Hostess pies. Those individual pies for a buck or so.
I’ve loved them since I was a kid when they cost 15 cents. Berry is the best. And when they’re heated up a bit, it is even better.
Only 440 calories in each, with probably more than 50% from fat.
I’ll never stop eating them.
Fried sliced salt pork. It’s just salt and fat, but damn is it good. I only make it for New Year’s now, but when I was a kid, we had it pretty regular for breakfast with a big mess of grits.
Good stuff.
Grilled Cheez Whiz Sandwiches & Cream of Tomato Soup.
If you are what you eat, remember that CheezWhiz never goes bad.
Cheap canned tuna - none of that albacore crap. Tuna in water with mayo.
Tater tots.
Maruchan Chicken flavored Ramen
McCormick’s “hot” taco seasoning. (I could make real seasoning - or I can take this and sift it on top of ground beef. Guess which one is the comfort food?)
Pretty much eaten everything in this thread in one form or another to varying savour… but I do have a question- what exactly are White Hots?
The Jack in the Box taco references kind of weird me out… I have only ever eaten at a Jack in the Box once in my life, with my Mom and Dad, we had never eaten it before… Three hours later my Dad died… it was his last meal. Now, I know that is not my choice nor his choice for a last meal. I just wish we would have eaten something else.
I am on a Pork Rind and Red Repper Sauce (Frank’s Redhot) kick right now. I sit down with a shallow bowl full of Cayenne Sauce and a bag of Pork Rinds and use the natural in curving of the fried skin to spoon up hot sauce. The pork rinds are kind of incidental, they are more of a hot sauce delivery method… sometimes I use fritos instead.
That is morbid in one of those ways that makes you think “wow, if I didn’t know this person, that would have potential in a dark comedy of some type…”
Sorry for your loss 
I suggested this nice Pho Restaurant to them as we passed it --forget the name, it was somewhere off the “new end” of the Vegas strip on the same road as the Jack in The Box. I believe it was a Franchise Pho House… anyways, my parents aren’t too adventerous and we were going to catch a plane, so my Dad chose the Jack in the Box, even though we had never eaten it before… it was fast food. I don’t think my Dad’s last meal preference would have been Pho either, so ist das Leben.
Some of my favorites are the budget stretchers from childhood:
Beans and greens (favorite: pinto beans with turnip greens and a side of cornbread)
Fried potatoes (watching my blood sugar, these are a camping treat only)
Salmon patties (a Friday evening staple growing up)
Baked mac & cheese (the original “busy mom” casserole)
Potato and rivel soup (a winter staple of my paternal PA Dutch grandmother)
Chicken and dumplings (easy and cheap for a big family)
I still do some of these at home, but in moderation.
One of my favorites is chili mac & a side of pioneer biscuits:
Chili mac: brown 1/4 lb (more or less) ground beef w/an onion. In the meantime, boil water & cook a handful or two of macaroni. When the meat is done to your liking, remove the excess fat & add one can tomatoes, 1/4 tsp salt, and 1 tbsp chili powder. When the whole thing is boiling, add the cooked macaroni.
Pioneer biscuits: Preheat oven to 450 degrees. In a 4-cup measuring bowl or small bowl, put two cups flour. Add one tsp salt and one tablespoon baking powder. Stir. Add about 1/2 cup oil & 1.5 cups milk (more or less is fine). Stir until the mixture pulls away from the bowl. Turn onto a floured table. Knead for about 30 seconds, then either roll or pat the dough to the desired height. Cut out the buscuits, place into pan, and cook. At least that’s the way the cookbook puts it. Personally, I divide the dough into 1/2, then 1/2, then 1/2 again. I pat the dough into buscuit shape, then repeat. Before I put the 8 buscuits into the 450 degree oven, I spray then with butter-flavored cooking spray (they smell great when they come out of the oven). Anyway, let them bake for 15 minutes or so.
The recipe is based on a Betty Crocker Cookbook biscuit recipe I found years ago. Sorry, I don’t remember the date.
Love, Phil
Okay, I’m looking at my recipes. Two things: (1) add one can beans (the original recipe called for kidney beans, but I’ve found chili beans add more flavor) to the chili mac recipe. This adds both protein & fiber. It also makes the recipe go further (ie serves four rather than just three.)
(2) It seems men love anything you put in front of them if you add biscuits/home-made bread. That’s my experience, anyway.
Love, Phil
That sounds like what we would call “fatback” around here, and, yes, it is good. I can almost hear my arteries screaming just from my thinking about it, though.
The first time doner kebab was mentioned in this thread it was spelled as “Donner kebab.” Now, I know this is about low-end food, but I’m not sure that long pig qualifies as low-end.
RR
I’m sitting here eating a sandwich made from Hertz frankfurters on white bread with mustard and mayo.
I’m so ashamed…but it tastes sooooooooooooo gooooooooooooooooooooooooood!
Thank God I wasn’t the only one who thought that about a “Donner kebab!” 
OK, I’m being whooshed by these two responses. What meaning of the word “donner” am I missing? Is it somebody’s name? All I could think of is one of Santa’s reindeer, but that doesn’t make the cannibalism joke.(Incidentally, “donner” is acceptable for döner kebap.)
Anyone ever tried pickled deer’s heart? Believe it or not, tastes a lot like roast beef.
I’d say that’s pretty low end, although potted meat still wins the show, IMO. Spam is positively gourmet compared to that stuff.
Yeek.
Funny, but I was thinking of starting a thread very much like this one about a week or so ago. This is because I was making “Frito Pie” for my lunch. Frito Pie is as follows:
Put a bed of Frito chips (or, more “low-end” yet, generic corn chips) on a dinner plate. Top with canned chili (the kind with beef and beans, thankyewverymuch)
Microwave until the chili is warm but not hot.
Add a layer of shredded cheese. I generally use cheddar, but whatever is on sale at your local Aldi’s is fine.
Microwave until the cheese melts.
Scoop up the fatty/protein-y chili/cheese goodness with the chips.
Mmmmmmm. Can’t you just feel your arteries hardening?
Meh. But I lurves me some Swanson’s fried chicken dinner, with the inch-thick skin (how do they do that?!), mashed potatoes and corn.
Yes!! I’m a sucker for the chocolate ones. Those are truly a guilty pleasure…
Fatback is what we called it as well, but I thought perhaps that some folks from the not-south wouldn’t know what it was. 