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Food in America outside NYC/major metros. The availability of different cuisines, of high-effort takes on local cuisine, of high quality and unique ingredients, of locally brewed interesting beer and distilled spirits... It's mind boggling.
Time was if you were on a road trip and you stopped in a small town, you just hoped for a diner that was clean and would serve a decent turkey sandwich. Chain restaurants were nice because at least you knew McD's or Cracker Barrel would be acceptable food.
Now I pull off in some one stoplight burg in Appalachia and I'm on Yelp reading reviews of a local microbrewery to try the local pickle lager and the Montreal Style Smoked meat platter.
It is unambiguously better than it was 20 years ago, when there were three beers in most bars, none of them local, and chain restaurants were slowly blending everything to grey.
Can't say I've particularly noticed a trend like this in my area — if anything, we've had restaurants and such closing down in my neighborhood over the past few years, and reduced diversity of products in stores.
But then again, Alaska is very much a special case, being as we're pretty much entirely dependent on outside shipping, and still having supply-chain issues.
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Food everywhere, really. I can easily get stuff from my local store that few people in Finland (outside of Helsinki, perhaps) would have even heard of 20 years ago. Back then there was a concept in the press called "sushi border" referring to what's the northernmost (ie the most remote) location in Finland where you can get sushi; I haven't heard of this concept for over a decade since you can get sushi everywhere.
I theorized in a comment a bit ago that the widespread availability of good and variable food everywhere might contribute to the obesity crisis quite a bit...
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As an add-on, food media. The internet (and youtube especially) has allowed cooking shows to escape the ivory towers of the test kitchen, meaning it's not just the tastemakers you have to go to for insight and instruction. This has not only allowed for a proliferation in the types of recipes and cuisines you can find on the internet, but it's also meant a rather systematic dismantling of a lot of culinary school traditions and myths. There has never been a better time for the curious mind to enjoy making their own food.
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