I just bought WhyBaby her first bag of Animal Crackers (the smooth kind, not the bumpy yet detailed Barnum animal crackers), and we’re sharing them. (She’s big on the sharing thing right now. Sharing means, “here, Mom, hold this for .02 milliseconds until I want it back.”)
Last week, we had graham crackers and milk. Those were good.
Animal and graham crackers are ubiquitous toddler and preschool foods. But I don’t know many adults who regularly consume them, for no good reason that I can see.
What food did you love as a kid that you haven’t had in years? Or what “childish food” do you still eat, a guilty treat hiding in your pantry?
I used to love Gerber Zwieback toast, but I don’t think I’ve had any in more than fifty years. Maybe I’ll look for it next time I’m in the grocery store.
I would say my top two favourite childhood foods that I still love are: Cheerios (no milk, eaten with fingers rather than a spoon), and Peanut Butter Sandwiches (no butter or margarine, just peanut butter on white bread).
I don’t know what mystery meat they may have been made of in my day, but apparently I used to love those meat sticks (in this case, turkey) right out of the jar. Eww!
Vienna Sausages! Yep, WhyBaby tried those at a picnic last week. She loves 'em. I remember loving them, but they taste really nasty now! They’re sort of like mushy cheap hotdogs with no skin.
I don’t remember ever having Zwieback, but she loves anise tea, so I bet she’d like that. I’ll have to pick some up as well.
Ants on a log are on of my favorite fun snacks. I can’t wait until she gets some molars so she can have those!
Cheerios, of course, are a favorite. She likes them just like you, **Stainz **- no milk, with fingers, preferably out of a bowl on the floor. (Her father asked me why I was feeding her like a dog. I told him she prefers it that way. He thinks I’m weird.)
Kraft macaroni and cheese. I wouldn’t eat “real” macaroni and cheese until I was an adult, and I still prefer the Kraft stuff–not reheated, though. Fresh out of the pan. I basically cannot have the stuff in the house, because if I do, I will make it rather than anything else, and eat the whole box at one sitting.
I’ve always considered a PB&J sandwich kid food, and I’ll occasionally have a craving for one (it’s got to have strawberry jam, though!). One of my youngest son’s favorite snacks was apple wedges with peanut butter, so I sneak one of those in, too, sometimes. Another favorite would be pasta with only butter and Parmesan cheese on it.
Other foods would be several mentioned here: Vienna sausages, Cheerios, and animal crackers.
Oh!..and Oreos soaked in milk until they are almost falling apart.
I’m going to go with Spaghettios and Chef Boy-ar-Dee Ravioli. I loved them and kept them stocked in my pantry right up until I stopped eating meat. Shortly before that, though, I opened a can of Ravioli and my cat went nuts. After reheating it in the microwave for a few minutes, I realized why.
I’m blanking on the name of these cookies … plain butter cookies, in a basic flower shape with a hole in the middle? You could put the cookie around your finger, like a ring, and then nibble around the outside part. The box was blue, and had a picture of a little blonde girl on the front. We used to get these as snacks at nursery school. If there was a box in front of me right now, I’d probably eat the entire thing.
I was born with a weird digestive system, resulting in many a problem until it was operated on when I was 5. Before that, my little-kid brain told me eating=pain and I wouldn’t eat anything unless I really really liked it. Consequently, all I ate was vegemite sandwiches cut up into teency bits or custard with cinnamon in it. That was it. Well, that was all I would eat peacefully. To this day I still have a slight fetish for both. I try not to cut my sandwiches ito bite size pieces but something compels me to each and every time!
Graham crackers with colored frosting. Whenever my mother would decorate a cake for a birthday or something, she would let my brother and I use the leftover frosting to decorate a graham cracker or two. As an adult, I’m not a big fan of frosting, I’ll eat it, but I don’t really want the flowers on my piece of cake, thank you very much. But the siren call of fresh frosting on a graham cracker is near irresistable.
I used to eat graham crackers often when I was a kid. I’ll bet I haven’t had one in 35 years, though.
I still eat Cap’n Crunch, with peanut butter on toast. Or that cereal that used to be called Sugar Crisp, but now it sounds too unhealthy so they changed the name to Golden Crisp.
Last time I ate Lucky Charms, it only had three kinds of marshmallow thingies in it… but I’d probably try it again. I used to like Alpha-Bits and Honeycomb, too. But I really can’t get into eating Colon Blow, or whatever kind of cereal we grownups are supposed to like.
And I still dip my cookies in milk until they are near falling apart. Peanut Butter cookies are my favorite for this. Chocolate Chip cookes are second.
Something else we used to like at my house was Cheez Whiz on toast, with a sprinkling of pepper on top. Then, about 20 years ago or so, they changed the formula of Cheez Whiz so it would melt in the microwave. It doesn’t taste the same. It doesn’t have the same texture. It used to be a product that was good. Now it’s just a product, and I don’t buy it.
I snack. A lot. I have a two-pound bag of animal crackers here in my apartment. When production nights start up again at school, that bag will get opened and feed the production staff of whatever organization is at work that night.
Joining it will be a bag of gummi bears, spice drops, orange slices and peppermints.
Graham crackers are really a bit big for that sort of thing, but I haven’t lost my love for them.
