As Monty Python would say, "...and now for something completely different." Let's get away from political satire for a change, shall we? Especially since there's nothing going on politically that I feel like satirizing, and I haven't blogged about anything in sixteen days.
So, those of you who grew up in the 50s 60s 70s or 80s: Remember all that crap you ate as a kid? How did any of us escape our childhoods without going retarded?
Before I proceed, let me just say: Sorry young'ins. I didn’t eat Gogurt or whatever it was you threw up throughout the 90s. I was growed up enough to know better.
I’m not talking candy or soda or frozen dinners -- which were the bomb, and which make me wonder how I ingested that stuff without losing a stomach, considering how much of it I ate.
I’m talking about:
Fish Sticks
Probably the least offensive of these foods, fish sticks still need to be called out because they’re called “fish sticks.” Say it out loud:
FISH.
STICKS.
I think I liked to eat this stuff because, for being fish, they didn’t have much fishy flavor -- indeed, they didn’t have any flavor beyond whatever tartar sauce my mom would serve out of a jar with them. But they were never my favorite! Not like...
Oscar Mayer Cheesedogs
Hotdogs are amazing, when they’re proper hotdogs.
Oscar Mayer hotdogs are tragic meat tubes constructed from demon seed and hate glue.
But even the manufacturers of these industrial sodium bombs must have shaken their heads at the prospect of serving up hotdogs filled with a yellow, salty paste which they hesitantly labeled “cheese.” Imagine their surprise and wonder when the numbers showed that children across the nation adored these travesties that mock the Natural Order.
Tasty!
McDonald’s Chicken McNuggets
You might not remember this, but before McDonald’s rolled out Chicken McNuggets, chicken was too hard for the tender little mouths of middle-class kids to eat.
I’ll always remember the glorious day when I first sunk my teeth through a chunk of gray and spongy McProtein Mass -- and I'll always remember my pride in being American, citizen of a country in which I possessed the freedom to choose dipping my jellified glob of chicken into honey mustard, barbeque or sweet-and-sour sauce.
Later, I threw up.
Spaghetti-Os
Writing the name of That Thing Which Is The Epitome Of All That Is Wrong With Canned Prepared Meals just made me vomit in my mouth a little.
The brain-like texture of the Os.
The sugary “tomato” sauce.
The tiny, tasteless sausage buttons swimming in said sauce.
What the hell was Franco-American thinking? More importantly, how did I ever eat 10 cans of this stuff a week from ages 3 through 13? Yes, I did repeat first grade -- why do you ask? (Kidding!)
Fruit Roll Ups
The first time I ate a fruit roll up, I realized there was nothing mankind couldn’t accomplish. We’d see flying cars and cities on the Moon by the time I was a teenager.
Mom didn’t like me eating candy, which is why she fed these things to me by the hour, not understanding that corn syrup (or dried corn syrup, for that matter) and sugar ain’t exactly “100% fruit.”
Hey mom, may you be resting in peace, you know what’s 100% fruit?
Fruit.
Not that I would have eaten it...
Kraft Macaroni & Cheese
Remember that one kid in the commercials who kept asking why Kraft didn’t name it Cheese & Macaroni? BECAUSE THE CHEESE WAS A COLORED SALT PRODUCT.
I always knew, in the back of my mind, that something was wrong with Kraft Mac & Cheese. Perhaps it started the first time I saw it transformed from food into a congealed waxy mass after sitting in a dish on the counter for an hour.
But I ate the hell out of the stuff anyway -- this was truly my favorite dish. I still pound it down to fix an upset stomach (had a big bowl tonight).
I think the experience must have destroyed something precious in my head, because the first time I actually tried real macaroni and cheese -- you know, something with actual cheese in it -- I was all, yuck, gimme my Kraft!
Capri Sun
Ah, the halcyon days of drinking watered down juice-flavored drink (made from a concentrate of juices that aren’t actually the juices advertised) from a foil bag that included its own straws.
"Made with real fruit juice!" Yeah, all 10 percent of it. Where's the "Made with real high-fructose corn syrup" warning?
Of course, I really didn't care. It was juice in a shiny bag, after all. Never mind that it didn't taste any good -- I was looking good drinking it.
Cheese 'n Crackers
There’s nothing more American than topping soda crackers with a chunk of cheese.
But when that cheese is actually a bastard concoction of oil, acids and several different ways of saying "salt" smeared across a dry, tasteless cracker by way of a red plastic rectangle stored in the same package as the snack, well... you can see why people who liked these things loved Chicken McNuggets.
Like me.
Cap’n Crunch
The fact that I ate this stuff makes me so sad now.
Never mind the instant sogginess of the cereal, and the resulting (and revolting) candified syrup that was created from what once was milk...
...what I can’t wrap my head around is why I continued to eat this “food” that continually ripped up my gums and inside cheeks, resulting in gobs and gobs of mouth beef hanging from the roof of my mouth. And then ask for more.
WTF was I thinking?
School Supplies
White paper. Brown paper. Cardboard paper. Elmer’s Glue. Eraser tips. Probably fruit-scented markers.
Somehow, all these things ended up in my mouth. I didn't exactly "love" eating them... but apparently I liked these items enough to pop them in my mouth throughout elementary.
And sure, I never intended to eat them... but yeah, probably 50 percent of the time, they went down my gullet and into my digestive tract. I wonder how many pounds of yellow paint from my chewed-up No. 2 lead pencils ended up on the walls of my tummy?
Man, I was a screwed-up kid when it came to putting crap in my tummy... but of course I'm fine now, Buffy and I eat healthy these days, and I like exercising as much as the next guy.
He hates it too.
What gross "food" did you love as a kid that makes you go “Hmmm...” nowadays? Discuss.
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200 comments:
Welcome back, doc. It's been a long 16 days. OK, fish sticks really do scare me.... but when it comes to Kraft Mac N Cheese (or Cheese N Macaroni as it got upgraded in the late 80s), ain't nothing better than when you cut up hot dogs and add that to the mix.
Delicious!
Glue was good when I was in kindergarten. Paste, well, only the weirdo kids ate paste at my school. ;)
Thanks for the laugh and reminding me of my childhood... the good, the bad, and the ugly!
Thanks!! Great blog..I cackled out loud!!!!!!!!!
Cackled out loud. Would that be COL?
