What was your favourite childhood concoction, which you now think is disgusting?

[Caralien]

We were discussing this on the drive down (12 hours).

Mine was mint-chocolate chip ice cream (tinted green) with Mom's home-made cranberry sauce and Aunt Jemima's. A sugar bomb which did have a sweet-sour-bitter-astringent-creamy flavour (my husband actually thought that it didn't sound all that bad), but I wouldn't touch it today.

(other childhood treats included salami with cream cheese, which I've since exchanged for Spanish chorizo and goat cheese, or soy sauce and butter on rice...but those I do not find disgusting)

[tomhensr]

When I was a kid I used to eat M&Ms with Wise potato chips. A sweet/salty thing I guess. 45 years later I gave it a try. Let's just say that I did not derive as much pleasure from it as I did back then.

[Georgia Strait]

well - Becky - i CAN see how you had friends, your special cocktail

1. sounds like something my young girl would make

2. it is -from later year POV - getting pretty close to a Long Island Iced Tea or similar college mixture - i hope that doesn't offend you

anyway - my contribution - which may already be on here - is

1. cheez whiz (is that how it's spelled?) --- i have tried it several times since being 8 yrs old and it just ain't the same

2. shredded coconut and choc chips (the famous brand - is it chip-its?) in anything like cooked pudding etc

3. raw pastry - for that matter, raw anything that was destined for a cookie sheet / pie plate.

bottomline, my biggest let-down is how cheez whiz just doesn't carry over to 4 decades later - even on
organic celery stix
tho i must say i recently scupped down a Horizon organic brand processed cheese slice - and it was WOW - get me more for my secret food stash in the fridge. But i have NEVEr seen them since. so put me on the ISO list

[buttertart]

Famous in our home and native land, Chip-its, BC Lady!

[iambecky]

Hahahha! Not offendd at all! In fact you just reminded me that I also had a "special cocktail" in college too! Mountain Dew, apple juice and tequila. Funny, I never made the connection until just now.

[iambecky]

My special fruit punch! It really was quite special. Orange juice, Sprite, powdered lemonade, and a great big spoonful of sugar. Anytime I had friends over I would make them my special punch. Come to think of it, I'm not sure why I had friends! :p

[MarkG]

eating raw hamburger with garlic salt sprinkled liberally. almost beef tatare. and dangerous in light of today's e coli issues

[Journey]

When my brothers and I were kids (under 10 I think), mom used to mix a tin of tuna with Campbell's cream of mushroom soup and tinned peas, served bubbly hot on top of toast with crumbled potato chips on top, then some melted Velvetta or cheese curds. Sometimes she's throw in leftover Kielbasa or hotdogs, in which case we'd add catsup. It was yummy! However, when I recalled it after an absence of something like 30 years and made it myself, it was awful!

[betsydiver]

tuna noodle cassarole with potato chip topping was a staple in my mom's rotation; made with either cream of mush or cream of celery soup...i loved it then...

[whinendine]

Take a slice of Wonder bread, spread white sugar on half of it, fold it in half and eat it - "sugar sandwich". Disgusting... I don't know where it came from...

[jeanmarieok]

We used to make butter and sugar sandwiches on homemade (well, from the frozen loaf, you know what I mean?). Loved them - they were a treat - slab of bread, thick layer of speadable butter, thick sprinkle of sugar, fold in half and eat. I think I sometimes put a layer of cap'n crunch cereal in there, too.

[betsydiver]

my mom used to call that poor man's cake... whit bread with butter, sprinkled with sugar

[CanadaGirl]

Must be common - I ate it too! But not on wonder bread, just the bread we bought, which would have been a locally produced bread in the same style as wonder bread.

[GraceW]

Try it with some cinnamon!

[CanadaGirl]

Mmmmm... Cinnamon toast! We all love that in my house :). It is still yummy

[Caralien]

Butter with enough sugar to make a crispy paste. Yum!

[TeriPie]

Dipping chicken nuggets & tater tots in MAYO instead of KETCHUP?!! Ewwww!!!

[MarkG]

it may not qualify as a concoction but eating raw hamburger with lots of garlic salt.

[heathercheryl]

Cheeze Whiz and dill pickle slice on a Ritz cracker...eeew.

Also peanut butter and banana sandwiches.

[buttertart]

I thought Cheez Whiz and an olive slice on a Ritz cracker was the peak of elegance when I was little and always wanted to make them for my mother's card parties. Never dawned on me until later why the offer was almost always declined!

But I just had PB and banana on toast for breakfast. That, I still love.

