Has Restaurant Food Gotten Worse, or Are My Tastebuds More Discriminating?

A few weeks back I wrote about bad Chinese take-out.  Well, last week I was confronted with bad doughnuts, and one incredibly inedible pie.  Now my family used to get Doughnuts at least once a month when I was around 10-11.  And I remember how amazing the doughnut shop was with all their varieties and everything tasted so good.  So what is more likely, food is worse today than 20 + years ago, or my tastes have developed to the point where I can't eat inferior food?  Probably both.

It was Twin Peaks day, and if you have never seen the series you probably won't like it.  Anywho, the cliched cop-doughnut reference was of course part of the theme and I got some doughnuts from the closest place to my house, a retail grocery, all-purpose store.  We do have one doughnut shop in town, but I remember the doughnuts not being very good, of course I was pregnant at the time and cannot go by this judgement.  *UPDATE:  Recently my husband brought home doughnuts from this shop and both the Bear Claw and Apple Fritter were good.  But I had to do some research because I did not know that often Bear Claws have apple filling.  The one nice feature this doughnut shop had was they would fill your doughnuts with whatever you wanted on the spot, custard, creme, raspberry, lemon.  No guessing.  While this retail chain had fresh doughnuts, and a small variety, they still weren't very good, with the exception of their apple fritters.  One confusing label stated "Bavarian Creme" but Bavarian usually indicates Custard, which was the case, and a disappointment to my husband.  Also, I was disappointed in the "Chocolate-flavored" icing.  Not as many people showed up as I expected, so we had lots of leftovers.  This was not a problem since my husband will eat doughnuts well past their prime.

Same story with the "fancy" Cherry pie.  I got a Frozen Sara Lee because it is still the top rated for taste even if there are other, more expensive frozen pies.  My friends however spent $25 on a specialty pie from a locally owned cafe (in their large culinary city).  This pie was abominable.  For starters, it was made with black cherries.  WHAT?!?  I took a bite and thankfully had to feed the baby so I got out of having to eat the rest.  My friends however ate their whole piece.  Part of that was because they didn't want to be out all that money, another was they both thought they weren't appreciating good quality.  Both mentioned a strange "pizza-flavored Combos" taste.  Later it was discovered this cafe accidentally (I hope) used a "savory" crust, which contained garlic and rosemary, something you'd use on a quiche or pot pie.  I had already urged them to take it back, and I hope this "mistake" was enough evidence to get their money back.  Still we had a good time the rest of the day coming up with terrible filling-crust combinations.  We all agreed that the Sara Lee pie was pretty good, and we'll probably get it again for the next Twin Peaks Day.

As far as Doughnuts go, I will probably have to resort to making my own like so many other things that I feel just taste better when homemade.  Homemade doughnuts gives me the option of coating them how I want, i.e, powdered, and cinnamon-sugar twist, two styles I rarely see anymore.

And I have made gluten free doughnuts before, powdered.  And they are just as good, but you have to eat them right away.