Just like the title says, I decided to make my half-monthly grocery shopping themed to my childhood memories of what my mom bought regularly. Please note: Prices MAY be a tad higher than back in the day, LOL! Actually, you know what...I'll add a little chart at the end comparing these prices with their 1970s counterpart. But first, I'll give you a tour of what I bought and how it "throws-back" to when I was a sprightly lad.
Nacho Cheese Doritos: This flavor, according to Wikipedia, was introduced in 1972...and if you ask me, that sounds about right. I don't remember the older "Taco" flavor available (or at least mom never bought it) but Nacho Cheese was pretty much in every shopping haul since I can remember. Cool Ranch didn't come out until I was in my 20s so I don't have as much nostalgia with that flavor.
Canned Vegetables: (Especially, as shown, asparagus spears, sliced carrots, cream style corn and, hidden behind the meats, spinach) Loved them. But never put sliced beets or sweet peas anywhere near me, though my mom bought them often as well, especially for my dad who loved them.)
Coca-Cola: (Although, this is really Coke Zero since I don't drink sugared Coke and haven't since maybe back the eighties when Diet Coke came out.) I don't remember us ever having Pepsi. I think my father hated it so, there you go, we were a solid Coke family.
Kellogg's Frosted Flakes: I think I talked a bit about breakfast cereals I ate as a kid in this post, if not, then no link, but I'm pretty sure I did so go ahead and click back on that link for the story on this stuff. As I said then, Raisin Bran was my jam, but the current recipe formula tastes like shit so I chose FF.
Chef Boy-Ar-Dee Beef Ravioli and Spaghetti and Meatballs: Yep. Me and my siblings would eat this shit right out o' the can, no heating required. Still do sometimes. I have no shame.
Planters Salted Cashew Halves: My father would hoard these for himself. He had a unique way of insuring no one would poach his supply either...he'd store his beer and saliva-coated, cigarette-stained dentures right on top of the nuts in the can. Yummy.
Quaker Instant Oatmeal Variety Packs: Brown Sugar and Maple, Cinnamon and Spice, and Apples and Cinnamon. No fancy flavors like Dulce de Leche or Chocolate Cookie or whatever, they didn't have them back then, just those original three.
Mrs. Paul's Fish Sticks: A staple on Friday since, being Catholic, we had to eat fish on Friday. Since my parent's were quite lax Catholics though, I'm pretty sure it was just tradition. (Oh, and these are the Beer battered Fish Fillets since, well, I'm not a kid and I don't eat fucking nasty ass fish sticks.)
Or Ida Tater Tots: I'm pretty sure these came out in the seventies, I seem to recall as much, I'm not gonna bother to look it up though. These were a treat...and still are.
Working our way down and to the left now...
Banquet Turkey Pot Pie: Always on hand (like Ellio's later on down the line) to pop into the toaster oven (or microwave if you wanted it faster yet not so crusty). And, I'm sure, pretty cheap since, even today, comparatively, they still are.
Kraft Macaroni and Cheese: But this is Great Value brand! Yea, 'cause they want TWICE the price for Kraft. Screw that, this stuff tastes exactly the same. Mom would have done the same if there had been a Walmart in our town back in the 70s
Duncan Hines cake mix: Now I really, REALLY wanted to get Pistachio Flavored Cake, but that must have gone bye-bye with the Intellivision since it's not available anywhere I could find. This is Lemon Supreme. It'll still be great. Unfortunately, I have no Bundt pan for true authenticity.
Rice-a-Roni: The San Francisco Treat! My mom would always make it with both the chicken and beef flavors mixed together, thus, is what I have here.
Ellio's Frozen Pizza Slices: Now, I'll be honest, I tried these a couple years ago and I though they absolutely sucked. They were nothing like the delicious, crispy golden toaster oven treats of my youth. But we'll give 'em another try. I think last time I microwaved them which is a big mistake. These have to be "toaster ovened." But I don't have a toaster oven so, I'll just bake them in my "Bake, Air Fry, Microwave" oven. We'll see. EDIT: Even oven baked, they suck...not my 70s Ellios!
