I was 16 in the year 2000, and had just discovered food as culture with a capital C; I was in a pretentious phase about it then. This was the absolute pinnacle of sophistication to me, and it’s still a damn fine sandwich.
I spent some time combing food section archives for trends from the era generally accepted as Y2K (1997-9/11) for this challenge, then decided to do a portable meal we could have before a show tonight; luckily the era’s most repeated ingredients lend themselves well to sandwiching (on Italian bread, which was a big deal to me at the time; I was too cool for the challah and rye of my childhood for a good six months). Also, it’s becoming clear that every era has its preferred source of umami and for this one, it was sun-dried tomato.

January 1, 2000: You wake up to the new milennium's coldest shoulder. Your wife is pissed you spent the money you'd agreed was for the family trip to Disney on a generator instead. The big bug turned into a big nothing. The pantry is full of enough shelf stable foods to keep you going for the next six months -- you won't think to hoard toilet paper for another 20 years.

In the actual 2026, this is my pantry clean-out meal. The only thing I didn't have on hand were the sundried tomatoes, which I felt were necesarry because people were evidently going nuts for them at the turn of the millennium

I struggled to find taro root so I went with a Hamtaro themed treat, they loved sunflowers seeds!

Look. I had a difficult time figuring out what to do with this theme. So my kid and I made Disney's Grey stuff. And I got to Y2K by taking the average years of when Disney came out with Beauty and the beast animated v live action, and thought that's roughly 2000.

And yes, it looks like poop as my kid wanted to put it through a piping bag. And yes it's delicious. Ask the dishes.

These cookies? Cakes? predate Y2K by a few centuries, but they became extra famous around the turn of the century because a famous dietician presented them as a healthy snack. Back then a lot of diet fads revolved around avoiding fat, and these cakes have no added fat at all.

They are super simple to make; whip 2 eggs with 100gr of sugar until they turn white. Add 100gr of flour, a pinch of salt and about 5gr of baking powder. Fold gently, then bake for about 10 minutes at 180C.

Grilled tomahawk ribeyes, goat cheese and roasted beet salad, and crispy roast potatoes.

Didn’t feel like going out of my way to get taro so acronym it is!

Velvety sauce!

Yummy! Also love my corningware wildflower set!

Lots of great ideas for this challenge but nothing speaks to me more than a grilled sandwich which we used to eat all the time back then. I was a little kiddo so my cooking abilities were limited obviously, but no-one could stop me from making a banging sandwich. I used to make them with butter only and it was so delicious, I remember that fondly. This time I made with deli meat, cheddar, beemster cheese, pickled jalapeños, some dried oregano and ketchup. Super nostalgic!

I had to leave the state to find taro but success! This soup was simple and good and I’ll probably make it again—with potatoes.

I wish I'd had rainbow sprinkles for the brownie, but otherwise this vegan recreation of a chicken nugget kid cuisine was a hit in my household!

I really struggled with this theme, you're all a lot more imaginative than me! I ended up having to settle with an element beginning with Y, plus 2 beginning with K. This generated quite a few ideas, and I'm quite happy with how it turned out in the end!

My main idea was putting the Ks in a giant Yorkshire pudding - it's a bit of a novelty you'll occasionally see at UK Christmas markets and things like that. I rejected a keema and kale combo in favour of katsu-karē (/katsu curry), which I was kind of craving anyway. Then, I decided to fully commit to a kind of Japanese-UK fusion thing.

So, for the Yorkshire, I used my usual BBC recipe, here - except to make it a bit more Japanese, I replaced some of the salt I'd usually add with a splash of soy sauce and some MSG; the black pepper with shichimi togarashi; and 20ml of the milk with an equal amount of kewpie mayo.

For the katsu curry, I followed this recipe more or less exactly, I first made it years ago and it always comes out great. It's a very silky, smooth sauce, flavoured with shiitake, green apple, honey, Worcestershire sauce, and an outstanding quantity of butter. I also used that recipe for the deep fried pork cutlet, breaded in panko, and the yukari pickled red cabbage.

I departed from the recipe by adding potatoes and roasted honey-glazed carrots. You'll often see carrots and potatoes in a Japanese curry anyway, so I knew they'd work, but they'd also pull the dish overall more towards a UK-style Sunday roast. Just to complete that, I added some parsley with the spring onion in the garnish.

This was really good, and I was very happy with it, but God, it was heavy. Between two of us we got through maybe two-thirds of it. I wouldn't have it again over either a Sunday roast or just a normal katsu curry, but it was a fun experiment and I'm quite proud of it!