I’m old enough to remember what those real chickens tasted like. Chicken was fairly expensive and reserved for Sundays. Meat or fish was the fare the rest of the week.
The skin was more yellow than the current bland white chickens and there was real flavor in those birds. The other flavor I miss from my younger days is real Coca Cola made with cane sugar. That you can still buy if it’s imported from Mexico, $1 for a small bottle.
Chocolate used to taste like heaven. Now it’s made with coconut oil and tastes bland.
I used to think everything tasted great. Now it all tastes like cardboard. So, I got out my Mom’s old cookbooks and read the recipes. You can’t even guy the ingredients anymore. A cake of yeast comes to mind. Everything takes hours to make. We’ve gained inexpensive and plentiful food but lost the taste. On the other hand, if everything was made today like it was in the ‘60’s a meal out would average $100 per plate and take an hour to get to your table.
It probably has to do with the breed of chicken used by the man’s mother and the breeds that predominate today’s market. We had a chicken coop when I was a kid and raised our own chickens and got eggs. We had Leghorns, Rhode Island Reds and Plymouth Rock. Some chicken breeds are best for producing meat, while others for laying eggs.
Of course my wife has never been able to make fried chicken as good as my mother’s. Maybe it’s just a ‘man thing.’
I’m in Northern Ohio, just outside Cleveland. I buy my chicken at Cam’s Asian Market. on Miles Ave. across from the dead mall. Their chicken is fabulous! They get it all from the Amish. The fresh fish there is always great too.
I see “But One, Get one Free” sales of gigantic chicken breasts at Giant Eagle every few months. They’ve been injected with some sort of liquid too. I’m convinced those are old egg layers being culled by the egg companies. Rubber chicken, fur shure!
When I lived in El Paso I’d eat lunch over in Juarez.
Always had two large, ice-cold Cokes in glass bottles with real sugar (beet sugar but that’s fine).
Pulled from a big metal tub of cracked ice.... wonderful!
(and only 20 cents each)
Dos hamburguesas y dos Cokas por favor....
Current commercial chicken requires about 2 pounds of feed to produce a pound of meat. It used to take more than twice as much feed to produce a pound of chicken.
Aging taste buds, different chicken breeds, confinement raising, and specialized feed add up to a lot of differences.
Another item which tasted better years ago...Log Cabin Maple Syrup.
The little tin log cabin, sitting on my GM table and the fresh warm biscuits, (homemade of course) right out of the oven. Butter and Log Cabin Syrup...I’m in Heaven!
Over the years LC became just another bottle of sweet goo and the taste all but disappeared. Time misses no one and nothing.