Foods that are better stale

Mini marshmellows
Peeps
Gummy Worms

Slightly stale challah bread to make french toast.

I love stale Cheetos, popcorn, and Cheez-Its. I find chewy a more interesting texture than crispy, I guess. And they kinda “melt” in your mouth a little, too.

Another vote for stale popcorn. It’s the best popcorn.

Red Vines

Yes. In fact for years that’s about all I ate. Prior to drive-in movie nite, Dad would make a huge shopping bag full of popcorn, with lots of butter. The popcorn would sit overnite, with some of the fat soaking into the double-or even triple layered brown paper bags, leaving behind butter taste. Still good even the day after.

Croutons

Funny, I was just telling the missus last night how as a kid I used to love cheese-and-cracker (saltines and Kraft singles) sandwiches that had been wrapped up for several hours so the crackers had a chance to get a little soft.

Tim Hortons sour cream donuts or timbits. After a day or two in a bag they become almost like biscotti. Really good with a nice cup of tea.

I agree that very slightly stale marshmallows are better; there’s just something icky about a super-soft surface. Just a trace of hardened crust makes them infinitely tastier.

In that same vein, I don’t much care for fresh gummy bears - the super-soft, sticky and faintly damp ones are just icky. A little air exposure and a tougher exterior, from not-sticky down to actually chewy, is much better.

That said, I wish I could get fresher eucalyptus “Chips” candy - the stuff from Italy. I got a pound that was perfect - like hard wax, just chewy, could flatten one out to a thin disc as I sucked on it. Then I was gifted with four pounds of the shelf-stale ones that are just as flavorful, but hard as rocks. Can’t eat 'em. Don’t want to order any more because they’re expensive and there’s no way to ensure I get truly fresh ones - they sell slowly, so as long as they aren’t actually moldy or something the sellers consider them fresh. PITA.

I’m not sure if it counts as “stale”, precisely, but the last few grapes in a bunch, when they’ve started to shrivel a bit in the fridge. They’ve obviously lost some of the crisp juiciness of fresh grapes, but they’re sweeter, with a hint of incipient raisiny flavor, without the gummy texture of raisins. I don’t know that I like them better than the fresh grapes, but I do like them.

Parson, is that you? :smiley:

Sandwich cookies (like Oreo). They get nice and soft.

Not quite stale, but I prefer things like salami when it’s sat out of the fridge a while. Especially when it “sweats.” Cheese, too, that goes without saying.

Croissants can be tasty when they are a tad past their prime.

For me, most cookies are better when no longer crunchy.

Honey sandwiches. Make in the morning. take to school. Forget about them. Eat them when you get home.

Back when Candy Raisins were around it was very common for people to open the bag and let them sit around for a day or three before eating them. They always looked gross to me so I never touched them and I thought my ex-wife was nuts for doing it but I’ve heard it from so many other people that it was apparently a thing.

Something else I just thought of, I used to toast pop-tarts (Chocolate Fudge) and come back to them later in the day. I always liked them both hot or cold, but toasting them and leaving them around (until after school) made them crunchy.

I found that out by accident. I made one and either forgot about it or decided against eating it and found it after school. After that I starting making two in the morning, one for then and another to eat cold after school.

Not quite the same thing but I prefer Sub sandwiches after they sat in the fridge for a day.

Since stale can also refer to carbonated drinks, I choose Coke. I find it’s better if I open it and leave it in the fridge for a couple hours. Then it has the carbonation level of a fountain drink, which tastes much better.

This also can help with any soda you drink hot. It’s not that it tastes bad hot. It’s that the carbonated gas is more active and thus it seems more carbonated.

Rice cakes are also better when they’ve gotten just a little bit stale, adding just a touch of chewiness, preventing them from being brittle.

Also, the yellow mayor above is correct about subs. Same goes for most tomato-y foods, even if you reheat them. Also, stale pizza is better than old but not quite stale pizza.

Hard candies that go soft with age as they take on moisture, making them a nice sticky sugary chew.

Sugar Cookies. Not the ones with icing (which are An Abomination Unto Santa), but the ones with sprinkles. Days old, weeks old, they only get better.