White Castles.
This.
Also Red Eye Gravy. And bologna.
I live in Los Angeles, so I’ve never even seen one in real life, but from what I have seen in movies and television and but I have heard described, it is amazing to me that they are successful as they are… They sound like bad cafeteria food, and considering how bad cafeteria is to begin with, that’s really saying something.
My dad is fatally allergic to shellfish, so we never had it when I was a kid, and I never acquired a taste for it. As an adult, I’ve never been interested in trying it, as I find the smell of most shellfish revolting. OTOH, as a professional cook, I’ve been told several times that my clam chowder is excellent. I have to take people’s word for it, because I’ve never tasted it 
As for foods with fond memories from childhood … I can’t think of anything. My mother was not a good cook when I was a kid, and I can remember almost nothing that I liked. I hated, hated, hated her beef stew, which she made far too often. It was beef, carrots, potatoes, and celery, boiled for hours in beef broth. No other seasoning. Mom didn’t even believe in onions. It wasn’t until I entered the restaurant business that I discovered that beef stew should be thick and savory, basically in a beef gravy.
As a kid, I lived for the times my dad was working the swing shift and wasn’t home for dinner. His absence meant my mom didn’t feel compelled do to the holy trinity “meat + vegetable + starch”, and we got hot dogs and macaroni & cheese instead.
But I don’t entirely blame my mom for her lack of skills. Her parents were products of the Great Depression, and her father was a chronic alcoholic who didn’t want to eat anything by roast beef and potatoes. So she grew up eating bland food and never developed a taste for seasoning. Meanwhile, I had discovered that I loved spicy Italian and Mexican food, but Mom simply wouldn’t make anything like that, and we didn’t eat out much. As an adult looking back, I finally realized why my dad dumped so much pepper on his food.
To be fair, though, while she was an unimaginative cook, she was an excellent baker (an no, they’re totally not the same thing — I’m a great cook, buy I’m a blithering idiot when it comes to baking). Mom’s pies were to die for. When I was a kid and we’d have other families as dinner guests, my mom would end up with these other husbands cornering her and asking for her pie crust recipe, because their own wives’ pie crusts sucked so badly. This baffled my mom. She said, “It’s just the recipe off the side of the Crisco can…” After years of cooking professionally, I recognize the problem there. Select some random cooks, give them all the same recipe, instruct them to follow the recipe exactly, and you’ll still get different results. But anyway, as much as I loved my mom’s pies, I rarely eat pie as an adult. Because they all suck
Cirak, Slovak Easter Cheese, made from eggs, milk and sugar, though this recipe doesn’t call for sugar, the picture is spot on. Also know ashrudka. If you are into sushi, it is surprisingly similar to tomago.
They are. . . addictive. It’s the steamed onion/bun/holey pattie combo that makes it so slime-y delicious. Plus they are gone in two bites, too fast to notice that they are don’t taste exactly like food and leaving you wanting more.
In my house they are a twice a year treat. In six, seven months you start to get the crave. Any more and you grow tired of them. I especially like the jalepeno cheese ones. Slime-y, oniony and spicy.