[montrealeater]

Yes, PB and banana sandwiches are YUM.

[madmaya]

Instant coffee powder with sugar and a DROP of milk, beaten for a good bit became this DELICIOUS coffee cream ..mmmmmm! Would make frothy coffee too with a heavily milk & water mix. Bread slathered with butter and thickly sugared ... feel like having some :) bread, peanut butter, drizzled with Maggi Hot n Sweet Tomato sauce. Still have that sometimes ..kids n hubby roll their eyes!

[Bill Hunt]

There were straws, with flavors inside. One used them in milk, and the flavors were imparted to the milk. These were the first bendable straws that I can recall, but cannot remember the name of the actual product.

The taste was all plastic, and in a time, before "plastic" was common.

How could we have used those?!?!?! Well, it was the '50s, and we were kids.

Hunt

[buttertart]

A lot of people, myself included, remember them fondly (from the '60s in my case), especially the truly weird strawberry flavor that I can still taste. "Flav-R-Straws"?

[CanadaGirl]

There is still a version of these available (in Canada anyway). They don't bend, but are about 50% fatter than an average straw and are filled with little balls of chocolate, strawberry, or vanilla flavoured something. My kids love them!

[jillbcooks]

Fried, sliced bologna piled on bagel halves fried in butter and topped liberally with ketchup. Yum!

[mamahen]

we used to make a mayo & ketchup sandwich, nothing else just bread, mayo & ketchup now I think it's sooo yucky lol

[JEWINNEY]

I have three sisters all older than me when we were kids

they would take my sandwiches when i made them

So i made and ate stawberry jam peanut butter and ketchup.

nd mustard with sardines

[inaplasticcup]

This has probably been said upstream but all sorts of school cafeteria food. Scoop of rehydrated potatoes with a ladleful of yellow-greenish gravy and something that was supposedly turkey. Those odd little chocolate peanut-butter squares with that supersweet, grainy peanut butter, the worst pizza ever... List goes on.

Think I liked it because it tasted so different from the Asian food we usually ate, and it had that special *processed* flavor I never got from the homecooked (or rather, restaurant cooked - that's where we spent most of our days) meals my parents gave me.

[inaplasticcup]

OOPS. "Concoction" went in one eyeball and out the other...

Cream cheese and Ritz cracker stacks left to sit out for a bit while the centers of the Ritz got nice and soggy...

[TeriPie]

OMG inaplasticcup!!! I TOTALLY remember that scoop of mashed tater/"turkey cubes"/turkey-ish flavored gravy served in the STYROFOAM cup/bowl w/lid....YUMM!

[agoodbite]

Sardines packed in oil mashed up with more mayonnaise than is reasonable spread on white bread. I loved this when I was six.

"Fried bread"- white bread slices browned on both sides in a skillet with enough margarine to soak the bread through. I was eight or ten. I had to make this with a friend at her house because white bread wasn't allowed in my house by that point.

[CanadaGirl]

Elbow macaroni and ketchup; I used to love it. I must admit to also eating it a few times when I was pregant with my first child.

[montrealeater]

I used to eat Bisquick with a tablespoon straight out of the package. Wtf? I thought that stuff was delicious!

[nothingswrong]

yes! so gross. i used to eat chocolate and strawberry nestle quik powder straight out of the tub with a spoon. all sugar...

[CanadaGirl]

I miss the chocolate quik powder. The liquid is not nearly as good; I loved the little bits of undisolved powder in my chocolate milk.

[buttertart]

They sell the powder in the States, not there? I can still hear my mom say "Susie! Stop it!" when she caught me eating it.

[CanadaGirl]

No more powder here :(.

But now that I know it is still available in the US, I know what to get my parents to bring me back when they go.

[buttertart]

Someone in my office had a package of it recently. Go for it!

[betsydiver]

I would eat Jiffy chocolate powdered frosting mix dry wqith a spoon right out of the box, sometimes I'd have to run to the corner store to replace the box so my mom would not realize what i'd been doing after school... also would take presliced american cheese and place carefully on the heat register in the living room until i lived dangerously and did it while mom was napping on the couch. she woke up to find me peeling it off just in time..melty but before it fell down into the grate...she was horrified! also used to dip dill pickle spears into ginger ale, no harm, no foull

[TeriPie]

mmm..Pillsbury Refrigerated biscuit dough...RAW of course!