I thought I was the only person that ate those foods. Might explain my stomach problems.... Hmmmmmmm Pass the mac & cheese, doc.
Oh yes, I remember these 'yummy' treats as a child... and I lived through it although I have to wonder, will I develop some unknown illness as a delayed result of this stuff?!?!?
I especially loved the Cap'n Crunch even though after eating it, the roof of my mouth would feel as though a slasher had taken a machete to it!
As for the Mac'n'Cheese, I'm sorry to say that one day my children may read a story similar to doc's and relate!
:-)
7 of them i still eat
OK! I know it's supposed to be called food and one should never frown on it but? That stuff? Yikes!...
Chef Boyardee, Mrs. Paul, Oscar Meyer, Franco American.....they are all living large somewhere!
You left off Spam.
Oh, and squeeze cheese.
Spam is still around an it's as gross as it ever was.
If you Google it...yikes! all kinds of recipes :(
I grew up in the '90s, and I knew what all that stuff was! Of course, I know what Go-Gurt is too, but I ate it all! And I still drink Capri Sun by the way.
Here's another: Tang
ah i love love love this!! i wasn't raised in the 70s or even in the 80s and i ate all these!! great child hood memories....well except the spaghetti o's....i still wanna puke just hearing the name!! i loved the "cheese and crackers with the red stick"....i think i was raised in the wrong time haha
I hold no grudge against those 'foods'. Although I do remember all of them. Some of them I never did like. Others are still good. Although I never ate the glue, I just spread a layer on my hands, and then peeled it off when it was dry. I thought it was cool.
But honestly, I save all my grudges for those toys which looked good in commercials or on cereal boxes but were just cheap and disappointing in real life. THOSE are something to still get worked up about! lol
White paper, brown paper, cardboard paper, elmer’s glue, chewing gum eraser tips, fruit-scented markers, staple pins, inks.... all these things ended up in my mouth too.
wow I STILL eat those things
I still love those
you left out Peanut butter and jelly
yum yum
(OK pb&j is actual food, so not disgusting)
You are a great writer even if the topic isn't political satire. Your colonoscopy blog was priceless. Doc, you had me laughing from start to finish on this one.
I can't believe I used to wear and eat candy necklaces and bracelets. We would play all day, getting dirty and sweaty while wearing the jewelry and every now and then we would bite a chunk out of the candy. God.. what was I thinking?
I still buy all of that crap....wow....you put it so perfectly and hilariously..
My weakness as a Child was always Hot Dogs. I used to open them up and have half the package gone before we got home from the store. My Mother didn't like taking me to the store with her when she got Hot Dogs. They are still my Favorite, they are great. so is Mac and Cheese. I am still a Kid At Heart
Raw hot dogs?!?! No wonder your mother didn't like you shopping with her for hot dogs! Yech!!
Remember when Ding Dongs were wrapped in foil...and we would "peel" all the chocolate off until it was just a little round cake with the creamy filling holes punctured in it? And what ever happened to those candy cigarettes with the tip painted red? Kids have it rough now a days!
Watch "Meet your Meat"on YouTube people.
Those ¨chicken nuggets¨from McDonald's were ground up pieces of beak, nail, and other inner parts of chickens. You didn´t think they were using breast for the chicken nuggets did you?
Hotdogs? Same thing...hoofs, snout, tongue, whatever is the cheapest way to make this very processed hotdog.
Cheese and crackers? the 'cheese' they use in these things has the same ingredients as plastic. It's exactly the same as eating plastic.
Don´t feed this shit to your children for God´s sake!
Vienna Sausages. I used to love those little things...after reading what was inside of them I told my dad I was gonna be a vegetarian :) and Lunchables. Ew.
How about Charleston Chews? :)
Loved Charleston Chews!! Used to buy them frozen solid at the pool I swam at. What about Space Sticks? Hardly anyone I run into remembers those, another by-product of the Space Age.
This made me laugh out loud, doc. I recall all that stuff, especially Kraft Mac and Cheese...a total "kid" staple.
I never cared for Cap't Crunch...or any of the Crunch cereals that came out after that either. It was too sweet and yep....it did make your milk taste like syrup...yuck.
Since I am a child of the 70s, I wonder if anyone out there besides 3primecubed remembers a snack food inspired by NASA astronauts (or so we were lead to believe by the commercials for it)....Space Food Sticks....? They offered different flavors, chocolate, vanilla and I think caramel too. They were in individual wrappers and had a semi-sweet chalky taste to them. I suppose they weren't filled with anything even remotely healthy either, but my friends and I being from Florida, the home of the space program, we thought they were awesome! Funny thing is....I seriously doubt kids today would be interesting in tasting such junk unless they paraded it out as a "must try" on the Disney or Nick channels. :)
It wasn't necessarily just food, but the combinations...like a loaf of break soaked in milk..it sounds gross but i used to eat it like no tomorrow.
Ew, gross.
I agree. Although, I never ate glue, but spent a day at hospital for food poisoning from disgusting burgers.
Wow! Enjoyed your talented post and the pics Dr. B! But hey, I miss the Kraft mac and cheese of the 70s. I remember it was THE lunch of choice for us kids all summer long. It was truly tangy and flavorful. Sometime in the early 80s, the formula changed to something weak and nearly flavorless and never recovered (like many a talk show). It just isn't the same anymore.
I still love mcdonalds chix mcnuggets
I actually still enjoy McNuggets. They taste different now than when I was a kid. I only eat them maybe once every month or 2 though. Not every weekend like when I was growing up and my family had to bribe me with something in order to get me to go to church.
I also like Kraft mac and cheese as well though I can't remember the last time i've eaten it.
And speaking of Capri Sun I just bought some last weekend since I hadn't had any in years. They're pretty tasty still.
Never cared for fish sticks though.
I also did lick glue once when I was little out of curiosity. Didn't taste very good.
Oskar Meyer Cheesedogs...now I have a feeling that these probably originated in Europe. Visit Vienna, visit a wuerstelstand (sausage vendor) on the street, and one of the choices you will be offered is a 'Kaesekrainer'. This is a sausage which has cheese in it. When the sausage is heated up, as it is, the cheese melts. When you bite into it, the cheese goes
***Squit!***
right onto your jacket. The resulting stain will, if it's a dry-clean only jacket, take a visit to the cleaners' to remove it.
