, i.e., the commercial demands imposed on national food processors/manufacturers.

[pecwae]

23. I appreciate that tip!

I'll see if the title is available on Kindle.

Even the organic dairy that I buy at WF tastes inferior to the everyday dairy products I had in Austria.

[progressoid]

27. Industrial tomatoes have no flavor.

They are grown for their looks, longevity and ease of transport at the expense of flavor.

[ColesCountyDem]

39. I've planted nothing but 'heirloom' varieties in my garden, and they taste the way they should.

'Heirloom' varieties are, according to a horticulturist friend of mine, generally open-pollenated and/or unchanged for a period of 75-100 years. They must also be non-GMO, by definition. That's why my tomatoes, e.g., taste like the ones my parents and grandparents grew in their gardens.

[Auggie]

51. Three apples today = the iron content of one apple from 1950.

So says author Michale Pollan:

"... the nutritional quality of a lot of our produce has declined during the industrialisation of agriculture. We're not exactly sure why but say iron in an apple, to eat a modern apple, to get the amount of iron in a 1950 apple you would have to eat three modern apples."

"Some of that is breeding, we're breeding for bigger more beautiful, but less nutritious apples because you can't select for everything."

http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2007/s2257391.htm

Support your Farmers' Market!

[laundry_queen]

79. A good book about that is "Eating on the Wild Side"

by Jo Robinson

It goes into what foods have been bred for what purposes and how it's affected the nutrition of each food item. It also has lists of what are the best varieties to buy or grow for the highest nutrition. It was a very interesting read!

[Auggie]

82. Thanks! This looks fantastic.

[BainsBane]

24. Donuts have to be really fresh to be good

What you're describing is not an honest donut. Don't you have any good bakeries where people make baked goods fresh daily from from real ingredients?


BTW, you're wrong about McDonalds's hamburgers.

[MineralMan]

112. I used to live in a small coastal town in California.

Maybe 6000 population. In the single strip mall in that town was a bakery, called Carlock's. It was owned by a guy who showed up at work every morning at 3 AM. His family all worked in the bakery. There was a newspaper article about the bakery at one point, simply because everything made there was so good. People would drive from neighboring towns just to buy his stuff.

Anyhow, Mr. Carlock made everything sold there himself. All from scratch recipes using just the basic ingredients. No commercial baking mixes. No nothing that wasn't needed. I can't remember how many 100 lb. bags of flour the article said he used each day, but the bakery had dozens of items that were always available, plus specialty items he made once in a while. Everything in the place was to die for. He was of German ancestry, and made some German specialties, too.

Sadly, I moved away from there in 2004, and don't know if he's still in business. He was pretty old when I was there, and I lived in that down for 35 years. Carlock's was the place. Wonderful, local, authentic bakery. I haven't found a replacement within easy driving distance here in St. Paul. I'm still looking.

[BainsBane]

114. Have you tried the bakeries I mentioned?

The Baker's Wife is run by a guy who makes his own stuff. Butter bakery is small, and Patisserie 46 make gorgeous French pastries. Another good one is the Salty Tart in the Global Marketplace (old Sears building on Lake and Chicago). The owner was nominated for a James Beard award this year. The Wedge co op also has an excellent bakery. All of these places are in South Minneapolis.

[MineralMan]

123. Yah, they're not close enough for me to run over

and pick up a couple of things on a Sunday. I'm spoiled by that California bakery, which was a block away from the office suite my wife and I rented, back in more prosperous times.

[BainsBane]

125. There are some on the West side of St Paul I haven't tried

that get good reviews. Bars, for example. http://www.barsbakery.com/

[MineralMan]

126. I'm still working on trying the closer ones.

If I don't find one, I'll expand my search circle. The reality is that we don't eat a lot of pastries, so it's not a critical need. We stop by bakeries once in a while to see what's on offer and try things if they appeal to us.

Thanks!

[Egalitarian Thug]

25. Yes, most everything did. I used to think it was simply getting older, but then

I found some imported European butter and, wow, it tasted exactly like I remembered butter tasting. So, I started buying other stuff from Europe and it all tasted like what I remembered food tasted like before.

I now believe that our entire food supply here in the Corporate States of America is tainted.

It reminds me of this quotation from Crocodile Dundee (1986), "Well, you can live on it. But it tastes like shit."

[Historic NY]

26. Remember when Dunkin Donuts were made in the store fresh...

every few hours? Near me they make then overnight for early delivery, they sit out for 24 hrs plus until the next shipment arrives. They went from light and airy to almost a rock state.

[petronius]

28. I suspect ingredients are part of it, but I also think our individual tastes change

as we get older, plus our memories of how great things used to be are flavored by nostalgia. I've come across a lot of items that I used to love, but that have become horribly disappointing now - quality and content may have declined, but not that much. On the other hand, my local donut store is still capable of churning out some truly heavenly concoctions. As is the local burger stand, pizza parlor, fish 'n' chips place, coffee shop...