The Meats: I bought fixin's to also make a batch of "kapusta" (really, kapusniak) to also round out the 70s nostalgia although, truthfully, mom would only make that for Christmas, but I'm me and I'll make it whenever I fuckin' want, so I got some bone-in country style pork ribs for it. (She would use pork shoulder or whatever but I found this method easier and cheaper and just as good as I explain here.)
The Center Cut Pork Chops will be used, along with some cans of whole tomatoes I bought and some rice I have to make her famous Pork Chops and Rice recipe.
And of course, some "Del-MON-Ee-Koh!" (as mom would over-pronounce it to make it sound "fancy") steaks. Basically, Delmonico, an old-school name for boneless ribeye steak.
Lastly, sitting out of the freezer in quite a bit more peril here in late September in Central Florida than Northern Rhode Island, Breyer's Neapolitan Ice Cream. I do believe, and again I can't be bothered to really look it up, but I think Breyer's is (or was) a New England local brand that later went national and is now available everywhere. Oh let me quickly check...Nope, Pennsylvania, but I think they were regional to the northeast for quite a while. Now they're owned by the mega-multi-national Unilever conglomerate so, like I said, they're everywhere. Whatever. They sure ain't Ben & Jerry's (which, ironically, they also are owned by Unilever) and I know it'll taste cheap, but I think it did back in the day too so that's okay.
All right, I tried to find a comparative price index but most were for staple items like bread, eggs, butter, sugar, milk and stuff. I looked at old flyer ads and here's a bit of what I found that directly compared:
The first clipped ad is from a then-beloved Woonsocket grocery store "Almacs" which was located not far from our house. My mom wouldn't regularly shop there as it wasn't the lowest prices around. But even so, here in this Woonsocket Call sale ad from May 19, 1975, you can see where I've circled in red, Breyer's Ice Cream, Half Gallon, $1.39. Today, I got a 1.5 Quart size which, if it were 1975, according to the ad price would have been $1.04 (it took me an embarrassing amount of time to compute that math). How much was it? $3.87
The next clipping shows an ad from some unknown newspaper in some unknown town but from 1975. I circled what I could find: T-Bone Steak, which, not quite "Ribeye" per se, is usually similar in price, is listed as $1.68/lb. My 2025 price: $19.97/lb. The two steak pack I bought is 1.61 lbs. which would have cost $2.70 back in 1975. Today: $32.15
Kraft Mac & Cheese: Back in the day: 24 cents. I don't even know where the "cents" symbol is on modern keyboards since who uses it anymore? Today, I wouldn't buy the Kraft brand, remember, since they wanted like a buck thirty or something like that. I paid 58 cents for the Great Value stuff which really doesn't sound that bad but if you think about it, all it is is ten cents worth of miniature elbow macaroni and a couple cents worth of MSG-infused, hydrolyzed oil fake cheese powder.
Banquet Meat Pies: I'm pretty sure this is equivalent to the Banquet Pot Pie. Then: 4 for a buck. Now: A buck each. Again, cheap but you get what you pay for.
Spinach: I think this is for canned spinach since it's in with other dry and canned goods. 1975: 29 cents. Now: $1.57
Take a look at this cartoon I found in the newspaper archives of the Woonsocket Call from 1975. I'm pretty sure this pre-dates laser scanners, BTW, or maybe they were "the newest" thing and this comic strip is making fun of that...anyway, I love the punchline...the register is "apologizing" for the "high" cost of the groceries. Ha!
But again, in context, despite the fact that I'm exposing how inflated our prices today are compared to then, I do recall that in 1975 the country was undergoing a bit of an inflationary period of its own that was consistently making headlines and putting a lot of pressure on the Ford administration to do something about it. So it just goes to show, somethings never change.