Moral: Don't eat Kaesekrainer in your best jacket!
Perhaps its only regional to my area, but a childhood food that my mom would serve? Scrapple with Dippy Eggs. I think about it now and groan. Scrapple is made of all the parts of the pig that don't get used in hotdogs. I'll wait while you go HUH? EWWWWW. but we all thought it was delish. And of course sunny side eggs (called dippy eggs cause you were supposed to dip your toast in them)
Add to doc's list Elio's Pizza. That cardboard stuff they served in the school cafe and again, Mom would serve at lunch on the weekend.
Does anyone else remember a brand of frozen pizza that was four little circles and they would all connect 2 x 2? My sis and I used to eat them all the time and no one I know remembers them.
Oh, and Aunt J-ha -- Scrapple and dippy eggs...I love saying dippy eggs. :-) Hated Scrapple until I got older, I still call it crapple but if it is sliced thin and has a good crust on it I love it!
'Ooodles Of Noodles'! They were 10 for a dollar back in the day.
My step-kids in college are currently living on Ramen Noodles.....
When I was growing up we were fed way too much SPAM... and Hormel's corned beef hash... both smelled like dog food to me.
and the sodium content is off the chart
What about "Otter Pops" which were just dye, sugar and water in plastic tubing! I can't find them anymore, just generic "Flavor Ice", which is the same - except for the "characters" - my favorite was Alexander the Grape.
Chef Boyardee... If you want a legitimate Chef snack to harass, I would suggest Beefaroni (with meatballs).
i still eat all of these, except for the glue.... i don't find them disgusting at all... in fact... i think i may go get me a fruit roll-up right now.
Yeah, Paste was good, kinda tangy and made your tongue tingle...
Considering the other things on doc's list, it was probably the healthiest.
We had Sherbert dips in the UK.. basically a red liquorice straw (with a hole down the middle that soon blocked up with saliva and sherbert.) inserted like a fuse into tube of cardboard filled with sherbert (basically powdered sugar). The idea was that you could dip the liquorice in the sherbert and suck it off. The fact that it wasn't packaged to protect the liquorice stick from any kind of contact nor that the sherbert leaked out, or that the cardboard tube was poorly glued together or the chemicals and artificial colouring used on the liquorice and the sherbert had any way of putting us off. It was yummy, it was cheap and it shut us up for half an hour :)
It has long been off UK shelves, no doubt after horrifying the first "modern" food health and safety nazi. Modern kids are poorer for it :(
Captain Crunch? That has nothing on Froot Loops. Six different kinds of artificial fruit flavor competing in your mouth.
hurl
Or how about any cereal that had those sweetened clumps of cardboard that they passed off as marshmallows.
I never liked Capri Sun. Too hard to get the straw into the bag. As for "cereal", my favorite was Cookie Crisp.
I didn't really like much of that shit as a kid, but the Kraft mac and cheese I surely ate, even as a youngin I preferred good home made stuff, but hey when you're 7 years old, Kraft is easy to make.
Doubt my sister could fix it to this day.
She's like 40.
You know who doesn't like Cap'n Crunch? Communists.
Adlib - It's a little-known fact that Captain Crunch served in the Red Fleet after getting his start in the Kronstadt Rebellion. His real last name is Crunshchev.
lol
Spaghetti-Os still give me the chills. However, everything else on doc's list is definitely OM NOM NOM worthy. Probably because I'm still a lonely bachelor.
:-(
I see your Cap'n Crunch and raise you that Reeses cereal.
Spaghetti-o's were the best way to get rid of the two leftover hot dogs in your fridge (because the two hot dog buns in your bread box had mold on them). Sprinkle some real Parmesan cheese on it and you were good.
I'll take my fish sticks and be on my way then.
capn crunch, mac and cheese, and glue!
still loves 'em!
At least half of those items are still staples of my weekly diet. I'll die before I give up Kraft Mac & Cheese. And Capn Crunch rules.
Every now and then I'll snag a box of Crunch, and eat three or four bowls in a row. I have to stop there because the roof of my mouth gets pretty torn up..
I miss OJs, the orange juice flavored cereal.
as for McDonald's Chicken McNuggets...I had them for the first time in my life about six months ago.
There are 2 types of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese. There is the good kind, the elbow "pasta" with cheese product that you squeezed out of the package on to the "pasta". Then there was the one with the straight "pasta" with the powdered stuff you added water to to make something that loosely resembling cheese.
Out of the two I always liked the one with the elbow pasta and still eat it to this day, only now I add some shredded cheddar and it is delicious.
WTF You don't add water to the powdered cheese. No wonder yours sucked. You add MILK!
In a pinch, at 3 am, when you're out of milk... water's just fine :)
No it isn't. And you need to stop lying to America.
You need to fix the stuff with the powdered cheese properly - you use butter and milk, not water.
The stuff you squeeze out of the foil package is, in fact, industrial waste from New Jersey, unfit for human consumption and high on the EPA's list of hazardous materials. Kraft has a deal with a number of Chemical Companies to dispose of the stuff in this way.
wouldn't fucking surprise me.
my awesome recipes:
Captain Crunch Crispies: use the rice krispy recipe only substitute Captain Crunch for the rice krispies. Actually, this is one step beyond awesome.
Kraft Mac and Cheese, done right: prepare according to the box directions, only add freshly grated cheddar, some sour cream, tomato paste and an undrained can of Star-Kist tuna packed in olive oil.
If they wouldn't turn me orca fat, I would still eat all that stuff.
Except the school supplies of course.
...Hell, who am I kidding, i'd eat that too.
Cap'n Crunch is painful
It scrapes your gums by spoonful
And I could take or leave it
if I could
I eat McNuggets like twice a month (w/ barbeque sauce). I eat Spagetti-O's about once a month (w/ meatballs only, of course). Haven't had the Cap'n in awhile but that's just cause I never have milk and it goes terrible with beer anyway. Mac N Cheese is a staple. And I like fish sticks from time to time.
This is not some ancient "blast from the past" doc. This is my grocery list.
LOL
The fish sticks, Oscar Meyer dogs, McNuggets, and Spaghetti-O's remind me of hanging out with some poor kids I knew. The Fruit Roll Ups remind me of lunch in 5th grade, and the Kraft Mac and Cheese reminds me of last week.
