I used to love canned deviled ham when I was a kid. I tried it a couple of years ago, and it tastes horrible now. Very greasy, very salty, and very peppery. I don’t know if my tastes have changed, or the formula, but I wish that I could enjoy deviled ham again.
Jell-o Chocolate Pudding–not the instant, but the real cooked pudding. And no wax-paper lid on the cups either–when I was a kid, I loved breaking through that skin on the top. It’s like taking that first spoonful out of a jar of peanut butter!And speaking of peanut butter–to this day I still love peanut butter and bacon sammiches on toast. YUMMMM!
Me too for the beenie but I never ate the hot dogs then. I always had to have extra beans to compensate. I still crave canned baked beans sometimes. I like how they stay warm while you eat them. They’re sticky and filling though.
I tried to make the cooked jello pudding just a couple of weeks ago! It did not make a sufficient skin and it didn’t taste the same. Then I found out that my mom used to add powdered milk to it for our bones. I’m not going that far for a trip down memory lane.
Vienna sausages.
Loved those things as a toddler. Now the idea makes me cringe and want to yack.
Peanut butter + Marshmallow fluff = Fluffer Nutter … Yummy!!!
I still like SpaghettiO’s but I actually prefer Aldi brand spaghetti rings and meatballs with Aldi brand hot dogs cut up in it, with oregeno, basil and garlic powder on the top…
by the way, for campers, open up a can of Franco American Spaghetti and put it on the fire. Tastes wonderful.
i also rediscoered Raviolio’s (although now it’s considered a version of Spghetti’os).
The thing i can’t stand now is when my wife makes Tuna Helper. When my mom started workign evenings, a meal we had quite often was creamed tuna. it was easy for her to make before work and easy for us to heat up. We ate it so much, I got sick of it and tuna helper is basically the same thing.
I remember a product called Fizzee’s (sp?) when I was a kid in the '60’s. They were similar to Alka-Seltzer tablets in appearance and behavior. They came in individual dosage packs, 2x6 foil packed I believe. They were fruit flavored. Express one tablet and drop it in a glass of water. Fizzzz! Yum. Well, to be honest, they actually tasted pretty lousy, but they were fun to make. 
Anyone else remember those? We also had a local beverage in South Jersey called Boost Drink-a-Toast. It was syrup that you added to water. Sort of tasted like flat cola. They may still make it, but I live in Florida now.
I think I remember those. (was born in 67, so maybe I caught the tail end). I can clearly remeber dropping tablets in water and watching it bubble.
Reminds me of a time in an airport in Hawaii where they had free pineapple juice. Now I’ve never like pineapple, but the machine that dispensed it was so much fun to use, I drank several cups of it. (I realize this has nothing to do with the OP, but it was relevent.)
Fizzies are the grandfather of Pop Rocks
The heck with dropping the tabs in water (the resulting beverage was fairly awful, except IIRC, the cola flavor - just put a tab on your tongue and let it explode (from the compressed CO2) in your mouth
It makes a good dip though. Mix it with pimento cheese spread (the stuff that comes in little glasses), mayo, horseradish, and minced onion. Seriously. It sounds gross, but hubby ate it at a place in Orlando when he went down for a bowl game last winter. They used it as a dip for bacon-wrapped grilled scallops. We made some at home last summer and it was awesome.
I must be quite a bit older than you guys, because you’re describing stuff that my kids ate.
My favorite childhood treats were sauerkraut and pickled pigs feet. I don’t care for them anymore though.
I can still eat Campbell’s soup and Spaghetti-Os. What I can’t touch is Lipton powdered soup mix-the kind from a box? I used to love “Giggle Soup” (the kind with funny noodles)-now it tastes fake.
I also used to love raw carrot sticks and hated cooked ones. Now it’s the exact opposite-I LOVE steamed baby carrots, or candied carrots. Don’t care much for the raw ones.
Cooked spinach with butter was a treat as a child-now it tastes soggy and limp.
Remember those little wax bottle candies with the syrupy drink inside? I think I would still enjoy those…well, if they had scotch in them instead.