[zuklaak]

Well my nephew and I (same age) when we were teens would make "refrigerator sandwiches". Basically anything in the fridge was fair game. Sliced meats, cheeses, mayo, mustard, peanut butter, jelly, cold spaghetti, dill pickles were some of the thing that went on the same sandwich. So, anything that we could fit between two or three slices of bread. Thinking back, starting to eye the fridge, hmmmmm....

[loratliff]

I don't think this is disgusting, but I admittedly haven't made it in many years: peanut butter and syrup. We called it "secret recipe."

A childhood friend of mine still likes to eat dry cake mix packets with a bit of water. I admittedly partook in that a few times, too.

[bac0n]

I don't think it's disgusting, but I probably wouldn't eat it today for obvious reasons. I would microwave a can of Spaghetti O's then mix in a slice or two of american cheese and ~2tbsp of mayo. I'm actually really craving it now...

nother concoction that my friends and I ate after tennis practice that I still eat today: 2 packets of easy mac + .5tbsp sugar + <.5tbsp soy sauce ... it's delicious -- TRUST ME

[cbg90]

saltines, spread w margarine and microwaved until they were nice and greasy. I remember I could 6 on a plate and would lay in front of the TV for a few hours after school with my gross snack.

[nothingswrong]

Water with cinnamon sugar. I'd make it at restaurants even, with the tap water on the table. The water would turn muddy and I'd gulp it down. Totally disgusting.

[jbsiegel]

I did powdered sugar with a little water...smush around into a paste and eat with a spoon...ugh!

[mokie]

I loved a good peanut butter and jelly and bologna and cheese sandwich, with ketchup and mayo and, if the jelly was grape, mustard and relish. Never for strawberry, though--that would've been overkill.

[AdamD]

Sloppy joes. Powdered McCormick mix or manwich. Yuck.

[jubilant cerise]

When I was a kid my father made this dish of ground beef, onion and cubed potatoes that we'd eat on rice. My sister and I always asked for the potatoes to be undercooked because we really liked the crunchy texture.

Things I made:
- bottled lemon juice + brown sugar = mock iced tea

- rice with butter and salt

- omlette with green peas, shrimp and cheddar cheese. The combo of shrimp and cheddar just seems so wrong now! I also over cooked the omlettes as a child because I liked crisping the edges of the omlette and any cheese that oozed out.

[weez1959]

When I was about 11 or 12,
I made this...
slice 1 small potato with a potato peeler (time consuming but I didn't know how else to get them so thin)
a blob of hamburger meat
some butter
soy sauce

First fry the potatoes in butter for a few minutes, add the beef and stir until done, add a bunch of soy sauce and walla!! :o)

I made that til I was in my 20's... don't ask

[mariacarmen]

Big heaping tablespoon of condensed milk right out of the can and into the maw. Just did it last night, at dad's house. Took me back, it did. Love the stuff. My BF tells me that on a trip to Argentina, he was served bowls of the stuff with a spoon to eat it with, like soup. BOWLS.

[buttertart]

My mom used a lot of condensed milk in baking and I certainly remember that very pleasurable sensation too. Had to be snuck behind her back to be best.

[Novelli]

chocolate chip cookie shake

I used to stack chips-a-hoy cookies in a tall glass, then pour milk over it all. After a minute or so, the cookies would get quickly stirred around into some sort of chocolate chip slurry, and down the hatch it would go! LOL

[zenofpie]

White bread and yellow mustard sandwiches.

Kool aid (just the power) mixed with white sugar, and licked off finger.

[VeggieHead]

Sounds to me like FunDip, just without the sugar spatula! Heyyy... Kool Aid! And as a kid, I always ate crunchy peanut butter and yellow mustard sandwiches. Sometimes they would have cheese, other times not, but boy did I love the contrast between the saltiness of the PB and the tart mustard. While I haven't had one in many years, I do still LOVE peanut butter and Miracle Whip! A childhood friend used to dip his in applesauce, but I just couldn't bring myself to go that far.

[Querencia]

The topic of childhood treats once came up on a genealogy board where people with Kentucky and Tennesse ancestry remembered Chocolate Gravy, eaten hot on biscuits. It sounded like a gravy made with shortening, flour, and milk with sugar and cocoa powder added.

[pauseplace]

My daily luch in elemetary school was a thick slice of Velvetta cheese on Town Talk bread smothered in Ketchup. Since it was a brown bag luch, by noon it was the grossest thing imaginable. The ketchup soaked the bread and tasted like vinegar, the cheese seemed to be digested by the kethcup, and the whole mess looked and smelled really foul. I still cringe at the memory....

