I do absolutely think there's also a generational shift between people born in the 50s & 60s, who smoked a lot and thus literally destroyed their sense of taste, and those born in the 80s and 90s, where this is not the case.
(People born in the 70s(hello) are somewhere in the middle)
I was born in 1960 and never smoked. Non smoking was becoming widespread in the 1970s, at least in some places and classes.
Re immigrant foods. Yup I remember first exposure to Viet and Indian, at college in late 70s, 1980. I was a picky eater as a kid, but those were not around anyway
I'm talking NYC mid 70s. I suppose there were a few Indian restaurants somewhere in Manhattan, but easily overlooked. There were of course LOTs of Chinese and Italian places.
The trend I observed in the greater DC area was as the 70s shifted into the 80s, the Southeast Asian diaspora started to brand restaurants with their actual ethnicity instead of generic 'Chinese food' (even if they were serving their own cuisine).