The mention of the fizzy tablets and pineapple juice made me remember something I loved as a child. There was a vending machine at a local market that actually dispensed cups of soda and fruit juice drinks. The best was that it had options for carbonation and ice. I loved watching the cup drop down and fill up with what you’d selected, and my favorite flavor was Orange-Pineapple.
I can’t understand how I ever stomached pimento loaf with american cheese slices and mayo on white bread.
When I was growing up my mother made canned vegetables everyday (string beans, peas, lima beans). For variety she would alternate “french cut string beans” with “yellow wax beans”. We rarely had fresh vegetables and if we did it was lettuce for salads.
I grew up thinking that cooked vegetables came with a metallic taste.
For some 40 years now, I still refuse to have my vegetables come out of a can!
Most stuff that I liked as a kid, I still enjoy from time to time. But for some reason, I cannot abide bologna. I used to love boloney with whitebread on mayo, but now it makes me choke. Bleh.
Not a big fan of American cheese, either, except that it makes a passable grilled cheese sandwich, in a pinch—to be eaten with Campbell’s Tomato Soup, naturally. I much prefer toasted jack or goat cheese with homemade tomato-garlic soup, but grilled cheese with Kraft singles and canned soup make excellent “sick food.”
Yeah. Pretty much any Chef Boyardee Blank-a-Roni product hits my palate like a giant spoonful of ass now, yet as I kid I slaveringly adored it. And it’s really, honestly not a “I’ve mahtoored” kind of food-snobbishness. I like all kinds of unrefined garbage, and I’m not too proud to eat some Chuck-E-Cheez-style fare if it’s in front of me. But it’s a veritable phenomenon of senescence, I think, that our tastes change, and some erstwhile beloved kiddie foods somehow transform into disgusting slop.
Hot dogs. Not the manna-from-heaven that is the Fenway Frank, but your average store-brand weiners you dump in a pot of boiling water and thenstick next to your baked beans. I used to LOVE them. Beans 'n franks was a weekend tradition of my father’s for the kids, and we’d devour it with gusto. Now I’ve no stomach for the spongey pale tubesteak.
Twinkies? Blech! My grandmother used to give me a Twinkie and I’d feel like jumping for joy. Now they nauseate me.
Very strange, adulthood.
Hmm. I seem to recall that I rather liked tripe when I was a kid.
Nowadays … once every five years or so is enough to show me why I don’t need any more for another five years.
From what I 've heard, my nanny (great grandmother) would sit me down with a plate of a half dozen scrambled eggs and a couple of fried brains at 2 years old and I’d eat the whole thing with gusto. (Funny thing is, I probably still would.)
I came to post about Vienna sausages but someone beat me to it. I used to love them as a kid and out of nostalgia I bought a couple cans when they were on sale. I shared them with the dog.
Being a glutton for punishment I bought some of the chicken variety when I was stocking up on canned goods for a possible hurricane. But I figured since I would have to use up the perishibles in the fridge I could top them with various condiments and wash them down with the open bottle of Reisling if necessary. Barring that, that dog likes them.
I remember Fizzies, too. We’d like to play rabid dog with fizzies.
I miss Space Food Snacks and I have no idea why, they weren’t that good. NASA must have added some addictive substance to them to hook the little kids and make them want to be astronauts.
Another thing I used to love as a kid was the liverwurst that comes in the tube. Mom used to make us sandwiches of that on white bread or let us eat it on crackers. I loved it until I found out that the name meant it was made from liver. Every so often I actually get an urge to try it again when I’m grocery shopping, I get over it by reading the ingredient label.
I’ll confess. Giggle Noodle soup is still my favorite soup, and has been since I was a toddler. I’ve always disliked canned soups, though.
On the other hand, when I was little I loved strawberry milk, and FrankenBerry cereal. Strawberry milk now tastes vile, and I only ate one bowl of the cereal when they started making it again a few years ago. blech. Fortunately, Count Chocula is still pretty good.
My mom had/s such an adversion to oatmeal that she never made it for us. I tried it for the first time a couple of weeks ago and it’s not nearly as bad as she lead me to believe. But I guess foods you missed in childhood is a subject for another thread.