Inspired by the thread on the now-defunct Ben & Jerry’s Wavy Gravy flavor, what foods that you have loved are no longer made anymore?
To start the ball rolling…I used to love Pepperidge Farm’s frozen Boston Cream Pie. It wasn’t a pie at all - it was a frozen layer cake. In theory you were supposed to defrost it before eating it, but I never did - it tasted much better straight from the freezer. The chocolate icing was a great combination with the half-frozen custard filling. I learned that little trick from Mom; it was just about the only item besides ice cream about which she had no self-control. Sometimes she’d buy one and it would be gone before my sister and I even knew it was there.
Alas, I check the freezer section periodically, although I almost never buy any frozen foods other than ice cream - but I haven’t seen Boston Cream Pie in years, and I suspect it isn’t made anymore. I am still pining away for it. While I drag myself out of the house for some ice cream (darn you for making me think of Wavy Gravy!), please share your long-departed nostalgia foods.
Bonomo’s Turkish Taffy – Vanilla, Chocolate, Strawberry, or Banana (although I only liked vanilla). You could palm it and smash it against something hard to break it into pieces, but if the weather was hot that wouldn’t work, and the taffy would sort of melt into its aluminum-foil wrapper, t cause minor electrocutions later when you bit down on it. Shake-me Puddings – Instant pudding in a shaker cup.
Keebler O’Boise Potato Chips. I don’t know what they did to them, but they were all “bubbly” on top, if you know what I mean (like Kettle-cooked chips), not too greasy and absolutely DELICIOUS!
Another favorite was Duncan Heinz Lemon Tunnel Bundt Cake. It was a lemon bundt cake with lemon pudding filling in the middle. Soooo good-my mother used to make that all the time when I was little!
These were amazing. They were made by Nabisco. They had a long, thin, flat, wafer-cookie base, then these regularly raised rectangles of thick wafer-cookie on top, and in between, sweet sweet creamy peanut butter stuff. Delicious. You had to eat them fast because they would get stale after 24 hours, but that usually wasn’t a problem. It only used to take my girlfriend and I about 20 minutes to eat a whole package worth. Haven’t seen 'em in at least 12 years and still miss 'em…
If so then I really miss the Monte Christos at the Magic Pan. For some reason not one other restaurant can cook them right. They are supposed to have a light crisp coating , the turkey and ham hot and juicy, and the cheese melted to perfect stringyness. A light coating of powdered sugar, and a cup of syrup and jam for dipping. The perfect breakfast.
All the ones I can find now are way over deep fried with an eight inch coating of burned batter(usually with a taste of onion ring fried in the same batter) having a density approaching neutron star. Cold meat, and and a sickly little slice of coagulated dairy matter. Last time When I asked for syrup they look at me like I was crazy and said “I already brought the ketchup.” Who the hell eats ketchup on a monte christo? I have given up on ever getting a decent one again.
Boston Cream Pie is totally awesome. Our college dining hall used to serve it - cold, no less - and the portions were unlimited. Some days they had to roll me out the door of that place.
I found a recipe for BCP here - took forever to make, but it was excellent, maybe even better than the store-bought kind.
I bet you didn’t know that BCP is the official dessert of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
Dammit, Rufus! You made me remember those cookies! Those were…wonderful!
I also adore a good Monte Cristo. What kind of heathen puts ketchup on them? :eek:
Tom’s Hero Sandwiches - really plain frozen heroes, two to a box. They came wrapped in this foiled paper. You just had to open the package, add some relish, maybe some more cheese, and pop in the oven for a bit. They were heaven to me as a kid!
Yes! Shake a Pudding! Odd and sort of disgusting! I loved it as a kid!
Space Food Sticks. Really awful, but that didn’t matter, because it was space food!
Fizzies! Turn ordinary water into… well, not quite soda, but sort of bubbly tap water with a peculiar smell!
Those pieces of candy on a roll of paper. Each was the size of a tic tac, and you got to eat the paper that stuck to it also! Yum!
The little wax bottles of colored sugar water. Bit the top off, drink the sugar water, chew the wax! My God, how did those lose their popularity?
Danish Go-Rounds! More disgusting than pop-tarts, and great for helping kids develop obsessive-compulsive disorder by making them think you had to eat them from one end to the other!
wolfman: Oddly enough, they sometimes serve Monte Cristo sandwiches at the chow hall here. But they serve 'em at lunch, there’s no powdered sugar, and I’ve never checked to see if there’s syrup available at the time.