[sweetTooth]

I used to mix a chocolate flavored malt based bevarage mix called Bournvita (which was plenty sweet on it's own) with sugar in a small cup and eat it with a spoon. The mix was supposed to be added to milk to make it more palatable for kids to down their milk. This concoction would make me sputter and cough because it was so dry and so sweet. But I'd sneak into the kitchen to have some any time I thought I could get away with it. No wonder my teeth are falling out already. :(

[guilty]

Pepsi + half-and-half. I tried it because my mother said she did it as a kid. We didn't keep soda in the house, so I only had it when eating out. And I was usually a Coke kind of kid, but with the h&h, only Pepsi worked. Or so I thought.

I guess it's not *too* far from a root beer float, but I wouldn't touch it now.

[goodhealthgourmet]

that's just the rich version of soda milk! milk or cream in soda was a popular thing once upon a time - i think it started at fountain shops in NYC in the 40's or 50's. one of my favorite drinks as a kid was Canfield's chocolate soda with milk.

[GraceW]

We were not allowed pop as a child, but my dad's side is Jewish and his relatives always had Canfield's chocolate soda at the holidays.... seriously we thought it was the greatest thing and would probably go through at least two cans during the seder. It made Judaism seem alluring..

Also, GHG: the waffle description earlier matches exactly what I did with my waffles as a kid. If I didn't fill all the holes with syrup, I would instead drawn it in butter, then eat off the edge all the way around and finally eat the mushy craters.

[goodhealthgourmet]

your comments about Canfield's are hilarious! we *always* had soda in the house, but somehow the chocolate just seemed more indulgent & special :) i stopped drinking all soda about 15 years ago. i wish they didn't sweeten it with aspartame - i just can't bring myself to consume it.

and yes, my waffle holes occasionally got filled with butter instead of syrup. i did the same thing with English muffins too - had to be soaked through with butter and mushy :)

[betsydiver]

believe it or not i used to drink ginger ale with a dill pickle sticking in it as after school snack,,,yuk!

[Retroh777]

My two big brothers and I were allowed to make homemade donuts. Plain old cheap white bread cut in squares. We would deep fry them and then roll in cinnamon and sugar. We kept the special sugar in an old butter bowl next to the toaster. If we weren't frying donuts; we
would slather toast with tons of butter and compete to see who could get the most of our sugar concoction onto the toast.!! retroh

[canabama]

Much better homemade donuts were to use the Pillsbury refrigerated biscuit dough. Separate each biscuit from the roll. Poke a hole in the center and stretch gently to form doughnut shape . Deep fry in hot oil, then roll in cinnamon sugar. Must be eaten immediately while warm. Our family loved them as a weekend treat!

[da0419]

Two things come to mind, equally disgusting:

My dad used to make breakfast for me on the weekdays & it was always either scrambled eggs or pancakes. He would let me put whatever I wanted on them, so I would make "party pancakes." Basically, I'd put sprinkles, chocolate, whipped cream & any other sugar source that I could find on them. I'm not really sure how I got away with it, but I guess that's what happens when Dads make breakfast.

The other thing was fried salami. I would take salami slices, sandwich them between two napkins & microwave them til they were crunchy. Then I'd put ranch dressing on them...yuck.

[wlo]

Not a concoction, but Manwich. LOVED manwich nights. Tried it a few years ago and was totally disgusted (ketchup + ground beef). I swear there was more corn syrup than tomato in that stuff.

When I was in college I would eat massive plates of reconstituted mashed potato flakes, mixed with canned corn. Add a side of "Stove Top" stuffing and you can understand why I put on the freshman 15.

[SOBoston]

Dunkaroo's.
It wasn't my own personal concoction, but I don't think I could ever consider frosting an kangaroo-shaped cookies appealing ever again.

Sorry to offend anyone :)

[cheesecake17]

I used to love those as a kid. Swiped a cookie and some frosting recently from a friend's kid.. wasn't like I remembered!

[SOBoston]

I got sick one time after eating a pack...still makes my stomach flip when I think about it.

[kmd234]

the only thing i would ever eat for lunch was either mustard sandwiches (yellow on white bread) or mayonaise sandwiches (miracle whip on rye with salt)

for breakfast i used to love to microwave butter till burnt and then pour it on top of toast. pair with chocolate milk.

[Retroh777]

The way Mum used to cut up runny eggs, bacon and toast in a bowl and serve it up! I couldn't do that now. ...! Still enjoy all those flavors tho....
Retroh

[mamachef]

A thick slice of Velveeta "cheese" thickly spread with French's mustard and eaten out of hand. Matzah spread with butter and the same mustard.

