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Vintage Things That Have Disappeared In Your Lifetime?

Messages
12,979
Location
Germany
The cash & carry-principe was not so common on retail-stores, in these old days, right?

By the way, the special petrol-attendant in Germany disappeared in the 90's.
 

2jakes

I'll Lock Up
Messages
9,680
Location
Alamo Heights ☀️ Texas
The grocery delivery boy dissappeared in my lifetime. I used to do that in high school when I worked in the grocery. Customers would call in their orders, I'd do the shopping and then deliver the groceries by pickup truck and collect the money.

Some groceries around here have recently started to take phone or internet orders and do the shopping but you have to drive over and pick up the groceries yourself.

Drug stores used to deliver, too.

Walgreens & Sommers drug stores.
With regards to the soda fountains & chocolate malts .
Not sure if this qualifies as vintage, but I cannot find a
chocolate flavored malt anymore the way they were
made in the past.
At least here in the states.
LM suggested England might still have the ingredients.
I wonder if they do Fedex !

(I’m referring to the powder) :)
 

JimWagner

Practically Family
Messages
946
Location
Durham, NC
The cash & carry-principe was not so common on retail-stores, in these old days, right?

By the way, the special petrol-attendant in Germany disappeared in the 90's.

The majority of customers did their own shopping when I was doing the deliveries, but there were a number of mainly older people in town who either didn't or couldn't drive and depended on deliveries for groceries and medications. I should add that delivery service was free where I worked. I only got paid 85 cents per hour in that job, so overhead was pretty low. 85 cents sounds low, but it was better than the 50 cents per hour I made bagging groceries.
 
Messages
10,940
Location
My mother's basement
I see vans wearing grocery chain livery and advertising delivery service. I've never availed myself of such a service, but grocery delivery has been resurrected, at least on a trial basis.

The milkman isn't yet extinct, but home dairy delivery isn't nearly so ubiquitous as it once was. (I'm confident those of us of a certain age have heard most of the variations on the milkman joke.)
 

LizzieMaine

Bartender
Messages
33,766
Location
Where The Tourists Meet The Sea
LM suggested England might still have the ingredients.
I wonder if they do Fedex !

(I’m referring to the powder) :)

Horlick's malted milk is only available in the UK and other Commonwealth countries nowadays, although it was very common in the US up until the fifties or so. But Carnation malted milk powder is still around, or at least it was the last time I looked. Carnation was the brand most commonly sold at soda fountains during the postwar era, and it looks like the same stuff as it was then. If you can't find it at a grocery store, try a foodservice distributor -- you might have to buy a five pound can, but as long as you keep the cover tightly sealed, it should keep OK.
 
Messages
10,181
Location
Pasadena, CA
The air raid siren was on my street, on a high pole in front of my cousins' house, and God help you if you were standing in front of it when it went off. Our town blew what we called "the dinner whistle" every day at 11:30 am, and sounded it again as a curfew at 9:15 pm. Even today when I hear a siren go off in, say, a movie about the London Blitz, my first thought is that it's time to eat.

Yup - one of the loudest things ever. As kids, we liked it - we of course used it to play into our battles over in the local Church grounds. I don't think it still exists, but I'll have to ask Mom about it.
 

p51

One Too Many
Messages
1,119
Location
Well behind the front lines!
Air raid sirens were a thing of the past when I was a kid. I think there was a resurgence in them in the 'duck and cover' era, but that was before my time, too (I was born in 1969).
I have seen several over the years in various places repurposed as tornado or tsunami warnings, though.
 

2jakes

I'll Lock Up
Messages
9,680
Location
Alamo Heights ☀️ Texas
Horlick's malted milk is only available in the UK and other Commonwealth countries nowadays, although it was very common in the US up until the fifties or so. But Carnation malted milk powder is still around, or at least it was the last time I looked. Carnation was the brand most commonly sold at soda fountains during the postwar era, and it looks like the same stuff as it was then. If you can't find it at a grocery store, try a foodservice distributor -- you might have to buy a five pound can, but as long as you keep the cover tightly sealed, it should keep OK.

Carnation Malted chocolate & original powder were acquired by Nestlé in 1985.
It has changed in flavor & content.
The closest to the taste I recall is by combining Carnation chocolate powder with Hershey’s
Natural Unsweetened powder which is 100 % Cacoa. And at best, this is mostly
wishful thinking on my part.

There was also Kraft Chocolate Malted Milk Powder which came in square
tin cans, but that also has gone the way of the Dodo.

Ovaltine (an acquired taste) was another favorite that was available
in chocolate crystals. This has changed .
Although the BFM would have us believe that it’s the same flavor since
the bottles are stamped “original flavor”. It’s not.

I need to check into Horlick’s. Thanks.
 
Last edited:

Inkstainedwretch

One Too Many
Messages
1,037
Location
United States
You might want to give Abeuelita and Ibarra chocolate a try. They're Mexican brands, now available in US supermarkets. Sold in cake form, they're pure, unadulterated chocolate, the recipe unchanged for generations. You break off a triangular chunk, grind it up and use it in whatever recipe or drink you want. Mexican food purity laws are quite strict so their foodstuffs are almost always unadulterated. Mexican Coca-Cola, for instance, uses only pure cane sugar, no corn syrup allowed. As for the malt part, you're on your own. Might brewer's malt work?
 

2jakes

I'll Lock Up
Messages
9,680
Location
Alamo Heights ☀️ Texas
Air raid sirens were a thing of the past when I was a kid. I think there was a resurgence in them in the 'duck and cover' era, but that was before my time, too (I was born in 1969).
I have seen several over the years in various places repurposed as tornado or tsunami warnings, though.

For a period, I lived near an Army base.It was routine to hear the morning reveille & evening call of the trumpet.
Like all things, it was replaced by a speaker/recording of the trumpet. Imagine listening to this when
the record would get stuck.

Then there was the National Anthem played at the end of the day in the days when televisions sets
required a rabbit & you had to get near the box to adjust the vertical & horizontal controls.
The only remotes available was small transistor radios.
 

2jakes

I'll Lock Up
Messages
9,680
Location
Alamo Heights ☀️ Texas
You might want to give Abeuelita and Ibarra chocolate a try. They're Mexican brands, now available in US supermarkets. Sold in cake form, they're pure, unadulterated chocolate, the recipe unchanged for generations. You break off a triangular chunk, grind it up and use it in whatever recipe or drink you want. Mexican food purity laws are quite strict so their foodstuffs are almost always unadulterated. Mexican Coca-Cola, for instance, uses only pure cane sugar, no corn syrup allowed. As for the malt part, you're on your own. Might brewer's malt work?


I’m always mentioning my sweet grandma that I dearly love.
wb29s1.png


and yes...that's the way my grandma looked, no kidding.
And this lady on the box always reminded
me of Sara Garcia. (movies made in Mexico)
I’m thinking it might be her image !

And not to be disrespectful....but the contents from this product (for me)
are so sweet that my gums hurt for days. :(
 
Messages
10,181
Location
Pasadena, CA
The Ice Cream Truck... Everyday after school... Hasn't been in my parts since the 80's...

My wife just made one for a movie. Or rather, decorated one. She got hold of tons of NOS stickers with all the old ice cream treats, etc. and of course it turned out fantastic. We still have them here in Pasadena, but I would not let a kid within 100 yards of them! It's not your Dad's Good Humor truck!
 

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