All but maybe 4 or 5 of these products are common in supermarkets I shop at.

Jim

I agree with Jim. Or maybe the two of us are misunderstanding you.

Spam is still produced here in Minnesota (Austin). Hawaiians comsume the most per capita.

Sorry the meaning wasn't clear. It was a combination of things. Some of the foods listed are hard to find, or at least where I live. But also they are foods I grew up with but don't buy now. And most I haven't bought my whole adult life. It is funny how you grow up eating something but later when you are on your own, you drop them from your grocery list.
Clare

I had to smile, I had forgotten about those tiny little shrimp in a glass with cocktail sauce. Appian Way was the first pizza I ever ate, maybe that's why I hate and detest pizza now, LOL.

Actually, Grandma made Appian Way pizza exactly once, said "I can do better" and set about making her own homemade crust. It was still just sauce and powdered parmesan cheese, but the crust was better.

I can add Fizzies to the list, loved the root beer flavored ones.

Annie

Having grown up in the Midwest but now living for the last 40 yrs in foodie-haven Northern CA, I remember all those items you list!

You're right, we don't eat them any longer either...the transfat-laden, salt-overloaded, sugar-heavy, processed foods that we once loved, and now wouldn't touch with the proverbial 10-ft pole.

As for your list of weird foods:

head cheese - still available but mostly at specialty deli's.
pickled pig's feet - A European favorite; fell into disfavor because there aren't that many hard-core Old Worlders around CA. My mother was the only JapAm I knew who loved them, probably because she had been a maid for a Swedish family during the war - you could get out of the relocation camps if you agreed to work for a family away from the coastal states, so she lived in Minnesota for several years as a teenager.

Yes, and she loved pickled herring in sour cream, too, something else that's hard to find nowadays except at specialty markets.

Kidneys, calf's liver, sweetbreads, brains - Offal meats have really and tragically fallen out of favor for a long time. However, with the growing movement of eating 'nose to tail', we may yet see some of these come back.

Sweetbreads are easiest to find on restaurant menus, and in fact we patronize a couple of restaurants specifically for them, whose chefs love them as much as we do. I can order them from specialty meat markets, but since I hate cleaning them, I'd rather go to a restaurant. If you're ever in the Monterey area, Andre's Bouchee in Carmel is THE BEST at making sweetbreads, and they're always on the menu. Perbacco/San Francisco occasionally sneaks them into dishes, especially when they've got veal on the menu. La Toque/Napa also did a magnificent sweetbread dish the night we were there, but unlike Bouchee they're only on the menu occasionally.

I love liver but find it so rich I can't eat much of it. My mother adored calf's liver with bacon and onions, and made a terrific version of it.

We never did eat much on that list....do wish I could find head cheese....but I suspect I know a German deli where I could find it.
Pickled herring is in most supermarkets...in big tubs....scoop out half pound....2 /3 pound....whatever!
I know a store where I can buy calves liver and kidneys..
But never did eat wonder bread, cheez whiz cool whip, bacos nor instant rice....eww!!
I always have canned anchovies, sardines and oysters....and anchovie paste.
As for the spiced and pickled peaches....make your own! canned peaches, vinegar, cloves, cinnamon stick, 24 hours in the refrigerator and there you go!
Oh forgot a few slices of fresh ginger.
Nope no instant tea no Rice-a-roni....but I do confess for an ongoing fondness for Fluff!!!

Every item on your lists is still available here, but I am not sure why you call liver and other organ meats "weird", they are natural parts of the animal. I just finished some headcheese, and my parents made sulze. Dirty rice is on the menu for tomorrow. Dad loves liver, and always order it if on a menu. (I over cook it)

Anchovies are a staple in this house, required for Caesar salad and Puntanesca, sardines make a fast lunch or snack. Herring in cream must be eaten on NYE to bring good fortune.

Prunes?? Now they call them dried plums and are not just for seniors. I love marketing.

Now Cool Whip, and fake creamer, that to me is weird.

We would have calf's liver with bacon and onions at least once a week. I swore when I grew up I never would eat it again and haven't in 42 years. Part of the reason was I became a vegetarian from age 20 to 36. That is one reason I stopped eating a lot of the foods on the list. I became a lot more aware of what went into foods and only ate things I made from scratch and fresh foods. I still do, don't eat many processed foods. I am lucky that I live here in CA and can buy or grow fresh all year long.
Clare

"Why did you walk around with crab apples in your cheeks?