[goodhealthgourmet]

my favorite spread for matzo was Temp Tee whipped cream cheese & Smucker's grape jelly (though i'd settle for strawberry in a pinch).

[gemmama]

my friend & I started off making mushroom tortelini pasta; gradually adding a whole variety show of different ingredients.. raw egg!? ermm tuna; sardines; dried cheese.. god it tasted quite awful! but we tried to eat as much of it as we could stomach! This post is soo great because it goes to show our strange food combinations as kids are universal... and been laughing at some of your posts- soo funny all the ketchup butties- my 9 year old nephew Louis LOVES experimenting with foods of all different kinds... just like we did wen we were kidos!

[mariacarmen]

Just like Audrey above, syrup (or, rather, Log Cabin) and milk. sometimes warm.

I still eat salami and cream cheese. sardines and liverwurst. i'd probably still eat that.

and this isn't disgusting but i would come home from school and eat about 10 slices of sourdough toast heavily buttered. mmmm. i wish i could still do that.

fritos in orange soda. but only at Disneyland.

[dcrf]

Cocoa Krispies in a bowl with 2 heaping spoons of Nestles Quick.

[jenni49]

What a fun thread. So many memories. One of my favorites was a pizza in a box, not frozen, long before microwaves. I don't remember the brand, but the "cheese" was in a pouch, the "sauce" in a little tin. Add water to the flour to make the "crust". Totally horrid, but we loved it. My version of balogna sandwich, included velveeta cheese, ketchup on one side of the wonder bread, mayo on the other,potato chips & pickles in between & fry it all up! Also loved anchovie sandwich on white, cucumber & sour cream on white ( of course) and anything made by Chef Boyardee. Campbell's beans on white were also a winner. When I was a bit older, bermuda onions & blue cheese on rye toast became a favorite. Very sophisticated, I thought. Pass the breath mints!

[dartanian]

I wonder if the pizza mix was Appian Way? I believe it came out in the early 60's and you can still buy it on the internet today - awful stuff, but it was innovative for its time.

[jeanmarieok]

My parents used to make Appian Way pizza, and later, some Chef Boyardee pizza, too. I'd forgotten the Appian Way pizza.

[ZenSojourner]

Peanut butter mixed with karo syrup or maple syrup.

Buttered saltines with sugar spooned on top

and baby food mashed bananas.

[mariacarmen]

i LOVED baby food mashed bananas!!!!!

[goodhealthgourmet]

i sometimes use jars of baby food bananas for baking, and if there's any leftover i absolutely eat it straight from the jar!

[mamachef]

Mmmmmm, baby apricots. But Ii can't say as I find them at all disgusting; I love 'em.

[NancyHT]

OH! I Love salami and cream cheese. On an "everything" bagel, toasted.
But I used to put ketchup in chicken noodle soup, and that's just gross.

[Audreey]

Maple syrup poured into milk and Iceburg lettuce smeared with mayo.
I also had *gag* potted meat sandwiches.

[coll]

I never thought to put maple syrup in milk... yogurt would be another good idea. Sounds as good as chocolate syrup any day to me (and I LOVE chocolate).

[Audreey]

I haven't tried it in years but I remember it being quite tasty!

[Sherio88]

I made something called grape soup.. it had jelly, oatmeal and raisins in it. I dunno what was going through my mind... but I liked the texture

[onceadaylily]

My father used to make milkshakes for us, my favorite was 'French vanilla' ice cream, milk, and Fruit Pebbles.

My mother used to put applesauce on our buttered pancakes, but *only* if it was breakfast-for-dinner night.

[boyzoma]

Spaghetti-O's. I used to love those as a kid - and add sliced hot dogs to it. But had to eat soft foods recently and those fit the bill. I thought they were disgusting!

[barcelonabites]

My grandmother (a Mormon) would make a salad every Christmas that had raspberries, marshmellows, jello, walnuts and whipped cream. It was one of those situations where just because I loved it when I was five, she became convinced that it was my favorite food even into adulthood which meant that every year I had to have at least two large portions (since no one else liked it and I never had the heart to tell her that I didn't like it anymore either.) Now she is dead though and I actually really wish I had the recipe so that I could make it for my own five-year old and start the cycle all over again!

[bluebelle79]

Funny how so many people love canned ravioli, Chef Boyardee, and Spaghetti O's.