I found Spaghetti-Os revoltingly sweet as a kid, but I definitely put away quite a few cans of Zoodles.
Pork rinds were amazing. The corner store had them in the chips aisle, so one day I tried 'em and fell in love. At least until I actually learned what they were, and then that was the end of that. I think I was 11 when I figured it out.
It went exactly like this:
"I'm eating deep fried PIG SKIN?"
(a short pause while it sinks in)
"ohhh myy GOD!"
*dry heave*
My diet was pretty good as a kid, I hated sugary foods and still do. The salty stuff I still eat today, except in smaller amounts, with the exception of chips. I just can't digest them anymore- too much oil in them.
Fish sticks, I usually pass on. I understand that they're of a much higher quality now than they were when I was a kid in the 80s. But they weren't a regular food for me back then and they aren't now either.
Chicken McNuggets, Mac & Cheese, Fruit Roll-Ups, Spaghetti-Os... all of these things were and are delicious. Especially Crunch Berries.
I had a Capri Sun this morning. And Captain Crunch is delicious, so are spaghettios.
I SO loved Crazy Cow AND Freakies.
I just went and looked in my pantry and half of those items are in there and I'm 50.
Sheesh!
Mac and cheese - the 'fancy' kind that comes in the can of cheese. None of this powdered nonsense.
To be clear, the brand-name pork rinds (Baken-Ets) aren't actually skin. They're just the stuff that fries up out of the skin, and the actual skin is removed. If you buy an off-brand (like one of those mexican brands) bag of pork rinds, they'll probably still have the piece of skin attached. You'll know it because it'll be the rock-hard, inedible part that you spit out.
Pork rinds is gooood. Bottle of Louisiana Hot Sauce and a bag of pork rinds... mmmmm, redneck heaven.
Do any of you like fish sticks?
Goddamnit so much. I was hoping nobody would bring that up. YES.
It's hard to enjoy a bowl of cocoa puffs when a dog's butthole is pointed at you, and you're too lazy to move, and it just winked at you.
Ten disgusting foods? Make that ten DELICIOUS foods, doc.
(That's 'foods' in quotes, though, so I see your point)
Spam. I was the queen of spam. When I was in nursing school we had a three month stay at the state hospital for psychiatric nursing. the food was AWFUL. My sweet grandma was afraid I'd starve so she sent a care package every month. Included was many many cans of spam. My friends and I had spam sandwiches, eggs and spam, spam and potato casserole, rice and spam and my all time favorite spam and spaghetti. I cut it up in little squares and we cooked it in the sauce and pretended it was meatballs. God help me I still like spam.
Spam spam spam spam spam spam spam spam spam spam spam spam spam spam spam spam spam spam spam spam spam spam spam spam spam spam spam spam spam spam spam spam spam spam spam spam spam spam spam spam spam spam spam spam spam spam spam spam spam
once more, for your viewing displeasure, here's the Monty Python SPAMSPAMSPAMSPAM,etc.
sketch complete with: English Subtitles For The Hard Of (English Accents) Hearing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFrtpT1mKy8
LOLOLOLOL!!
Doc, you and Buffy are the best!
That Monty Python sketch is classic, and definitely on topic for this blog.
Loved it!
Co-sign!
Good funny stuff doc and everyone.
Also, the very best dipping sauce for Chicken McNuggets is honey.
Not honey mustard, just straight up honey.
BBQ is second, everything else is just bringing up the rear.
Sorry, Buffy, but Spam is just revolting :)
I never liked hotdogs or Kraft macaroni.
I still dip my fishsticks in Spaghetti-Os, though, so we're even.
Your ability to eat Cap'N Crunch daily when you were a kid was due to the calluses on the roof of your mouth.
I love Captain Crunch! Still eat it occasionally, but only without crunchberries. As I have grown, anything with that fake "fruit" flavor makes me gag. I actually like pretty much everything on that list, sans glue.
I have some Chef Boyardee Ravioli in my cupboard. I also eat Top Ramen chicken flavor at least a few times a month too. If they had tuna melts, PBJ, and Campbell's soup on the list you could badmouth my entire diet (not that it probably doesn't deserve a verbal thrashing)
If you don't eat mac & cheese the terrorists will win.
Fun fact: if you know what you're doing, you can make a cheese sauce from scratch in the time it takes to boil macaroni. Although since the sauce can burn or turn lumpy if you take your mind off it, I wouldn't recommend trying to make it while drunk.
The king of the mouth shredders was definitely Honeycomb cereal. The pieces were so friggin big.
Cheese Dogs, that's another we never had in my house growing up. We ate plenty of hot dogs, but we had the regular kind. I don't think I've ever had one of those doc blogs about, but it sounds to me like a standard hot dog combined with some basic processed cheese food, similar to Velveeta. Again, doesn't qualify as "disgusting".
Christ, you'll even troll on a blog about food, not politics. Go the fuck away. YOU'RE disgusting.
Don't feed the troll
unless it's a truckload of hotdogs stuffed with Velveeta stuffed in his big mouth.
No, awake and fart, they were pretty disgusting... The cheese-like filling seemed to be about 50% salt and 50% yellow dye no 5.
It was nothing at all like Velveeta or typical processed cheese.
Eating them used to give me a headache.
As do you.
When I was staying at my moms during the college one summer I was eating a gyro. I have always been a picky eater and she thought it'd be funny when I was eating it to tell me what was in it. I go, "lamb? Really?" I look down at it and I start to heave (quietly) and then realize I've been eating the mofo's for about a year and they were delicious. Moral to the story, eat what you like.
I'm sure you guys have your reasons, but I'll never understand how people can eat a diet that consists almost entirely of the trash on doc's list. It makes me sick just thinking about it.
Give me food quality any day over "convenience". I understand that people don't want to make time to cook and stuff, but good food is one of the things that makes life worth living.
The thought of going from work to a cheese stuffed hotdog would make me near-suicidal. (And I don't believe the economic excuses, because you can eat good food very cheaply if you have a little expertise in preparing it.) Rice and beans are among the cheapest ingredients you can get, and they can be the basis for an endless variety of tasty things.
Froot Loops! I still eat them after age 30 (though I throw in blueberries so I can pretend it's somewhat healthy).