[RC]

29. Sorry, I read that as...

Did pasties and fast foods use to taste better?

[msanthrope]

87. I read the same damn thing. Time to correct the prescription....AGAIN. nt

[SnowCritter]

31. Many years ago a local bakery supply warehouse was closing its doors

and selling off product to anyone who walked in the door.

Just for grins and giggles I purchased a 50lb bag of flour of the type used for making cake donuts (they provided a recipe as well).

I made a LOT of donuts (worked my way through about half the bag) before I, well, just got tired of making donuts. They were, without a doubt, the best damn donuts I ever tasted (some of which I attribute to the fact that I had a lot of time and energy invested in them).

My apartment smelled like, well, donuts, for quite a while.

[Myrina]

32. Yep. Unless you buy it from a mom n pop bakery or make it yourself, it all tastes basicallythe same.

n/t

[BornLooser]

38. Best

burgers ever, same as they ever were: Kincaids, Ft. Worth, Tx. Clownburger of Haltom City #2.

Best donuts EVER: Schulers Bakery, Springfield, Oh. "The Home of Homemade". 100 years of mmm...

[Laelth]

64. I admit to being very fond of Kincaid's. n/t

-Laelth

[BornLooser]

76. O.R. Gentry's method is still in use...to this day.

Natural vegetarian-fed, no hormones, antibiotics, preservatives.

[mockmonkey]

40. McDonald's

You are right when I worked at a McDonald's franchise back in 1978 we received regular deliveries of refrigerated hamburger from the local supermarket chain. In our case it was the Kohl's food store chain.

At some point they started receiving frozen patties, in the 80's I think. I think they now freeze the buns too, not positive about that.
I know when I started there the older employees used to tell us about how they had to peel the potatoes for the french fries.

I remember them switching to Vegetable oil for frying, but they kept some animal fat flavoring in the oil which got them in trouble when the Restaurants in India were using it. It said it on the label so someone wasn't paying attention.

McDonald's has the best fries of all the major fast food chains it's too bad they have to dump all that salt on it and ruin it.


I think when they removed trans fat from everything that removed a lot of the flavor.

Tomatoes are engineered to last longer but as most people know a home grown tomato tastes so much better.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

41. I got one for you. Try to find Concord Grapes....

I guess we are all supposed to forget there were once grapes that tasted like grape jelly.

[susanna]

77. I can usually get them, in season, at Eastern Market

in Detroit. There are a couple of farms that sell them. Best jelly ever.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

86. I mention them on the West Coast and people just don't get it.

[susanna]

88. Maybe because indigenous American grapes are looked down on because of the...

...Euro-grape wineries on the west coast?

There is a winery here that makes a Concord wine. It's not great, lol - too sweet for me. But it's redolent of Concord grapes. They also do versions with Niagara and Catawba grapes. They're not great either, but I think it's neat that they make them if only for the local aspect.

on edit: clarity

[Spitfire of ATJ]

89. It's like FOODCO doesn't want people to know about that stuff....

You've got green seedless, red seedless and "globe" all of which taste the same.

The attitude is that we are hogs at the troth who buy box wine.

[susanna]

94. Yes, that is the attitude of Foodco.

I bought the Concord version at the winery and tried it. In the end, I mixed it with sparkling water and it was a passable porch quencher for hot weather lol.

That said, I enjoy tasting the indigenous grapes of the Great Lakes and Upstate New York regions, however they are prepared. They have their own charms. As one we both know: Concord Grape jelly!

[Spitfire of ATJ]

95. The OP is right though that the quality of commercial food has gone down...

Let's face it. All bread is "day old".

[susanna]

106. Oh, absolutely!

I became a food crank a looooong time ago. I make my own bread and grow my own vegetables. These are things I can control. I like that.

I'm a cook by trade (after a 20-year sentence in the corporate trenches), so I do whatever I can to remain close to my sources.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

107. You might like this...

I got to attend the Vegas pre-opening for this joint the other day...



http://www.carminesnyc.com/

Ordered stuffed mushrooms, veal saltinbocca and rigatoni country style.

[Half-Century Man]

44. Be Careful What You Eat....Yakko, Wakko, and Dot

[AnotherMcIntosh]

45. Pasturizing milk w moderate heat = better taste. Pasturizing w higher heat = quicker & profitable.

[AtheistCrusader]

59. I like the 'Lactose Free' stuff, and they hyper-pasteurize it.

So it can sit on the shelf longer. Yet it tastes better to me. Weird.

Check the expiration dates on it, Lactaid lactose free milk lasts like... a month.

