What Food Equals Childhood to You?

[Anonymous]

Tomato slices with salt. This was something my grandma ate as a snack almost every single day. Sometimes she'd eat a tomato like an apple (salting it as she ate). It's something I haven't really seen other people do but we'll sometimes make them up to remember grandma.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Microwaved breakfast meals with terrible frozen eggs and bacon.

OP here. For me on this note, which I wish I'd remembered to put in my original post -- it was Swanson tv dinners. They were awful. We would have fried chicken, Salisbury steak, spaghetti and meatballs, veal parmesan, roast turkey, and meatloaf -- at least that I can remember. I had to make them for us when my mother was out hanging out at the bar (which, unfortunately, was pretty often). The chocolate cake dessert thing always burned and the whipped potatoes were very, very whipped and tasted weird.

Oh yeah I ate a lot of those too. They're not good, but they're positive memories for me, because they're the first hot food I could make for myself. A bad frozen breakfast or dinner meant I was home by myself which I always liked.

[Anonymous]

For context, I’m 55 and grew up in Fairfax County

Coke Slurpees

candy necklaces, candy cigarettes and candy lipsticks - all from ice cream truck. All chalky.

Original Doritos original flavor

Spaghetti drenched in a soup of Ragu sauce.

Campbell’s chicken noodle soup

Campbell’s minestrone soup

a very specific brand of very spicy, large, thin sliced bbq flavored chips. Heavy on the orange spicy powder and I can’t recall the brand and seemed to vanish by 1979. Mirrored interior bag.

fizzy, cold Schweppes Ginger Ale. So bubbly it made my nose itch. Can’t be replicated. I’ve tried.

[Anonymous]

Popsicles

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Tomato slices with salt. This was something my grandma ate as a snack almost every single day. Sometimes she'd eat a tomato like an apple (salting it as she ate). It's something I haven't really seen other people do but we'll sometimes make them up to remember grandma.

I still eat tomatoes this way (in private)!

Learned from my g’ma who also made me a snack or side of saltines with butter (amazing!) or thin sliced radishes atop buttered white bread and salted - open faced radish sandwich.

This makes me remember dipping buttered toast into black coffee- I discovered this as a very little girl and my grandparents reluctantly but lovingly allowed me to continue my habit when staying at their house. They’d pour me a tiny cup of coffee just for dunking and make certain I’d didn’t sip any or finish the cup!

[Anonymous]

I just want to say thanks for the food thread, OP. There's been a dearth of new topics lately and this group is one of the most fun and kindest.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
For context, I’m 55 and grew up in Fairfax County

Coke Slurpees

candy necklaces, candy cigarettes and candy lipsticks - all from ice cream truck. All chalky.

Original Doritos original flavor

Spaghetti drenched in a soup of Ragu sauce.

Campbell’s chicken noodle soup

Campbell’s minestrone soup

a very specific brand of very spicy, large, thin sliced bbq flavored chips. Heavy on the orange spicy powder and I can’t recall the brand and seemed to vanish by 1979. Mirrored interior bag.

fizzy, cold Schweppes Ginger Ale. So bubbly it made my nose itch. Can’t be replicated. I’ve tried.

Were they Eagle brand. I saw your description and my brain flashed "Eagle". those were the primo BBQ chips.

[Anonymous]

Bologna and cheese sandwich on the whitest bread with the yellowest mustard. I don't really want to eat one again, but I can taste them in my mind. Preferred lunch at the late, with the big bag of shared chips and the grape soda.

[Anonymous]

^^Lake

[Anonymous]

Koolaid served in these cups at someone else's house
We didn't have these cups or koolaid.

[Anonymous]

PP and for two years 1977-79 lived outside of Cincinnati where we were told was a test market for new products.

Summer of ‘78 Hershey Whatchamacallit candy bars were new and just about all our swimming pool snack bar sold. Other options were packs of large, round Sweet Tarts that we’d lick until our tongues bled. So gross.

Skating rink sold flat 6 inch rectangles of Jolly Ranchers in green apple and cherry. You’d lick it to a droopy point and then toss otherwise it would take an hour to finish.

I remember having original Capri Suns at a friend’s house and I felt like an astronaut.

Bought original Gator Gum at a sporting goods store.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Koolaid served in these cups at someone else's house
We didn't have these cups or koolaid.

Yes!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:fresh strawberries
fresh milk
boiled, mashed, and roasted potatoes
roasted pork
fried eggs
root vegetables stews
goulash
black currant jam
fresh white bread
pancakes
herring
oatmeal
butter with everything
everything pickled
cucumbers, tomatoes
cabbage/sourkraut
different sausages, ham, smoked fish
meat, carrot/cabbage, and jam turnovers
potato salad
beets

Why not eat this way as an adult? Not sure why it’s associated with childhood and not just normal life.

It sounds to me like someone who grew up on a farm and had a SAH parent who had time for pickling and cooking and such. Ain't nobody got time for that now!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:PP and for two years 1977-79 lived outside of Cincinnati where we were told was a test market for new products.

Summer of ‘78 Hershey Whatchamacallit candy bars were new and just about all our swimming pool snack bar sold. Other options were packs of large, round Sweet Tarts that we’d lick until our tongues bled. So gross.

Skating rink sold flat 6 inch rectangles of Jolly Ranchers in green apple and cherry. You’d lick it to a droopy point and then toss otherwise it would take an hour to finish.

I remember having original Capri Suns at a friend’s house and I felt like an astronaut.

Bought original Gator Gum at a sporting goods store.

This reminded me how we would eat jello mix straight from the packet at swimming meets before our race was called. We all had red pointer fingers from digging into the mix and putting it in our mouths.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Tomato slices with salt. This was something my grandma ate as a snack almost every single day. Sometimes she'd eat a tomato like an apple (salting it as she ate). It's something I haven't really seen other people do but we'll sometimes make them up to remember grandma.

I still eat tomatoes this way (in private)!

Learned from my g’ma who also made me a snack or side of saltines with butter (amazing!) or thin sliced radishes atop buttered white bread and salted - open faced radish sandwich.

This makes me remember dipping buttered toast into black coffee- I discovered this as a very little girl and my grandparents reluctantly but lovingly allowed me to continue my habit when staying at their house. They’d pour me a tiny cup of coffee just for dunking and make certain I’d didn’t sip any or finish the cup!

Radishes with butter is on so many menus in Paris.