I remember begging my mom to buy me some even though she warned me that I would not like it. So my mom made it for me for lunch one day. And I could not touch it. The smell totally turned me off. I was totally, utterly. completely grossed out by the smell. I got the "eat your lunch or you're going to your room without any lunch" line. While I didn't want to go without lunch, I simply could not eat it, so I ended up going to my room. After half an hour or so (which felt like an eternity), my mom figured I had learned my lesson and prepared something else for my lunch. I never asked for canned pasta again.

Both my sisters loved it though.

My favourite childhood concoction was ice cream topped with crumbled plain potato chips. The creamy-sweet salty-crisp combo was simply awesome.

Sandwiches made of pan-fried bologna and ketchup on white bread. Eww.
Peanut butter and banana sandwiches. My dad eats these all the time. This doesn't completely disgust me, though. I might try one again someday.

[Peekaloo]

I used to mix my corn, mashed potatoes, and ketchup together. I used to be ADDICTED, but now I feel sick just thinking about it!

[coll]

When I was in college, I lived on mashed potatoes, peas and gravy mixed together. Actually my grandmother taught me to do that (the mashed potatoes were a snow covered mountain, the peas were trees and the gravy was put in a hole in the middle so it was a lake). I can still eat it that way, no problem, and I don't have to do the landscaping either, just one big mess.

[danni_1981]

mashed potatos with ground beef and condensed tomato soup on top.... and it's just as good now as it was when I was a kid....although many others find the thought repulsive

[raleighboy]

Doesn't sound too bad, sort of a shepherd's pie/brunswick stew hybrid?

[Mr Taster]

And enough sodium to ferment kimchee to feed the population of Seoul! :)

Mr Taster

[bluebelle79]

My mom used to make a casserole like this. She mixed cooked ground beef, sauteed onion, and frozen corn with tomato soup, spread this mixture in a casserole dish, topped with mashed potatoes. Bake and serve!
It sounds pretty gross, but I remember the whole family liked it well enough.

[zandapanda]

Sugar and Milk and Bread Sandwiches. My brother and I used to make them. You had to pour milk on the bread until it was soaked, then pour sugar on it. It was soggy with crunchy sugar. Completely disgusting!

[feelinpeckish]

re: caralien
Kraft boxed mac and cheese. Ate it all the time when left on my own. Such a bad memory, I can not tolerate the thought even when presented as the supposedly "good" stuff as a side in BBQ places.

[badmonkey]

loooooooved kraft mac & cheese. also looooooooved and still do (but won't eat because of cholesterol) grilled cheese sandwiches made with copious amounts of kraft singles american cheese and covered in tons of parkay squeeze margarine....i think i put pickles in those sandwiches too

[spazita]

when i was 4, I loved those canned anchovies rolled aroun capers. When I was nine, the lady across the street made fresh white bread every day, and her kid and I would have thick slices slathered in real butter, and molasses spread on top. If they were out of molasses, it was lots of white sugar on top! When I was 14, it was Ben's white bread, margarine, cheddar (the REAL stuff cut off the huge round with the big knife at the hardware store!!) topped with a liberal sprinkling of hickory smoked salt. No wonder I have high blood pressure!! And what a waste of that beautiful cheddar!!!

[DomesticDizziness]

Huge scoops of peanut butter & jelly mixed with a copious amount of real maple syrup. I would whip together in a cup and eat with a spoon. Heaven help me.....that's so gross.

I would also mix Italian bread crumbs with egg, form into patties and fry.

[rafjel]

I actually do something similar if I'm in need of a sweet/salty mid-afternoon snack...1 tablespoon of natural chunky PB with the same amount of real maple syrup, mixed together. It's so good!

[guilty]

Yes, PB & (real) maple syrup is divine. As a teenager I would keep the peanut butter in the freezer--mostly to make sure I wouldn't go through it too fast. But I still went through a jar a week, scooping some PB on a spoon and filling the rest of the now-cold spoon with maple syrup.

[goodhealthgourmet]

http://ilovepeanutbutter.com/mightyma...

;)

[Sandwich_Sister]

My sister and I would take peanut butter and add honey, sugar, and a little bit of flour or oats and roll them into little peanut butter balls. We'd eat them all up. Now it just sounds too sweet for me.

We would also take marshmellows let them explode in the microwave and then eat them on saltines. it was a big gushy gummy crumbly mess in which my mom did not appreciate.

Ketchup on sandwiches. As I got older it became apparent that ketchup doesn't belong on sandwiches.

Pickle and cheese sandwiches one thing I do still like is mayo and tomato sandwiches.