I preferred Peanut-butter Crunch, Super Sugar Crisp, Sugar Pops, Quisp, and something that looked like orange Cheerios (forget the name). But lets not forget the real WMD of childhood food (sorry guys, but on this awake and sing is right): Velveeta 'Cheese'.
Awake and sing was right? Cue the apocalypse in 3.... 2..... 1....
wrong. awake and cum said velveeta doesn't qualify as disgusting. It fucking does! Yecccch.
Oscar Mayer hotdogs. Those things are disgusting. I'm a hot dog snob - all beef all the way, preferably Nathan's.
Same here... I'll go with either Nathan's or Sabrett's, whichever the store I happen to be in carries. I can't believe I ever used to eat Oscar-Meyer type hot dogs regularly. I never much cared for them, and always knew they were vastly inferior to ball park hot dogs, but I never knew where to find anything better when I was a kid.
I have only had the mac and cheese, chicken nuggets and fish sticks from the list. I don't believe any of the other crap has crossed my lips.
However, there are other "foods" I used to consume as a kid but can't stomach anymore, such as:
1) jello
2) head cheese (basically the same thing)
3) peaches
4) any sort of "grape flavored" product other than grapes
5) the red flavored bug juice
6) welfare cheese
7) buttermilk
8) cheese whiz
9) mcDonald's fish sammitches
"But lets not forget the real WMD of childhood food: Velveeta 'Cheese'". -- legopix
It makes me sad I didn't realize how good real cheddar was when I was a kid.
My 37 year old son still loves those nasty Spaghetti O's. He eats them cold, out of the can!
Eating Cap'n Crunch is an exacting science, or maybe an art.
Fill the bowl with cereal, then pour just enough milk that the cereal begins to 'float'.
atiently turn the cereal with your spoon, dredging the ones on the bottom up and forcing the ones on the top down into the milk.
When the milk begins to turn slightly yellow begin eating (this is the point where the outside of the cereal is soft, yet the inside is still crunchy).
Do not stop until it's all gone, or it becomes mushy and disappoints.
I still eat all that stuff, some more often than others, but still.
That explains a lot.....
Most of these foods have a staggering amount of sodium in them which makes them work very well as a comfort food (Salt, the natural anti-depressant). I work 80ish hours a week, come home and the last thing I want to do is stand in the kitchen and prepare a meal, even though I am actually a decent cook when I want to be. I've actually been craving my mother's cooking lately :(
No Shake-A-Pudd'n?
WTF is Shake-A-Pudd'n?
A very shortlived product, Shake-A-Pudd'n came with a paper Dixie cup, like the ones from the hamburger drive-ins, that had all the instructions printed on it. You filled water up to the line, put the cover on top (a plastic one, also like one from the drive-in, without the punched out hole for a straw), and shook it. I know exactly when this product hit the market. I was in Webelos (the last year of Cub Scouts) and the guys wanted to bring this for the end of the year camping trip at Wrightwood. So that was about May 1968.
Do what I do, skippydoorknob, cook your dinners for the week on Sunday and freeze them. It's very easy and you will probably squeeze out another 10-15 years of life.
I still do macaroni & cheese, but the rest of that stuff I left behind after I graduated high school.
Never had Cap'n Crunch or Fruit Loops til college, Kix was the only sweet cereal my mom would let us get. Now I want some, even if you need a gallon-sized bowl for 1/2 a cup cause of how much they float up.
I loved them as a kid, so I got a box of Honeycomb recently and...what the fuck? They used to be big, but now they are tiny little dried up husks. Are there any cereals left that they haven't ruined trying to make them healthy?
The only things on that list that I enjoyed as a kid were fruit roll ups and Capri Sun. I think the only reason I liked the Capri Sun was because it was the best option when compared to the other drinks my school made available in the cafeteria. I probably wouldn't turn down a fruit roll up if offered today, but it's been so long that I'd probably find it grossly sweet and never do it again.
I never cared for the Kraft Mac & Cheese when I had it at friends' homes, but my mom refused to buy it. She'd whip up some homemade mac & cheese for lunch on weekends and in the summer (she was a teacher), so I never had much of a chance to develop a taste for it.
Spaghetti-Os are flat out revolting. If I was feeling cheap and lazy I'd at least boil some water, dump in pasta, drain, and throw a can of tomato sauce on it. Sure, it might add 8 minutes and 30 cents, but I just don't hate myself enough.
I'm going to pretend I didn't just learn about Oscar Mayer hot dogs with cheese in the middle.
Love the whole list,doc. Except I prefer a much stronger glue.
I'll only eat Oops, All Berries. And, of course, Peanut Butter Crunch, cause it tastes like God. Those little yellow sumbitches (treasure chests? life rafts?) DESTROY the roof of my mouth.
Spaghetti-Os with hot dogs or meatballs are awesome. Ditto Kraft Mac and Cheese with some onions and real cheese thrown in.
Are there any cereals left that they haven't ruined trying to make them healthy? ~ cclawyer
Fruity Pebbles.
I remember a short-lived commercial where this grubby factory guy comes dragging up the street (walking) with a lunchbox and bags under his eyes, to be greeted by his wife who's dancing around to a snappy tune with a plate full of hot pockets for dinner.
I remember thinking I wouldn't have that happy look on my face if I was confronted with a plate full o'whop biscuits and hot pockets after a long day at the welding shop or whatever. "Look what I made for dinner, honey! Canned biscuits and spaghetti hot pocketses! With butter!"
I was scroungin' for something to eat the other day and came across a can of Spaghetti-O's. I warmed them up, took one spoonful and threw the rest in the trash.
Man, WTF were we thinking back then? That shit's disgusting.
I remember how the commercials were integrated right into the shows.
Quick Draw Magraw saying "Hey kids! Did you know that Sugar Smacks aren't just for breakfast? You can eat them anytime!"
Velveeta 'Cheese'.
Ah. The cheese that cannot die.
Ever since "The Cooking Channel" came out a few weeks ago & started showing old Julia Childs & Galloping Gourmet episodes, I've been fascinated w/food people regularly ate when I was a kid. Fish mousses (whipped fish! Yum!), aspics (throw shit in a jello mold), POUNDS of butter, and what the hell was the fascination with artichokes?
Seriously, compared to what was offered as "real" food back then, this list is nothing.
And, for what it's worth, Spaghetti-O's STILL rule.