[Pretzel_Warrior]

47. I sooooo agree. I've always wanted to see what the formula or recipe

Was for familiar products 50 years ago vs. today. Or even 30 years ago. We would be shocked at how much they have destroyed the original recipe for a few cents of extra profit for each one they sell.

[Enrique]

48. i blame all the kids on my lawn

[EC]

50. Yeah, when they used real

food stuff to make the products they were better. I can't eat any bakery stuff anymore because it doesn't taste right. Even from expensive bakeries. And I've stopped wasting my money on produce from the store. Tomatoes that ship nicely and look good but taste like cardboard aren't worth the price.

[IrishAyes]

52. What you said,

but also over time we tend to lose taste buds, too. On the other end of the spectrum, expectant moms should eat what they want their babies to eat, because food preferences can be instilled well before birth. That said, I'm not interested in frankenfood. We know GMOs are killing bees; why should we think GMOs won't kill us just the same?

[ancianita]

56. 50 years has increased profits in the biotech fake food industrial complex. That is all.

[Freddie]

65. Most of our familiar processed foods

Canned soup, frozen meals, etc. have been "tweaked" over the years to reduce the sodium content. May be a little healthier now but there is a definite change in the taste.
With fast food a lot of the difference is changes in food prep techniques. At Burger King you used to get a fresh burger off the grill, now they keep them warm in warming trays and nuke the sandwich before you get it. Not the same! I used to love McD's breakfast biscuits when they were fresh made, now they're frozen and the texture is different.
It's not your imagination or even old age, food is different than when we were kids.

[SoCalDem]

68. Prepared-for-you-foods are now mostly franken-foods

I raised my kids on & still use "Make-a-Mix" cookbook recipes.

I make my OWN cake mix, pancake mix, bread mix/donut-sweetroll mix.

My seasoning mixes have NOTHING "extra" in them

You can still buy these great books on ebay..mine were purchased new 4 decades ago and dog-eared as they are, they are still tops..

Franchising of our food prep & sales is what "killed" the familiar tastes we remember..

[slor]

69. I was just speaking about this with friends...

I believe they were truly better! However, I am open to the concept that I may simply be romanticizing those experiences.

[KurtNYC]

74. Even simple foods, like milk, are different now

The milk you buy in a supermarket has been separated into its components (cream, whey, etc) and then reassembled in blends to make 1%, 2%, skim, etc.

We are living through an era when food is cheaper than it has ever been. Virtually every producer has to compete on cost with every other producer on the planet. I live in the middle of a county full of apple orchards which have been here almost 400 years. Now some of the farmers don't even pick them because they can't sell them cheaper at wholesale than apples shipped in from China.

Also, a lot of science has gone into selling each of us more and more food. Diet soda makes you hungry -- fast food chains know this and it makes them more profitable. They get to sell you soda at huge markup and then that soda ("diet&quot sets you up to buy dessert.

Americans have been conditioned to eat not for taste, but for the way food makes you feel. There is a strong emotional component to food. Food is love. We care about the homeless by feeding them (not by getting them housing, ironically). We treat ourselves to a pint of Ben & Jerrys when we feel good but we also empty that pint when we are depressed. We train our kids early that food is the answer to sadness -- "Happy Meal."

[Cleita]

80. During the war (WWII) my grandmother got pasteurized milk from the local dairy

delivered every morning fresh. There was a neck of cream on the top. She would pour the cream off for coffee and baking and the milk was mostly for me and it was delicious. Then somewhere homogenization came along. They also started putting vitamin D in it. Both processes changed the taste, a nice sweet taste, of the milk, giving it a not so palatable after taste. I suppose if you never had non homogenized milk, you wouldn't know what I mean. I was never much of a milk lover after that. I use mostly plant "milks" now like soy, rice, or my present favorite almond milk.

[brooklynite]

78. I had a Twinkie yesterday

...tasted just like it did before.

Mmmmmmm

[Ratty]

83. I haven't had a good donut in 30 years

Just can't find them anymore so I gave up trying.

[haele]

84. Yes. Though with baked goods, texture tended to be either harder or more doughy.

These days, the baked goods are "fluffier" but not as tasty. That was one of the reasons that "Wonderbread" and Twinkies were such treats back when I was a kid - their "mouth" texture was unusual for what could be gotten from home or from the local bakers. What I bake from home now is pretty much the same texture to what I would get at the stores growing up.

Those gums and much of the ingredients you listed are chemically neutral in taste, but the processing and factory farming of grains and other actual food ingredients have meant they have gotten blander over the years.
When I was growing up, and commercial bakeries were local businesses that sourced most ingredients regionally, there was a subtle difference between seasonal flours due to the different wheats, and minimally processed produce items like applesauce, peanut butter, jellies and jams could have different flavors even if they were processed the same way depending on the area of the country they came from (i.e. apples from the pacific northwest had a different flavor profile than apples from the northeast).

