This thread about a BK chicken sandwich with tartar sauce got me thinking about something that I ate several times as a child, but the thought of which now makes me want to urp.
Once every few months when I was a little my dad would work late and bring home a bag of assorted McDonald’s sandwiches for dinner. My sister and I would take the bottom bun off of a cheeseburger and the bottom off of a fillet o’ fish and slap the remainders together. Surf and Turf!
It almost gets my stomach percolating to think I ate and enjoyed that.
What things did you enjoy as a child but now would have you asking for a bucket?
Sardines. My mom used to open the lid (with the little key, remember those?) and hand me the whole tin with a fork and I’d eat the whole thing, heads, tails, eyeballs and all. Now just the smell of the sauce makes my stomach quiver.
My mom made us sardine sandwiches, on white bread with mayo. Yum. I still like sardines but only when I’m really in the mood for them but I don’t like the bones. Thankfully the ones we get are headless.
For me, it’s raisins. Used to love them as a kid but somewhere in adulthood I started getting grossed out by them. I think I might owe it to a MAS*H episode where Frank Burns took someone’s uneaten tapioca pudding and said “Mmm, raisins!” and the guy who wasn’t eating his pudding said, “No. Flies.”. Since then raisins make me think of bugs and I can’t even bring myself to try tapioca pudding. Unfortunately, they put raisins in so many good things; cinnamon rolls, bread pudding, etc. - so I often end up picking them out.
Gefilte fish, anyone? No one who knows me well enough to know about my uber pickiness believes me when I tell them I used to skarf that down. I can hardly believe it myself. I also use to eat macaroni and cheese, and while that’s obviously not weird, I absolutely loathe cheese and won’t eat anything with cheese on it (except pizza. don’t ask.)
(yeah, that was my favorite part, the slightly chalky-crumble of fish vertebrae popping between my molars. Much like the texture of Smarties, actually.)
I also used to eat “picklemeat”, which I believe is actually called Pickle and Pimento Loaf. Make a sandwich with mustard on white bread early saturday mornings, microwave it for 30 seconds and watch some cartoons.
My wife has been eating the natural stuff (ingredients: peanuts, salt) for years, and a couple years ago, I switched too.
Now, I can’t believe I ate that other stuff. It is one of those rare products that I believe is worse for you, and tastes worse than the alternative (like margarine).
Oh, while we’re at it: margarine. My mom raised us on it. I no longer even know what it is.
When I was about six or seven I occasionally ate an entire brick of Philadelphia cream cheese. Now I don’t care for cream cheese, cheesecake, or any kind of pie made with cream cheese.
At that time I would happily have eaten a bologna sandwich on white bread with mayonnaise every single day if I could. Blechhh!
I still kinda like liver sausage, although I don’t eat it any more.
In my early teens I used to spread chunky peanut butter on cheddar cheese slices, but not any more, thankyouverymuch. It’d make me gag today.
My mom used to bake all kinds of fish with this storebought powder on top, as a glaze. I loved it. Then I found a little jar of the stuff in the supermarket a few years ago and tried it… dayyum, it was SALTY! Almost brought tears to my eyes, it was so damned salty. Never tried it since; don’t know how I stomached it as a kid.
Slim Jims. I stopped eating them the day I *squeezed * one from bottom to top like a toothpaste tube. It was like popping a six-inch zit. If I ever crash in the mountains with a friend and a ton of slim jims, I’ll let him eat the slim jims and then I’ll eat him. It’s the less disgusting option.
Ramen noodles, Oodles of Noodles, whatever you call them. We went on a month-long vacation around the USA when I was about 12, and we ate those a lot when we camped out. I got so sick of them I haven’t eaten them since, it’s been 23 years now.
As a kid one of my favorite sandwiches was just brussel sprouts and mayo. I tried it again a couple years ago and gave up half way through. I was a pretty picky eater as a kid so I wonder how I could’ve liked those things.
Wonder Bread and actually all forms of white bread have disappeared from my diet. I have a hard time believing I actually ate that stuff every single day as a kid.
Velveeta. I wouldn’t even gag that down as part of a dip these days, it was like eating melted orange plastic.
Pickled beets. I used to gobble them up whenever Mom served them. Now, the mere thought of them makes me queasy. I hate the tub in the salad bar, just sitting there with its purple death, waiting for someone to slop juice into my salad dressing.
Ah…I couldn’t think of anything, but then there it was. I don’t think I could drink whole milk anymore. Hell, I’ve had a problem with staying with my mom and having to drink 1%.
And white bread. I can’t believe I used to have a problem with whole wheat.
Nearly everything I grew up eating as a child - whole milk, white bread, margarine, cheap peanut butter, SPAM, Tang - but the one that makes me wish you could throw up things you ate 30+ years ago is potted meat product, a by-product meat paste that I would hesitate to feed to my cats but happily ate on sandwiches, made with white bread of course.
Oh, and vienna suasages - cold, slimy, shuddersome.