The age of McPizza
A decade that brought Food Network also gave us Bagel Bites, Dunkaroos and the beginning of our taste for sushi
The ’90s were the golden age of junk food, when companies unabashedly came out with copious amounts of candy, soft drinks and fast food aimed at hungry kids coming home from school and hurried parents wanting to put something on the dinner table or in lunch boxes. On the restaurant front, the birth of the Food Network and more East Asian cuisines gave North Americans a more international palette.
Here’s a rundown of notable moments. 1990: I Feel Like Chicken Tonight, Like Chicken Tooo-night! The jingle for what’s basically rebranded Ragu sauce was an earworm to a generation.
Chicken Tonight, a line of jarred sauces to simmer chicken in (somehow no families thought of doing this before), made its debut with a line of catchy commercials in which people did the chicken dance and sang, “I feel like chicken tonight!”
Today, Chicken Tonight belongs to a U.K.-based food company, where it continues to be sold in supermarkets. Early 1990s: We (cautiously) love raw fish! As Japan rose to prominence in the global economy in the ’70s and ’80s (hello Walkman!), so did its food as North American business travellers developed a taste for sushi. It became synonymous with the food of the educated, urban elite and trickled down to mainstream tastes in the ’90s, though raw fish was still a hard sell for a lot of people at the time.
A1990 restaurant review of a sushi spot on the Mount Pleasant strip tried to ease fears by comparing the likelihood of contracting a tape worm from raw tuna to getting salmonella from eggs ( ... OK?).
Another Quebec paper wrote about a new Japanese restaurant offering tempura and teriyaki for “non-raw-fish fans.”
That same year, a Star recipe column for ceviche started with the line, “Though eating food raw may seem a bit primeval, some of the most sophisticated foods we eat today are served this way. Oysters on the half shell, sushi and sashimi are just a few examples.” Early-to-late 1990s: Chinese fusion Just as Japanese food started to go mainstream, this decade also saw the rising popularity of Chinese food throughout the early-to-late ’90s, albeit through a Westernized lens.
As a tie-in with Disney’s 1998 animated feature, Mulan, McDonald’s released a limited edition Szechuan dipping sauce that, two decades later, was brought back into the public consciousness via a joke on the popular adult animated show Rick and Morty, which sent thousands of fans signing a petition for the fast food giant to bring back the sauce (it did, for one day last year, and caused near riots when the sauce ran out).
In Toronto, a young chef named Susur Lee was wowing critics by infusing Chinese and Japanese ingredients at his restaurant, Lotus (now Beast Restaurant on Tecumseth St. and King St. W.).
A Star recipe column for Firecracker Noodles from 1999 mentioned the rise of noodle houses in Toronto in recent years, citing the influx of Chinese immigrants to the GTA, as well as increased travel and food television fuelling the demand for Chinese cuisine.
Asian chicken salads were introduced on fast food menus and typically incorporated mandarin orange segments, crispy noodles and shredded chicken on a bed of greens tossed with a sesame-based dressing.
For the record, this is not the food of my people. 1991: General Mills’ golden age of junk food begins All hail Dunkaroos (1990-2012), Sodalicious (1991-1998), Fruit Gushers (1991-present) and Fruit by the Foot (1991-present), hand-held snacks that were as valuable as gold on the playground and a way for parents to get their kids to open their lunch boxes.
It is crazy that we paid a premium for tiny cartons of thumbnail-sized cookies dipped in a thimble of frosting (ignoring how bad all this packaging was for the environment), but hey, the cartoon kangaroo told us to. 1991: Bagel Bites This particular brand of mini bagel halves topped with shredded cheese, pizza sauce and pepperoni rounds was originally founded in the mid ’80s by two Florida men before the company was bought out by Heinz in 1991, which continues to own it today. The snack sized portions were marketed as a snack for ravenous kids after school, though really, didn’t we all eat the whole box of nine bagels in one sitting? 1992: AriZona iced tea debuts Those one dollar, giant cans of sugar that happen to have a splash of iced tea in them made their debut in the early ’90s and continue to be the source of life for many teens. 1992: McPizza hits Canada Not happy with just dominating the burgers and fries landscape, McDonald’s also wanted to be the ruler of fast-food pizza.
In March 1992, McDonald’s launched its line of pizza at 633 locations across Canada, becoming the country’s largest pizza chain. At the time, single-serve pies cost $2.49 while family size pizzas cost $6.99 to $9.99.
Reception was mixed (my late grandfather loved it however), and the lack of sales led to the pizzas being pulled out of Western Canada in1999, and the eventually the rest of Canada and the U.S. a year after.
In 2012, an official at McDonald’s Canada said the pizzas were discontinued because they took too long to make and held up the kitchens. 1993: BAM! Food Network launches Credited (or blamed) for the rise of celebrity chef culture, an entire channel devoted to cooking launched in the U.S. on Nov. 22, 1993. It was responsible for turning culinary personalities such as Emeril Lagasse, Jamie Oliver, Nigella Lawson, Bobby Flay, Rachael Ray, Paula Deen, Anthony Bourdain and Ina Garten into household names and turned cooking into more of a spectacle filled with catchphrases (“ALLEZ CUISINNNEEE!”).
It wasn’t until 2000 that its Canadian counterpart, Food Network Canada launched, giving rise to names such as Lynn Crawford, Roger Mooking and Anna Olson. 1997: Failure to launch into Orbitz If the U.S. had Crystal Pepsi (1992-1994), Canada had Orbitz as an example of a spectacularly failed beverage launch.
On May 1, Vancouver-based beverage company Clearly Canadian released Orbitz, a clear, syrupy juice filled with suspended neon-coloured balls of gel.
I remember getting a free bottle of Orbitz at HMV after buying a Savage Garden CD (the drink was pretty like a lava lamp, but it tasted like cough syrup).
Orbitz was supposed to boost sales for the company as it felt pressure from competing beverages such as Snapple and Fruitopia, but a year after the launch, the company attributed declining profit to the disappointing sales of Orbitz and it soon disappeared.
While Clearly Canadian, the sparkling fruit-flavoured soft drink, made a small comeback (you can now find it at 7Eleven), Orbitz remains a relic ahead of its time as the popularity of bubble tea and health drinks laced with floating basil and chia seeds demonstrate.