List is missing Manwich, though.
Even after going through culinary school, I still often crave Kraft. But then, it was still college, and I was poor as dirt. Also, I'm Canadian. My mom would never buy us white bread or fruit roll ups or any cereal that was outside of the 'brown' colour family, but neon orange paste-tubes mixed with a heaping glob of pre-transfathysteria hydrogenated no-name margarine was good enough for her kids.
I like all kinds of Kraft with the powdered 'cheese', but especially the classic variety with the straight macaroni. I now make it with unsalted butter and maybe a couple tablespoons of water or milk to help dissolve the powder into a sauce, then I top it with some freshly ground pepper and/or a light drizzle of ketchup. Because culinary school has turned me into a snob that way.
6) welfare cheese (LibertyHiller)
Dude. Don't be knocking government cheese. That shit is awesome.
Closest I can get is 'brick cheese' in the store.
Still not the same...
1 box of prepared mac n cheese.
1 can of either cream of mushroom or celery soup (your preference)
1 can of tuna (in water - not oil).
And if you want to add some flair with an extra $.25, some smashed up potato chips on top.
My childhood comfort foods:
Puffed Wheat or Sunny Boy Cereal with milk & brown sugar
Nutella on toast
Mom's bread pudding with cinnamon
My inner child wants a sammich
A peanut butter and banana sammich
?!... Hey, wait a freakin' minute, my mother was feeding me health food! WTF?
How about chicken embryos and sliced strips of pig belly fat for breakfast? Along with a glass of the semi-liquid that oozes out of cow tits.
God, I used to love Handi-Snacks when I was a kid. Maybe it was the act of spreading that orangey goop with the little red stick that I loved so much, who knows? This whole list sounds like my family's meals for most of my childhood (we were broke, but hey, I got all the mac and cheese I could eat! And plenty of fried Spam spam spam spam spam spam).
"Ten disgusting foods you might have loved as a kid?"
How about 10 disgusting foods that I loved... last week!
My googling is a bit rusty, but i found them: Super Orange Crisp (circa 1973ish).
Then there was bit-o-honey, and bb bats, and a gazillion miles of candy dots
I LOVED Libby's Vienna Sausages when I was around 10 or so, I ate them straight from the can. I haven't had them in years. I always see them when I'm out grocery shopping but I never buy them.
I was a packaging intern for Kraft Foods last year. We ran ass-loads of tests on Capri-Sun. After we were done we ended up with pallets worth of product left-over, and the only thing wrong was that they were dropped a few times(on purpose of course). So anyone could take as much of the left-overs as they wanted before the rest was donated/thrown out.
This seemed like a great thing to me. I ended up taking like 17 cases, because I really liked the stuff and it was free. I could have taken more, but I got sick of making trips to my car. It ended up lasting me for months. By the end I eventually got so bored/sick of the stuff I started using it as a mixer just to get rid of it. I don't think I'll ever drink Capri-Sun again.
Cool story:
I was standing outside a hotel in Cedar Rapids, IA one night and smelled some sort of fruit flavor I couldn't quite place. I asked the bellman what it was. He said the Quaker Oats facility across the highway was making Crunch Berries. Then I recognized the smell. All of downtown Cedar Rapids smelled like Crunch Berries.
OK, how about microwave burritos? Nuke a 50 cent frozen burrito, or go down the street and pay 79 cents at Taco Bell for something that won't break your teeth. That's right... one requires that you at least put your pants on... the other requires that you do that plus drive down the street. Frozen burrito wins!
2 words:
TV dinners
Oh man, Vienna sausages always take me back to Hurricane Andrew - we lived on those things after the storm hit! I don't think I could actually eat one now, but that's besides the point.
Really though Spaghetti-o's are the healthiest food on that list. Real tomato puree, decent amount of protein. I still eat em. They make a great casserole food with corn, peas and onions.
*gag*
I love Capt'n Crunch, it comes with plaque scrubbers built in, cleans your teeth and gums while you chew.
My all time favorite disgusting childhood food, I mean to say that my favorite food as a very young child, 3-4 that I would absolutely puke if it was served to me today, was corn and mayonnaise. I don't know what possessed me to eat that combination, but it was my favorite. I had it with just about every meal.
My favorites were Elio's Cardboard Pizza and Giorgio's cheese sticks, in the big yellow bag.
Loved Trix, Fruit Roll Ups and Starburst as a kid.
Trix was round and you could taste the lemon and orange flavors...now it's all pointy and tastes like sugared crap.
Fruit Roll Ups tasted like real dried fruit, so sweet and tangy. Now it's multi-colored edible plastic.
Starburst used to be so juicy and fruity (especially the lemon and cherry)...now it's dry and flat.
Sigh. At least I still have Kraft Mac & Cheese (with tuna and peas added).
I used to be addicted to Mr. T. cereal
Kix and Cheerios are both pretty bad about floating up when you pour on the milk.
I discovered that you can take some Cheez-Whiz and microwave it until it's soft and runny, then pour it over the cereal in kind of a criss-cross lattice. Then, when you pour milk on, the Cheez-Whiz congeals and bonds to the edge of bowl; holding the cereal down kind of like a cargo net.
You can also mix Cheez-Whiz 50/50 with Crisco to make quick frosting for cupcakes that you have to take to school (or work) for birthday parties.
As a bonus, if you use enough tuna in the cupcake batter, you won't be required to bring in cupcakes anymore.
LMFAO!
Underwood Deviled Ham Spread on Ritz Crackers. Loved it as a kid. Now I'd probably throw up.
My favorite thing as a kid were those little tin cans of Del Monte chocolate pudding. Still are really, but they come in plastic cups now.
I also liked Pop Tarts but I don't care much for them now. The only things on the list I liked were Capri Suns and Fruit Rollups.
Capn' Crunch was like eating razor sharp glass, I liked Fruit Loops, Sugar Smacks, Honeycomb and Trix (back when they were round). I also liked Lucky Charms, though I usually just ate the marshmallows.
Remember when TV dinners came in aluminum trays? They were so much better when cooked in an oven. Everything is I guess, but I'm too spoiled by microwave ovens. As Homer Simpson said "Forty seconds? But I want it now!"
I still eat Spaghetti-O's, them shits are delicious. I also still enjoy a Capri Sun from time to time.