Velveta , chef boyardee, kraft mac and cheese, kraft singles, american cheese, those processed crappy cheese filled hotdogs, and the processed blogona with the red ring around it. Eeeck! I can't believe I liked that crap.

Oh and I could eat ungodly amounts of frosting and cake batter mix

[cuccubear]

Oh, but I bet a Pickle, Cheese and Tomato sandwich would be really good, especially hot off the griddle!

[Sandwich_Sister]

that does sound good :)

[BamiaWruz]

balogna toasted sandwiches. They are good, but I don't eat balogna anymore.

[stuck in Hartford County]

You mean fried bologna sandwiches? My brother and loved these (along w/Elvis, apparently). We fried them in mayo (spread on the outside of the bread). Heart attack on a plate, but a good southern meal! Along w/pork rinds, of course.

[BamiaWruz]

No I mean you take white bread, add 2 slices of bologna and then another piece of bread and put it in the triangle toaster thing. It was my favourite thing, and it is good, just that I can't stomach eating balogna anymore (paranoid of what goes in it, like hotdogs)

[justmomofthree]

As a child our babysitter ould fix me a vienna sausage (think little sausages in a can) on soft white bread with plain yellow mustard. I thought they were just heavenly. I also liked to eat the canned breakfast sausage over toast. I couldn't imagine eating that now. also loved it when my mom had leftover baked potatoes that I could fix for lunch. I would take all the skin off and mash the potato with Heinz 57 sauce and butter. Then I would sprinkle bacon bits and garlic salt on it and eat it.

[roxlet]

A friend of mine, whose mother was from the midwest, used to get raw potato slices in his lunchbox. That was a new one on me, but he told me that when he went out to the midwest once, he mentioned it to another local, who said that anyone who didn't like that was an idiot!

[Shann]

Not mine, but my son. He insisted on having a liverwurst sandwich on white bread with mayo (crust cut off) every day he went to day care or kindergarten for at least two whole years. Now, he won't touch it and denies it every happened!

(I hated to make them because the liverwurst is so gross)

[amatuerfoodie]

Chef boyardee mixed with rice and garlic powder.
I thought I was so inventive, now I am like what was I thinking (i was probably 8)

[Joe Berger]

I had this baby sitting job after school that i hated. the kids had me make them jiffy pop popcorn most days. now even the smell of burnt popcorn and oil makes me heave.

a childhood concoction that I actually invented and still love (just not in front of anyone else) is a soft boiled egg with corn flakes. the malt in the cereal "salts" the eggs well.

[stuck in Hartford County]

We liked Jiffy Pop because it was the only food I was allowed to "make" by myself. I felt soooooooooo grown up. But when I was 10, I was "cooking" it and it caught fire and set the dish towel (next to the stove) on fire, and then the whole area seemed to catch fire. We put it out w/a fire extinguisher, but the apocalyptic after-math still conjures hideous images 32 years later. And that smell! Thankfully, my kids have never heard of Jiffy Pop. And I'm going to keep it that way.

Way to go w/the corn flake idea- my mom (who you now know really didn't show great common sense...) used crushed corn flakes to coat fried chicken and other foods to be fried. It wasn't bad, actually.

[TSAW]

Our parents never had any junk food in the house so my brother and I would crush soda crackers loosely and add a very light sprinkle of vinegar, these were our Salt and Vinegar potato chips. Candy was made from pouring Tang in a bowl and putting dribbles of water on it, so it would form little balls. Man, kids can be resourceful!

[luna1580]

oh man, mine is for sure "chicken quesadillas".

these were 2 over-processed tortillas -think "azteca" or other refrigerated brand in the states -all white, stiff, and tasteless- topped with deli-meat chicken slices, american cheese, and splashes of tabasco, then microwaved to melt the cheese. served with sour cream for dipping (and i still mightily love sour cream).

they were and are gross, but when i was around 8 (1988) and my parents would let my little sis and me snack on these while watching a "movie" like a my-little-ponies-straight-to-VHS in their bedroom (the only VCR in the house) it was the ultimate treat night imaginable!

looking back, i realize my parents were around 35 at the time, and i now know them to both be great cooks savoring homegrown veggies and herbs and the like (we always had a big garden, even at this time), and i wonder was this a "budget treat" for them too? i hope not!

but i so loved them at the time ;)

another one -from late highschool/first year college- dorito sandwiches. take wonderbread type squishy white bread and slather on hellman's type mayo. add a generous layer of cool ranch doritos. top with another slice of bread. compress as flat as possible between your hands. eat. smile.

yikes! i have a suspicion that i'd still think that latter was tasty somehow, but haven't tried it. (it's kind of a miracle of making processed "non-foods" into a "meal"....)