Guinastasia: I remember O’Boises. “O’Boises are O’Boisterous!”
Anyone remember Kenmai Rice Bran? A simple flake cereal, but it was quite good.
A lot of the stuff that I miss most people don’t know about since Philly has a tendency to be a test market. Some of the ones that came to mind while reading this thread:
Quackers-Basically duck shaped goldfish but in loads of different flavors. Haven’t seen them since I was 7 or so.
Pepsi Kona, Pepsi Blue Two flavors of pepsi that were test marketed in Philly the first about 7 years ago, the second about 3. Pepsi Kona was Pepsi with coffee flavoring and was absolutely wonderful. Pepsi Blue was…well…different. Blue, tasted like pepsi but with a fruity aftertaste. I ended up developing a taste for it just as it was discontinued
Triple Layer Jell-o-No one I know remembers this and I’m beginning to think I may have imagined it. It was Jello, that when left to set, formed three layers, the bottom being Jell-o, and the other two being something, basically jello with more air in it I think. I was five at the time so my memory of it isn’t perfect
I love monte cristos, but heathen that I am I eat them with ketchup. But then, I eat everything with ketchup.
I miss Carnation Breakfast Bars. They were about 6" x 2" x 1", and made of some sort of powdery beige substance that was sweet and tasty, and then coated in a thin layer of chocolate. They were around before granola bars existed, and lately I’ve been fiending for one, but no luck, the cursed granola bars have driven them from the world.
I also miss a soda called Lilt, which I developed a fondness for while in Scotland. Though that may still exist over there, for all I know.
Another breakfast food I miss is a cereal called Buc Wheats. They were some sort of flake coated with a sort of maple-brown-sugar type glaze. Tasty.
Meros, you’re not alone, I remember the Triple Layer Jello. If I recall, you ended up with a layer of Jello, a layer of pudding, and a layer of, like, well, foamy pudding. The layers all had different colors, too.
There was a restaurant in my hometown where we’d get take out fish fries during Lent. The perch would be in a butterfly filet, lightly breaded, and you’d get fries and cole slaw and baked beans. The place closed up probably 30 years ago, but I’ve never found another fish fry to compare.
Oh, this one is easy: Ideal Peanut Butter bars, cookies that had a tunnel of peanut butter inside, covered in chocolate on the outside, made by Nabisco. They stopped making them sometime in the 80s, though. If I bought a package, though, I’d eat it all myself!
And Rufus, they still make those peanut cream cookies, they’re Nutter Butter Peanut Cremes; I’ve bought them recently at Safeway for my SO, who loves them… and shouldn’t be eating em.
QtM – good to see someone else likes and remembers Shake A Puddings. I’m sure I coul assemble something similar from instant pdding poder and a cup, but it just ain’t the same.
You can still get these. Aside from the Fizzies, I’ve seen (and bought them) at stores here and there. And all three are, I think, available on-line.
Many of the “lost” candies are still being made in limited quantities and can be bought on the Internet.
I’d love to be able to get Zotz again. They were your standard hard candie with a special center – pure baking soda. You’d bite down and get a mouth full of fizz.
Then there were the Regal Crown Sour Lemon (and other flavors). The best hard candy ever. Imported from the UK, but it doesn’t seem like they’re still being made there.
Another British import: Wispa. I think they’re still sold in the UK, but not in the US, alas.
Nabisco used to sell a cookie that was chocolate wafers with a chocolate filling. They were about twice the diameter of an Oreo and had concentric circles on them. I don’t recall the name right now (Wagon Wheels?), but I loved them.
Milk Shake candy bar. Sort of a Milky Way knockoff, but great frozen.
Treat Potato Chips. Their factory was not far from where I lived; you’d drive past and smell the chips cooking.
Leiderkrantz Cheese. Not something I ever ate, but one food that not only is no longer made, but is impossible to ever make again (it required certain bacteria cultures that were lost when they stopped manufacturing it).
Twix – in the original version, which didn’t have caramel.
Schweppes Bitter Lemon. Still sold in the UK, I believe. Basically, lemonade and tonic. They also had a Bitter Orange.
Lick-Em-Ade – envelopes of fruit flavored powder mixed with food coloring. You’d lick them and they’d turn your tongue colors. They also sold them in straws.