A couple months ago my GF and I got a package of fish sticks as a goof, those I will admit were not as good as I remembered from age 10. I had forgotten all about Fruit Roll-Ups, though, I'll have to get a pack tomorrow.
People usually think I'm weird for the way I eat cereal, but I fill the bowl with milk first and then pour in a little cereal at a time until all the milk is gone. It doesn't gets soggy that way.
Miss me my old Ghostbusters cereal.
Little cups of Mott's applesauce. Yum.
I never liked much on that list as a kid.
I did like the Peanut-butter crunch, not exactly the Cap'N Crunch on the list but close, haven't had it in years but I am guessing I would still find it tasty unless they have way changed the flavoring.
I liked Capri Sun lemonade. No clue if they still have a lemonade or if they do have one if its the same as when I was young.
I liked Kraft Mac and cheese but not as much as homemade or a decent restaurant made one. I at rare times use it as a base that I add to for a meal when I am feeling lazy.
Normally I don't eat any packaged foods though as I like to cook and usually cook for a few days in advance.
I dunno about you guys, but when I was a little kid, I used to get creeped out by that scary minotaur head on the elmer's glue bottle.
I have my Sour Jacks, Reese's Pieces, and Twizzler Bites.. Now I sit back and wait for the diabetes to kick in.
Fish Sticks
The small ones pictured in doc's blog are nasty, but the larger beer-battered ones are great.
Oscar Mayer Cheesedogs
These are actually delicious. However, they can only be cooked one way - microwaved for 1 min. Cooked any other way, they are an abomination.
McDonald's Chicken McNuggets
Good when dipped in honey, however they don't offer it anymore. You have to bring them home and break out the bottle.
Spaghetti-Os
Nasty and always have been.
Fruit Roll Ups
Pretty good, I used to eat these as a kid. No desire anymore to eat food that sticks to my teeth.
Kraft Macaroni & Cheese
Awesome - must be prepared with milk and butter.
Anyone who likes that gelatinous-squeeze-out-of-a-tin-pouch version probably likes mac and cheese from KFC. Farking disgusting.
Capri Sun
I always like these as a kid. Plus when you were done you could blow them up and stomp on them for a nice bomb.
Cheese 'n Crackers
Cracker version good, stick version bad.
Cap'n Crunch
I still like this stuff. It does cut the roof of your mouth up like crazy tho.
School Supplies
I never did this. But I can still remember the slow kid eating paste off a plastic spoon in kindergarten.
"I dunno about you guys, but when I was a little kid, I used to get creeped out by that scary minotaur head on the elmer's glue bottle."
-- doughboy
That's Elmer. That's why it's called Elmer's Glue.
He's Elsie the Cow's husband. Elsie was the mascot for Borden Milk products. Elmer's Glue is made with milk protein (casein).
They have children, Beulah, Beauregard (born 1948), and twins Larabee and Lobelia (born 1957).
The wise one just went Oh Snap! on doughboy LOL
I have to go with Quisp over Cap'n Crunch. It's exactly the same ingredients and in exactly the same order except that Quisp has more delicious Yellow #5. Quisp also has the delightful flying-saucer shape to hold a little milk. There's also the added benefit of it leaving more skin on the roof of your mouth, helping to avoid the dreaded horrors of Crunch Mouth (which you can get from almost any cereal if you eat close to a box).
Both characters -- Quisp and Cap'n Crunch, were created by Jay Ward, better known as the originator of Bullwinkle and Rocky.
Nice trivia tidbits nostradamus and the curmudgeon.
But Elmer is still more of a creepy man-cow than a bull. It also relieves a childhood concern about Elmer's glue: My dad used to wind me up by telling me Elmer's glue was made of old horses. Being a young girl I (of course) loved horses.
Note to Buffy: I mentioned Spam first back on Tuesday, 10th comment from the top :)
There was a C3PO cereal that tasted like sugary cardboard. Disgusting, but when the box was empty you could put sugar on it and keep eating.
With the right amount of cheese, those red plastic cheese spreaders from the Cheese 'n Crackers packets stuck to the ceiling. One of them is probably lodged in my appendix, along with some litter pearls.
Here's my list:
1) Frozen pizza. The only kind I'll eat these days is the cheeseless roasted-veggie kind.
2) Any sort of canned pasta product, like Spaghetti-Os or Chef Boy-ar-dee. Why, oh baby Jesus, WHY do they add cheddar cheese to the sauce? Cheddar cheese does NOT belong in Italian food! (Yeah, yeah, I know...)
3) "L&A" hot dogs, like Oscar Mayer. It's strictly all-beef (brisket trimmings) for me these days.
4) Kraft Mac & Cheese. Lost my taste for the stuff by the age of 7. Maybe it's better now. I'll get some just to see if doc's right about it fixing stomach bugs.
5) Milk Break bars. I was not a milk drinker, so to get my calcium fix as a teenager I would down these glorified chocolate-covered wafers copiously.
6) Chocolate or strawberry milk. This was often the only way I would drink milk. Now I just avoid the stuff, since soymilk is so easy to come by these days. 'Almond Breeze' is frigging AWESOME.
7) Soy yogurt. I go back & forth with this stuff. Sometimes it gives me the trots, so I've been staying away lately.
8) Francheezie. Think: A jumbo hot dog. Stuffed with processed cheese food product. Wrapped in bacon. Served with baked beans. I was all about these as a really little kid. I'll take the hot dog wrapped in bacon and the beans, you can keep the PCFP.
9) Pasta sauce from a jar. Tastes way too processed for me these days. I'd sooner hold out for made-from-scratch sauce, spiked with plenty of fresh herbs and Italian sausage.
10) Peanut butter. I love the taste of the stuff, but since peanuts are high in arginine and I'm prone to cold sores (that amino acid aggravates them), I tend to avoid it.
Can someone tell me why that kraft mac and cheese stuff now loses all flavor after 35 seconds of eating? It didn't used to.
add extra butter and keep the salt shaker close.
My parents used to spend all their money on beer and horse races then give us SOS. Shit on a Shingle...Chipped beef on toast.
That stuff is so fucking disgusting that I just threw up in my mouth a little with the memory of it. Yech!
