Not “comfort foods” or “special dishes”, but actual food products you remember from your childhood.
I had a fit of nostalgia tonight and the cardboard cakepan goodness of Betty Crocker Stir & Frost popped up like some eldritch artifact emerging from the depths. I haven’t thought about those things in years! They came with everything (and I do mean everything but water) included in the box…cake mix, frosting, and even the foil-lined cardboard cake pan. I remember fondly many a birthday cake with that swirly blue design on the pan.
Another one that came up was Brioschi. Not really a food product, but my mother kept a bottle in the refrigerator for 20 years. (No, not the same bottle all 20 years) My refrigerators ever since I moved out of the house have always seemed a little bit empty without that cobalt blue bottle sitting in the door rack.
So what are your favorite childhood food products?
An offshoot of Fruit Rollups: a bar of the preserved fruitlike material in bar form with stripes of cream through it. Pretty yummy, as I recall – but then I was maybe 7 at the time.
Skybars–these milk chocolate bars with 4 sections, each of which had a different filling.
You can still find them from time to time. Now I think they’re too sweet, but I used to scarf them down like crazy as a kid. I’d buy a bunch of those and a cheap kite and go to the field at the end of the cul-de-sac I lived on. I’d fly the kite for hours, my energy provided by far too many Skybars from the local five and dime.
I remember Brioschi. Italian antacid. It was lemon flavored. Italians, always making stuff taste good.
I can’t believe what bizarre excuses for food I ate in the 1960s when I was a little science geek kid. “Space Food Sticks.” I gag to remember them, they were made of plastic. Not even remotely edible. What were we all thinking? No wonder I went for natural crunchy organic food when I got older.
Then there was the time in the late '60s when some genius in R&D at a snack company decided stoners were a niche market for munchies and targeted them with Screaming Yellow Zonkers!, which was Cracker Jack on acid, or at least it was packaged that way. A black package with colorful gonzo typography influenced by psychedelic band posters.
Wow, I was going to post almost that same exact thing. I don’t remember the version with the cream, but I clearly remember the fruit-rollup bars when I was a kid, and being completely mystified when they disappeared. My sister and I looked for them for ages every time we went to the commissary.
There’s a German ice-cream bar called Bum-Bum with a red candy coating and a bubble-gum stick. Those were great; I haven’t seen those since I was about 12.
Not sure if this fits with the OP, but I get nostalgic if I’m watching a movie and they show the old design on soda cans that they had when I was a kid…
Popcorn in that aluminum skillet that puffed up when it was finished.
Pizza in a box that took forever to make, basically from scratch, and tasted like crap.
TV dinners in aluminum trays, before microwaves, and the peas all had a horrible metallic taste and the mashed potatoes had the consistency of loose stool.
Ok I’ve got one. The “breakfast bars” I grew up with. Except they weren’t all full of granola and other nasty healthy things. They were sort of like dense brownies. But with vitamins…I guess. They came in different flavours. I would take them to kindergarten. And eat them in the coat closet.
Inkleberry I was going to post that. It was the first thing I thought of. Jell-O 123
betenoir your reminded me of a nutrition stick that was a rod about 6 inches long , 3/8 inches in diameter, and tasted like shit. The stick was like a flour that had a binding liquid added and then was extruded after heating under steam pressure. Yuck! The phrase Breakfast Bars triggered the word Carnation infrnt of it. Give that a try.
Fizzies - Drop them in water and they bubble away leaving a foamy drink that tasted and stained like those red tablets the dentist gave out to show if you brushed properly. Kids had to have them, but drinking it was a punishment.
Mr. Wink Soda or Wink Soda - It had a cartoon man’s face winking at you .
Jolly Good Soda – A lot of flavors and every can had a joke in the bottom unless it was a prize. My cousins and I all won prizes on more than one occasions.
There was a dry soup that came in a small can. You pulled back the lid like the Fritos dip cans now. I can’t remember the name though.
Tang – Well it’s Tang, what else can you add.
Blackjack Gum – It has a sort of molasses flavor.
Beechman’s Gum – It was a wintergreen flavor.
Clove’s Gum – It was a clove flavor…
Sour Cream and Onion Doritto’s – It’s not the same as Ranch.
The original flavored Tombstone Pizza – They had a sweeter richer tasting sauce and better spice blend.
Kaboom breakfast cereal. And do any other Dopers from the D.C. area recall those ice-cream rolls from Gifford’s? My favorite was the one made of chocolate ice cream with a core of orange sherbet.
And betenoir, I remember those breakfast bars! I think they were from Carnation…Carnation Instant Breakfast? My brother used to be a reluctant eater and my mother was constantly in fear of anemia for him, so she used to get those because it was easier to argue him into eating a breakfast bar than a whole breakfast.
Another one here for Carnation Breakfast Bars. I wept when they discontinued those. Good eatin’.
We used to get the Towne Club pop in glass bottles and a wooden crate. You had to go to their outlet store to return the bottles, then fill the crate up. They had a really good red pop.
By the way, related to the Stir & Frost cakes, there is a new item on the shelf called Warm Indulgences, I think from Betty Crocker. Basically the same concept as Stir & Frost, except you make it in the microwave, and it’s a one serving deal. Just add water and a pouch of fudgy stuff, or cinnamon stuff, and you’re good to go. Very yummy.
My favorite snack when I was a kid was green apple fruit roll-ups. You can’t imagine my disappointment when Betty Crocker decided to discontinue them. Those things were good!
-Lil
