Ice cream, cookies and cake used to do it for me before I decided it was too unhealthy. Note that I have never been overweight. All the extra calories get burned quickly. Now I’d go more for frozen low fat yogurt.
Wow, Al Bundy’s post reminded me: I used to love Ice Cream sandwiches, the kind with vanilla ice cream between “chocolate” cookies. I had one a few years ago, and it wasn’t worth the calories. Being able to buy the expensive ice cream and real chocolate is one of the few redeeming features of adulthood.
Grilled cheese sandwich with a bowl of tomato soup. When I was a kid, that was the perfect meal for a cold rainy day. White bread, mild cheddar, plain old Campbell’s soup. It’s not the same anymore, but I make it for my kids on cold wet days, and they love it.
Edited to add: Granddaddy used to make ice cream floats for us kids. Sure, as an adult I’m perfectly able to make my own, but it’s not the same…
Kool-Aid & Freshie. The everyday drink of my childhood, made with 1 cup (!!) of sugar and the little powder packet, mixed with water in a Tupperware “Freshie Jug.”
I’d probably puke from the sweetness now.
Campbell’s “Chicken-Noodle-O’s” - my favourite canned soup as a kid - I had it once a few years ago and couldn’t finish the bowl because it was too salty.
Ramen noodles. Chicken, beef, pork, hot 'n spicy flavor- yum yum. Still love 'em, can’t touch 'em on a low sodium diet.
Thick New Mexico style tortilla, handmade by my Grandmother on her special griddle, which was not handed down to me (not that I am bitter).
This tortilla is served soft and hot; which, when torn into two equal circles, gives off steam from the center.
The taste will soothe any pain, or sorrow- no matter what you put on it, or in it.
I tried to make this once, and could not remember how Grandma did it; because she never measured anything, and left no recipe.
Mine were too thin to tear, and the taste was a serious disappointment.
From the disappointing changes to packaged food angle: Franco American canned macaroni and cheese. It didn’t even really taste good when I was little but I loved it. Then it became kind of scarce. I was delighted to find it when I moved to a new region in my 20s. Bleah! I understand that tastes change but this was definitely not the same taste. I haven’t seen it in 20 years, probably haven’t consciously looked for it in 10.
From the “I can’t believe we liked these!” files: blueberry muffins made from a Duncan Hines mix. With many parallels to the OP, these were something we only ever had at “the farm” on vacation. Everything was magical there. Feeling nostalgic, I bought a box of the mix a couple of years ago. The result tasted exactly as all the other Duncan Hines mix muffins had throughout my childhood, but without the electricity of whatever we were looking forward to on those days…not nearly as good.
And no matter to what lengths I go I cannot achieve my mommy’s scrambled eggs. Yes, she taught me how to make them. I’ve bought different pans. I’ve bought whole milk, which is all she ever has in the house, I have stood at her elbow with a stop watch…I cannot make eggs like hers in her house using her pan. And it drives me just a little crazy. My current theory is that she knows exactly what the difference is - she’s sneaking in a pinch of cream of tartar or some thing that she’ll never tell me because basically it’s the only use I have for her. Maybe on her death bed she will whisper it in my ear…but probably not. She’s kind of spiteful.
Hot fruit! It consisted of cooked fruit with spices in a tapioca base: my grandmother’s recipe passed on to my mother. My mother would make it for breakfast on special occasions. One morning Christmas morning, she wasn’t totally awake and ended up putting 1/2 cup of cinnamon into the pot (instead of the recommended 1/2 tablespoon). It was like spicy mud!
Campbells chicken noodle soup, cream of chicken soup and cream of tomato soup. hey just do not taste the same at all 
The ice cream is the same but the chocolate cookies taste wrong.
And ho-hos, the cake part is a pale beige compared to the dark chocolate of the past, and the chocolate coating is also less chocolaty, or so it seems to me
Sloppy Joe’s Wednesday’s school lunch was the high-light of the week. I’ve made them from the Manwich can, (yuck) and the various spice envelopes with no joy. They are all just salty and greasy.
I guess, it was just my childish tastes.
Cap’n Crunch Cereal. Loved it as a kid, tried it as an adult and choked on the sweetness. Same with Honeycombs cereal. Blech… like sugary cardboard. I didn’t even want to give it to my dogs as treats, no idea why my Mom would give it to me and my brother for breakfast.
We used to come home from school and make ourselves coconut toast: white bread slathered with sweetened condensed milk and then sweetened coconut and browned under the broiler.
Just thinking about it makes my back teeth ache.
Chef Boy-Ar-Dee ravioli.
Campbell’s condensed vegetarian vegetable soup. My mother often gave me this (with buttered toast) for lunch on Fridays (Catholic).
OMG that sounds yummy! Maybe better on whole grain bread with some nuts… off to the kitchen to see if I have any coconut… and almonds maybe? Pecans?
I have this wonderfully clear yet vague memory of something like “Swanson Hungry Man frozen pizza” in the mid to late 1970s (the clear is the taste, the vague is the name). It was kind of deep dish and to my 7-9 year old palate it was the most amazingly tomato-ey cheesy thing ever. (keep in mind i grew up in virginia, so our pizza options were somewhat limited). I’m kind of glad that I can’t find it - i’m sure that it would be horribly disappointing.
As an aside (and my mother would be horrified that I am sharing this in public), on Friday nights, my parents would leave the dishes on the table after dinner until the next morning, so I would pick off some of the pepperoni from my pizza and leave it on my plate so I could eat it on Saturday morning at 6:30 am when Johnny Quest came on. Yeah cartoons and pepperoni!
I like both, but I don’t really view Kraft Mac & Cheese as cheesy, to me it’s more of a pasta and white sauce flavor and it is still an occasional comfort food. But when I want mac and cheese, I make it full on mac and cheese with good rich melty real sharp cheddar, and sometimes a few extra cheeses.
Try these (dialing the spice level up or down to suit your tastes). They are awesome. You will never, ever want to open a can of Manwich again - and to my taste, the Manwich stuff is also freakishly sweet as well as too salty and greasy.
Before we would leave for the long drive to Wisconsin to visit my grandmother, my mother would usually make a real stick-to-the-ribs meal: fried Spam, fried canned potatoes, and canned baked beans (which she would, inexplicably, not fry). This would be garnished with generous amounts of ketchup. mmmMMMMmmmm. If I tried to eat it now, I would probably die, but it sure tasted good then.
OK, for a grilled cheese sandwich, you really do need those Kraft American cheese singles, the kind in individual plastic slipcovers. And you need two slices for each sandwich. Velveeta will also make a good grilled cheese sandwich, though it’s not quite big enough to cover a slice of bread as is, you have to cut up bits to fill in the empty spots. The cheese, or processed cheese food product, has to be mild and it has to melt nicely. I wouldn’t dream of eating either of those items out of hand, as I do with decent Cheddar…but they do have their uses.
I used to love deviled ham, and regarded it as quite a treat. Either my taste buds or the recipe has changed, though, and it just doesn’t work for me any more. I’m thinking that both have changed. I also want to try the corned beef spread that the same company used to put out, but it looks like it’s no longer offered.
I find that most candy these days isn’t worth eating. If I’m going to raise my blood sugar, I want something that tastes GOOD. And yes, I know about Pinky Niven.
I use the onion, bell pepper, and garlic, but not the butter or the seasonings…and I just use barbecue sauce instead of ketchup. My mother used ketchup, brown sugar, and mustard with ground beef.
My husband always loved fried bologna sandwiches. If you simply MUST try this at home, slash the edges of the bologna, about a quarter or the way in from the edge, because the edges will shrink otherwise and the middle will form a bulge.