A friend and I drove up from Oak Park to see the Why Store in Dekalb IL(Northern Illinois University) one night. On the way back in a haze of beer we stopped at this McDonalds. To our amazement they had buckets of 50 Mcnuggets for sale, so we bought one. Yeah we ate the whole thing and to this day, even though I have tried, I can't eat a McDonalds Mcnugget anymore without heaving.
My parents were cheap, so I only got gefilte fish on holidays :(
But ew @ the sweet ones. I can't stand those. Used to piss me off when that's all my grandmother would get (ok...I'd eat it anyway, but whatever). Plain gefilte fish with horseradish, thanks.
As for the stuff in the article, I'll still eat spaghettios with meatballs. Gives me acid reflux though, so I stay away from it.
Never got the oscar mayers with cheese since my parents were cheap. Cheap hotdogs with sliced cheddar on it and microwaved. I've had the oscar mayer + cheese hotdogs, but I don't understand them since you can really taste any cheese in them.
Kraft mac and cheese isn't bad if you don't overboil it and turn it into paste. I don't think my mom ever paid attention when she made it, because sometimes it was ok and sometimes it was like a big glob....
I never liked captain crunch. I preferred alphabets cereal...
On another note, my mom used to make ramen noodles a lot and they were too damn salty. When I got older I realized she was putting the powder directly on the noodles after she took them out of the water (apparently the way she liked them). I think she was trying to kill me with sodium. They were a lot better when cooked to the package directions, but I still dislike them.
She also bought the canned chicken and dumplings and I thought they were pretty good as a kid. Tried some recently and wow they were nasty. I make my own chicken and dumplings from scratch, and so does my mother in law, which is the only way I've eaten them for years, so I was extremely disturbed at the texture not being correct. Plus they seemed bland.
So now you know, Jewbag isn't the only Jew here :)
"1 box of prepared mac n cheese.
1 can of either cream of mushroom or celery soup (your preference)
1 can of tuna (in water - not oil).
And if you want to add some flair with an extra $.25, some smashed up potato chips on top." -KMHO7
And here I thought my family was the only one who made this. It was always done with cream of mushroom, because the store brand didn't have cream of celery, and Campbell's soup was a luxury. It was the "2 days before payday" casserole, when I was growing up. No smashed up chips, though, as those would've also been a luxury.
The "1 day before payday" dinner was even worse: spaghetti with condensed mushroom soup 'alfredo' sauce, because the tuna from the night before was the last available animal protein in the house.
That's how my mom made tuna casserole.
She still eats the stuff. I really don't understand it.
One of my secret pleasures is once or twice a year I'll buy a can of Chef Boyardee spaghetti and meatballs. It's not that great, must be the nostalgia that makes it so awesome.
I hated Captain Crunch. How could it taste good when after a few bites every mouthful was laced with your own blood from your lacerated gums? Guh.
I think that must be the allure.
See no other reason for eating it.
I love SOS, but I grew up with it made with ground beef... I've never actually had it with chipped beef, but I've always meant to give it a try.
Of course, I'm always too lazy to risk having wasted time making it only to find out I don't like it, so I always just stick with the tried and true.
Same here :)
Ground beef gravy on toast. If my mom was feeling really productive she'd make some mashed potatoes and we'd have it on that (though I guess it's not really SOS in that case, lacking the "shingle" and all).
Chipped beef is friggin expensive. I didn't have the real thing until I was like 11 and my dad suddenly told me what it actually was. I conned him into getting some chipped beef and making it for me, and I thought it was awesome.
gross story:
When I was about 10 or so, I started to cough up little bits of spaghetti-o's, when I hadn't eaten any in months.
Turns out they were tonsiliths (google it if you are interested and are not eating), and they had the same color and consistency as spaghetti-o's.
And that is why I can never eat Spaghetti-o's again.
http://ezinearticles.com/?Tonsilith-Treatments---How-to-Cure-Tonsiliths&id=1857624
Do NOT go there. Trust me.
No mention of Steak-Ums.
I remember about twice a week being ordered to cook steak-ums for my brother and I because my parents didn't "feel" like cooking.
That isn't including the other two nights a week I had to cook mac and cheese or just eat cereal for dinner.
I probably ate 1-2 actual home cooked meals a week throughout my entire childhood.
My parents sucked.
Victoria, steak-ums are awesome with Worcestershire sauce. You're missing out.
I didn't love Steam ums. They were disgusting. But I had to eat them, because there was nothing else. My mom was and still is insano-cheap. Wacked out of the head cheap, but cheap as in the suckass kind of cheap. Not the good cheap that saves coupons and gets good deals, the white trash kind of cheap that is like "you gun eat steakumms fore dinnar".
Why didn't you just learn how to cook?
I complained a few times about my parents cooking and finally my dad said "Well if you don't like it, why don't you just go in there and cook for your damn self?"
So I found a cookbook and that's what I did. From about 12 years old and up I cooked dinner for everyone almost every night, and I got pretty good at it too.
Yeah, that works when there is FOOD in the pantry/refrigerator.
Kinda hard to cook with nothing.
Being in the military forced me to learn to cook. The first six months after boot camp eating out every night was awesome, then it started to suck real fast. Long story short I taught myself to cook and now 10 years later do a pretty damn good job. My wife tries, but, lord help her it just doesn't work out.
lol
I have no clue what I'd be like if I hadn't been forced to learn. I was a pretty picky little kid, so I was forced to cook for myself if I wanted to eat something I liked.
Not to mention my parents had all kinds of problems (mom mentally ill and dad in jail a lot). So regardless I was left on my own to fend for myself sometimes.
I ended up having to do a lot of the shopping too, so I learned how to make do with cheap yet decent ingredients.
And being from a not so well off family, and friends being the same, we often shared meals with friends (as they also did with us sometimes), so I ended up cooking for a ton of people at times.
Stouffer's (frozen) Macaroni and Cheese is the greatest, trumps Kraft totally.
as a kid if i wanted a "good" mac and cheese it was made with velveeta. nowadays if i do a box of m/c i just use the velveeta cheese pouch.
something else i ate as a kid (all the time) was stouffer's creamed chicken. the gravy was the color of bronchial secretions about 4 days into a chest cold, but it was tasty on plain old white toast.
boogers didn't make the list doc? my brother lived on them.
Aw, fuck. I still eat all of that, minus the Fish. Never liked that. I piss in the ocean. I don't eat where I pee.
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