Fun kids’ foods of the past (Guest)

Today’s post is brought to you by guest poster, Sally.

Everyone remembers the food that they ate when they were young. These are the foods that weren’t always the best things around or the healthiest – but the most fun! Most adults forget about what they used to go crazy for as their tastes change, but it’s always fun to take a trip down memory lane.
So if you have ever tried to eat a full packet of popping candy in one go or loved the huge sizes of the old Monster Munch (which are now back!) here are some of the so called “kid’s” food that you will probably have feasted on and loved in the past.

Crispy Pancakes
What was not to love about Crispy Pancakes? These favourites from Findus were a fast tea with chips and beans and had flavours like mince and onions, chicken and mushroom, chicken and bacon and cheddar cheese. These fillings were slipped between a folded pancake that had been coated in breadcrumbs. Cook them for too long and they are like cardboard, don’t cook them for long enough and they taste like soggy cardboard – but as a kid everyone thought they were amazing!

Jawbreakers
These were some of the most popular sweets that kids would run to the shop to buy with their 20p in their hand. Jawbreakers were (or should I say are as you can still find them) massive gob stoppers that have loads of layers. Each layer is a different colour and flavour and it was so exciting seeing which one would come next. Most kids couldn’t manage the full jawbreaker in one go so they would leave it and go back to it later – by putting it on a plate, worktop, desk etc!

Pop Tarts
Pop Tarts are the ultimate in kids food – stick one or two into the toaster and wait…..when it pops out you have a slice of sugary heaven with a super hot filling. Not only were these a favourite of kids and plenty of adults all over the country they were the cause of a lot of burns. Hands up anyone who hasn’t grabbed a Pop Tart fresh from the toaster and bitten straight into it and suffered the agony of hot jam burning their mouth! It might have hurt but we went back for more. One of the best things about Pop Tarts was they were marketed as a breakfast snack, so we could munch them thinking we were being good.

Chocolate frosted pop tarts

Um Bongo
Um Bongo they drink it in the Congo! This was the drink that had more tropical fruits than you can shake a stick at. It was fruity, sweet and addictive for kids. Most parents hated it but nearly everyone had this in their lunchbox at school. It came in boxes which were easy to keep in your bag 9and pop once you had drunk it) and the advert jingle was sung in playgrounds all over the country.

Um Bongo 100% tropical fruit juice

Angel Delight
You might have forgotten about Angel Delight but it if you try it again it will probably be a new guilty pleasure. Making Angel Delight took a few minutes (mix the powder with milk) then put it in the fridge to set. Some people would eat it runny before it set, which was good, but others would be forced by their mum to eat it ‘properly’. The only question with this sweet and smooth combination of a sauce and mousse was which was your favourite flavour? Was it chocolate, raspberry, strawberry butterscotch or banana? Mine was butterscotch.

Micro Chips
What could be better than chips that cooked in the microwave? For plenty of kids nothing! Check a packet of microchips in your microwave and three minutes later you could be eating scolding hot chips that tasted as though they were fresh. Well they didn’t but they were fun and they were quick to make as soon as you got in from school!

Author bio: Sally Lindsey, kitchen designer for London based kitchen company Nicholas Anthony. She focuses her effort on kitchen paraphernalia and design trends that adds life to this place of the house, including optimal use of space for big families, cooking recipes and light fixtures.

Pizza flavored snack pizza

Pizza Doritos, pizza Pringles, pizza Combos, pizza hummus, and xplosive pizza flavor blasted goldfish crackers……put ‘em all together and you get a pizza packed full of faux pizza flavors, hehe.

Canadians like their….. Kraft Dinner

Maybe I should make this a series? Seeing as how I keep referencing things they really seem to like around these parts?

Not only do they call it Kraft Dinner (I thought that was an old term! Like before it got brought down to “macaroni and cheese",” some people may have referred to it by brand name? But no, they actually call it that *and* label it that on the box!)….

But check out how many kinds there are! I wish my picture had been taken from further back because if you look at the top, that whole next row up is all mac and cheese, too.

Er, “Kraft Dinner”….*giggles*

Extra cheese, cheese and tomato, alfredo, sharp cheddar, three cheese are the pictured ones. I looked it up and KD (yes, they even call themselves that….doesn’t it make them sound cool? *stifles more giggling*)also has some made with cauliflower….whole wheat original and whole wheat white cheddar….white cheddar, mild cheddar, original, extra creamy, and spirals. I think that’s all of them.

Well. That’s all of the macaroni varieties. Did you know they also have crackers?

Oh yeah, crackers….

*cough* Weirdos *cough*

And did I mention that they eat it with ketchup? No really.

I thought this video was just extreme exaggeration or a parody making fun of a few people (or kids) who happen to put it on their occasionally.

But I was wrong. I’ve seen it done. More than once. It’s a real thing. A common thing even. I might even go so far as to say a custom.

Actually, check this out. There’s a whole thing about Canadian culture in Kraft Dinner’s Wikipedia page. Here are some snippets:

  • One author noted that "in Canada it’s the number-one-selling grocery item and an object of worship on par with hockey."
  • In Canada, Kraft Dinner has iconic status and is associated with young adults, in that it is an easy and inexpensive food for young people living away from home for the first time.
  • "Kraft Dinner revolves in that all-but-unobtainable orbit of the Tim Hortons doughnut and the A&W Teen Burger. It is one of that great trinity (…) as genuine Canadian cultural icons."
  • Of the 7 million boxes of Kraft Dinner sold globally each week, Canadians purchased some 1.7 million of them.
  • …Canadians, who have a more intimate and intense relationship with Kraft food products than the citizens of any other country
  • Canadians and Kraft products have bonded the way Australians have bonded with Marmite

Yeah. *shakes head at those silly Canadians* :P