Right now, America’s food quality is back under the microscope. The issues of ultra-processed ingredients, artificial dyes, and the long ingredient lists that make cereal boxes read like chemistry textbooks have long been a talking point.
Yet, some recipes and products of old would have had today’s youngsters wondering what they had ever done to food to deserve such punishment.
Thankfully, the free market worked its magic, casting some of these food monstrosities into the annals of food history. We dug through America’s culinary attic to dust off obscure foods from decades past. Some deserve a second act. Others can remain lovingly retired.
1. Eel Pie
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Across the Atlantic, jellied eels still exist in corners of East London, but eel pie has largely vanished from mainstream menus. There is an Eel Pie Island on the River Thames in West London, though finding an eel pie there is pointless, and rightly so once you see one.
Eels’ high gelatin content means the cooking liquor naturally sets into jelly: that sentence alone probably made you reach somewhat. Early American colonists inherited the tradition from Britain, where the River Thames was once teeming with eels. They soon learned. Pastry-encrusted eel jelly never really screamed “Victory,” did it? Sorry, England.
2. Mug-O-Lunch
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General Mills has never feared a bold idea. In 1976, that idea was the Betty Crocker Mug-O-Lunch: dehydrated pasta meals you rehydrated in a mug. One can only imagine the initial presentation meeting, in which the world’s first meal in a coffee mug was hatched. “How about a meal in a mug?”
The tagline was legendary yet explicit: “Hearty hot dishes you make in a mug.” However, after much muted fanfare, the public response was a polite shrug. Betty Crocker’s Mug-O-Lunch was discontinued in 1981.
3. Roasted Beaver
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Early American settlers trapped beavers for fur that would eventually make its way into top hats and frontier fashion for high society. Of course, all that fur came with meat, and in the late 17th century, meat didn’t go to waste.
Even Bear Grylls might not approve of the fare of our fur-trapping forebears. Roasted, peeled, and boiled, beaver was a practical protein. Culinary glamour it was not, and that is why we will never see it again lest we crash land in the Yukon Wilderness. It might even qualify as one of the Gruffalo’s new favorite meals.
4. Philadelphia Cheesecake Bars
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There was a moment in the ’90s when Philadelphia Cream Cheese tried to dominate snack time with Cheesecake Bars. It almost worked, and nobody really knows why they were discontinued.
Philadelphia Cheesecake Bars were biscuit-topped, strawberry-swirled, and aggressively nostalgic. If you were a child of the Clinton years, just reading this probably activated a taste memory. Copycat recipes, like this one from TheSqueakyCleaner, exist. Alas, the original remains frozen in time.
5. Ham Salad
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Finely chopped ham mixed with mayonnaise and mystery ingredients sounds like something invented during a war. Yet, the Washington Post seems to find some harmony with this mayo-free version, labeled a “retro throwback.”
To be fair, you can defend it passionately, but other versions could divide opinion, depending on one’s age group. Lauren’s Latest has a recipe with pickles, onion, and celery, which could upset the sans-mayo crowd.
6. Hershey’s Bites
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Let’s be honest: The Hershey Company is to chocolate what Velveeta is to haute cuisine. We know our bodies will hate us for it, but we somehow keep coming back. Yet, Hershey’s Bites, discontinued in 2007 over choking concerns, weren’t half bad.
They were small, spherical, and easy to demolish by the handful. The irony? America has no shortage of chocolate spheres that actually taste like chocolate. Progress marches on.
7. Jell-O Pudding Pops
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Launched in the 1970s, Jell-O Pudding Pops were frozen pudding on a stick: chocolate, vanilla, banana, and peanut butter with a crunchy ice coating. Those lucky enough to try them still miss them today; they disappeared in 2004.
In any event, Jell-O would likely need to change direction on its advertising. The marketing campaign famously featured the controversial Bill Cosby. It’s a campaign that aged about as well as you’d expect. The snack is gone. The nostalgia remains complicated, but boy, were they good.
8. Turtles
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Dwight Schrute fans will remember a scene in The Office: An American Workplace, where a turtle becomes his wedding gift. Historically, Americans also made them a normal part of dining, and some in the Deep South still do.
Roasted turtle and turtle soup were once high-end staples in cities across the country. Sarah Pruitt of the History Channel even claims Abraham Lincoln ate turtle soup at his final meal. Overhunting led to the rise of the Victorian favorite, “mock turtle soup,” made from calf’s head.
9. Robin Pie
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Robin Pie sounds like a cannibal’s dream, but alas, this one was literal. In the 19th century, small songbirds, including those poor robins, appeared on upscale menus. Cookbooks from the era detail recipes that would likely horrify modern backyard birdwatchers, according to Smithsonian Magazine.
The baffling aspect to any robin pie discussion must surely be the meat-to-bone ratio; it would hardly seem worth the effort. Thankfully, the Americans of the late 19th century who partook worked this out a long time ago. Let’s leave our red-chested winged friend to its pride of place on Christmas cards.
10. Ambrosia Salad
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Ambrosia salad is one of those dishes that sounds harmless until you list the ingredients out loud. Canned fruit? Fine. Coconut? Acceptable. Whipped cream? We’ll allow it.
Add green Jell-O, and suddenly you’re staring at something that looks like it glows in the dark. An NPR interview once described a holiday version as “electric green.” Ambrosia salad could be considered less dessert, more science experiment. Verdict: approach cautiously or just not at all.
11. Baked Alaska
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If you’re over 40, you know exactly what Baked Alaska is. If you’re under 20, you might assume it’s a Discovery Channel documentary. This theatrical dessert is ice cream encased in torched meringue, and to Gen-Xers like me, it once felt like peak sophistication.
Today, it mostly appears on cooking competition shows. Which is odd, because once you explain it to teenagers, they immediately want a slice. Ausrine Zygaityte of Mashed even boasts a mint-flavored variety of this once proud dessert contender. I decree that we should all be signing a petition for Baked Alaska’s comeback tour.
12. Ham and Banana Hollandaise
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You really need to double-take at least twice before making peace with the name of this recipe. To be fair, it wasn’t a recipe that was ever going to take off. We can thank the 1973 McCall’s Great American Recipe Card Collection for bananas wrapped in ham, baked, and covered in white sauce.
Somewhere between savory and dessert lies chaos in the form of ham and banana hollandaise. Yes, it still sounds wrong. The internet preserves photo evidence of this abomination: thanks, Food Republic. That’s enough, now; we’re good.