"Because they've got a better shape than horse chestnuts,"

"Why, you evil-eyed, mechanically-aptituded, disaffiliated son of a @$%^@, did you walk around with anything in your cheeks?"

"I didn't walk around with anything in my cheeks. I walked around with crab apples in my cheeks. When I couldn't get crab apples, I walked around with horse chestnuts. In my cheeks."

Ah, calves liver! Hated it as a kid when my mother would overcook it. Now I love it and even though it's loaded with cholesterol I do crave some now and then. However the only thing I've seen marketed around here is beef liver, frozen, four pieces to a package, that you can't pry apart. What a waste! I sure do miss the old meat markets of my youth. It's never been on a menu in any restaurant I've been to.

Mohawk Valley Limburger cheese spread. It came in a little glass jar and ever since the factory burnt down you can't get it anymore. My Dad loved it and has been so disappointed. You can still get a small block of limburger at the Amish market but the consistency and taste are very different! Ah the Power of Cheese!
Joann

Shasta diet grapefruit soda was recently discontinued here, and so I had to switch to diet Squirt.
Ocean Spray used to make frozen cranberry juice sweetened with aspartame instead of HFCS, and they no longer do that.

I do keep canned oysters and sardines or herring on hand for snacks, and I keep jarred anchovies and anchovy paste on hand, although I seldom use the paste.

I don't mind Spam once in a while because it makes me think of Monty Python, and I think my mother still buys the canned Vienna sausages, which I never liked.

I no longer buy frozen battered fish - DM used to buy fish sticks - but I have learned ways to cook previously frozen fish that I like, and so now I will buy previously frozen salmon or Ahi tuna. I have bought canned salmon, but that was when I was in Texas and could not find salmon any other way. From Texas I moved to San Francisco, and never looked back, and so I did not have much of a period of having to eat processed foods. I lived on a farm in Texas, and so we had lots of fresh vegetables, which I loved. Kevin had a different experience in Texas, however.

Lars

jkom, that's funny, my mother loved pickled pigs feet, and their similar product, pickled pigs knuckles. The person who taught her to eat them? My Aunt Amy, whose real name was Yoshiko and who came to the States with my Uncle Chuck, he met her and married her while he was in the service stationed in Japan.

I always liked liver, although I seemed to be an oddity among my friends for it. I still like liver with bacon and onions, although I seldom eat it now on the advice on my doctor.

Peppi, all of those things are also available here, and none are considered particularly odd. In fact, Jiffy muffin mix is made here in Michigan, and I've always got canned salmon, canned sardines and canned smoked oysters in the pantry. I don't particularly like the oysters, but Elery loves them. I don't really like headcheese much either, truthfully, but I can get it and I've eaten it.

Ashley still likes the Mrs. Grass' chicken noodle soup in a box as well as the Vienna sausages in a can.

So, although I'll eat liver and headcheese, I think "non-dairy creamer" is weird, how can it be creamer, but be non-diary? I haven't figured out yet what exactly Cool Whip is, but my brother eats it frozen, like ice cream.

Annie

I never ate most of the thigs listed. However, I have recently moved from the metro NY/NJ area to near Olympia, WA, and I can't find most of the usual things I got in the East. And most of the restaurants are pretty bad, too.

Yep must be where you are located I can get most of those things,,,,Theres a factory here that makes spiced apple rings not crab apple though.

Liver, Sweetbreads, brains and tripe are readily available here.
Kidney's, heart & tongue, not so often.
I do love good calf's liver with onions & bacon!
Growing up, we had to eat pork liver, too.
It wasn't so good.

It's kind of funny, in a way.
We butchered all our own meat.
Liver, hearts, & tongues were delicacies.
But we NEVER ate tripe, sweetbreads or brains.
They were considered garbage.
But in the stores here,
The latter three are very common!

Pickled Herring,
Both is sour cream and in wine sauce,
Are readily available here.
I love them both.
Have not been able to get Limburger cheese
For a couple of years now.
Stores used to have it.
And I miss it!
I've never had the Limburger cheese spread
That ghoghunter mentions.

"I think "non-dairy creamer" is weird, how can it be creamer, but be non-diary?"

Annie, that's exactly how I feel about non-fat cream cheese,
cottage cheese, etc. . . .

Rusty

Butcher shops here have anything you want pickled tongue,tripe liver ,brains all my parents ate BUT NOT ME...Id rather go without eating..