Hostess tasted different than Dolley Madison, than TastyKake, etc...

Not to mention, there was usually a lot more stuffing in the store-bought baked goods - the Hostess pies would have at least half a cup of fruit mix, instead of the third to quarter cup they have now.

But still, to a lot of people, that consistent commercial mouth texture and regulated "always the same" taste is a good trade off for an inconsistency of texture and subtle batch differences to taste.

Haele

[LeftyMom]

90. The local shop around here makes the best doughnuts I've ever had.

They use high end local ingredients. If they run out of pumpkin donuts you'll see somebody in the back cutting up pumpkins, provided that pumpkins are in season. If you get a lemon lavender doughnut the lemon glaze started the morning in a lemon, not in a plastic bottle. They use good baking flour, not bagged doughnut mix.

TBH almost everything I eat is better than I remember growing up, but it's because I live in foodie heaven (Northern California) and it's easy and relatively cheap to get fresh local food when you live in the middle of the best farm country on Earth.

[hedgehog]

91. My mother was a young Navy wife in Oakland in the 50's when she was pregnant with me -

she rally craved grapefruit, but it was hard to get because most of the fruit was shipped East!

[Aerows]

92. McDonald's hamburgers

used to be juicy and delicious about 20 years ago. Then they started microwaving them. That was the end of a tasty McDonald's hamburger. Taco Bell has always been made out of crap, but it's tasty crap so I'm not complaining

[xmas74]

96. I notice it leaves a film in my mouth.

It's unsettling and kind of gross.

[Major Nikon]

97. Au contraire!

Food science has also done wonders for taste and quality. The best chefs have known this for decades. Julia Child was a big fan of food science.

[u4ic]

102. Salt Sugar Fat

http://www.alternet.org/food/salt-sugar-fat-how-food-giants-hooked-us-deadly-junk

I don't eat processed food any more; the main reason being health, but also taste. Too many fillers, too much sugar and salt. If I do, I'd rather spend a bit more and get something tasty rather than something cheap.

[Warpy]

104. One thing jumps out at me and it's the use of vegetable oils

necessitating the need for xanthan and guar gums to give the same mouth feel that solid shortenings (often lard) once did. The loss of real fat probably degraded the flavor. The use of vanillin instead of real vanilla put a stake through its heart.

[Politicalboi]

105. I remember real good donuts from the Helm's man

Helm's men were like ice cream men, but only they sold donuts cigarettes, bread and candy. Just put the sign in your window, and the truck will stop, or flag him down. Those jelly donuts were yummy, today's, YUCK!

[Bluenorthwest]

118. Ah yes, and the huge Venice Blvd. Helm's building is a treat to this day.

http://helmsbakerydistrict.com/

[hedgehog]

120. Small city/town in upstate New York -

I'd have to drive 10 miles north or 20 miles south to find a college neighborhood with good food.

[Bluenorthwest]

119. Buy local and high quality. Baked goods in particular...

Doughnuts in my world are VooDoo
http://voodoodoughnut.com/index.php

Fast Food? Death to False Pizza!
http://www.sizzlepie.com/

[Silent3]

121. I don't dispute that some things may have indeed changed in quality but...

...I wonder how many of the "Oooh! Ick! All that artificial stuff!" people here could consistently pick what they think is the more natural, more organic, and/or more homemade item in a blind taste test.

Watch this Penn & Teller taste test:

A whole lot of what people think tastes better is totally in their minds. On the banana part of this, you can the power of suggestion quite effectively in action.

(I don't agree with all of P&T's dissing of organic foods, but they've certainly got a valid point to make about some aspects of organic food and people's perceptions of it.)

[hedgehog]

122. I'd like to see the Penn and teller test done with baked goods -

the taste of all produce is going to depend in part on general ripeness when picked and care afterwards, so it's hard to get a fair comparison. I do know eggs from my free range chickens taste better when they're on pasture than they do in winter, but even the winter eggs are better than store bought.

Of course, Penn and Teller's demo ignores the possibility of pesticide residue on conventionally grown produce.

[Silent3]

124. When two halves of the very same banana produce that much florid verbiage...

... about the supposed differences in taste, however, the big psychological component of this issue can hardly be denied. The psychology remains the same whether it's bananas or doughnuts or pork chops in question.

You don't get too many people saying they only choose organic for avoiding pesticide residues, and no other reason. Even if that's important to someone, they'll also likely feel the need to embellish their choice by adding, "Add besides, organic tastes SOOOOO much better!"

[applegrove]

127. The bakery I used to go to used HFCS. I suspect that is the reason why baked goods don't

taste as good as when they were made using actual sugar and butter and such.