[weewah]

Luna,
I saw a program on women in prison last year and they made all sorts of things out of Doritos. That's one junk food they spiced up just right!

As a kid I would eat saltines covered in mayo. Gak.
And when really little I remember stealing a big (to me) spoon of ... get ready... CRISCO and hiding under the table to eat it it. It just looked so purely, and beautifully White. I was very dissappointed with the taste!

[pantsless]

When I was small and my mother was too tired to make me something to eat after work, I could be trusted to make myself sandwiches. However, when I got permission to make a sandwich, I'd just grab slices of American cheese and slap a dollop of mayonnaise on a plate and just eat cheese with mayo. I've since realized that that is a disgusting thing to do, haha.

[Suzanne]

What a fun topic! Though it sure did bring up a disgusting memory! I used to love to slice hot dogs and put them in a pan with ketchup and piccalili relish and boil till the hot dog slices plumped.

But I guess it beats what my own mother fed me... Slices of spam, baked in the oven and topped with a brown sugar and mustard mixture. It was good at the time.

[FreshMango]

Butter (or cream cheese) slathered on a tortilla rolled up and then microwaved.
White bread slathered in butter, sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar and microwaved.
Cheddar cheese shredded in a bowl and microwaved, and then eaten with a spoon.
I'd even slurp the oil left in the bottom of the bowl!

[chefdara]

It's from my childhood but I still eat it. Fried bologna, fried egg, and velveeta sandwiches - yummy. Also peanut butter, mayo, red onion, and salami sandwiches love em!

[mtngirlnv]

Bologna, pickle relish, Miracle Whip aplenty...on white bread,

[NancyHT]

That was a fave of mine too. I could probably still eat it. Also, fried bologna sandwiches with ketchup, mustard and relish.

[stuck in Hartford County]

The first food I ever made by myself (actually w/my "bf" in 3rd grade) was "pizza"-
English muffin 1/2's.
Ketchup.
Canned "parmesean" cheese (product).
Cook for 5 minutes or so. Yum!

But now? Not so much!

[LolaP]

Salt sprinkled on a lemon slice. I was a weird kid. While I was surreptitiously eating generous pinches of table salt, my sister enjoyed plain crisco sprinkled in sugar. Those were the days. Oh, and I also liked saltines and chocolate chips.

[cheesecake17]

I loved lemon slices with salt. When we went out to dinner I would chew on the lemon from my water glass. Still love sour things.

[jeanmarieok]

I ate an awful lot of maple walnut icecream, doused with golden griddle maple syrup. I tried it again recently, and it was pretty bad.

[Perilagu Khan]

Fried clams were arguably my favorite food as a li'l spark, but now, owing to knowledge of what clams and all shellfish really are, I will never eat them again.

Ignorance was blissful.

[Sam Fujisaka]

What do you mean?

[Perilagu Khan]

Shellfish are basically arachnids, insects, and mollusks, and I would never eat their terrestrial analogues.

[small h]

Interesting. That's like disallowing all mammals 'cause you'd never eat a cat.

[Perilagu Khan]

I'd much rather eat a cat than a cockroach. Thankfully, I have to eat neither.

[small h]

I'm just the opposite (but I wouldn't eat either, either). And I realize I'm racing toward the cockpit to hijack this thread, but here we are on a site where people draw hairline distinctions between what they will (cane sugar, rare steak) and will not (high fructose corn syrup, well-done steak) consume. That you have such an expansive category of 'do not want' intrigues me. Then again, my own 'do not want' category includes all mammals and birds, so I really shouldn't be so confused about this. And yet.

[thirtyeyes]

If a cockroach tasted like shrimp, I'd eat it.

[betsydiver]

actually i ate grasshoppers while in africa and some of my travel companions mentioned that they thought that they tasted ilke shrimp (i covered mine with so much rice, i did'nt notice...

[cadi2]

wow a lot of people were into sugar...guess that's what kids love, but my mom was avidly against it (this was back in the mid 50s too-a health nut before her time !) We would have cut up veggies and fruit as an after school snack. Or cereal was OK too. Iut never sugar on it. I never had a PB and J til 3 yrs ago when my husband made one for me-we'd have a PB without the J as a kid.
We did go nuts at halloween though...
Anyway gross foods were chicken livers with salt on them (I feel sick just thinking about it) and the bread balls others have mentioned. I'm sure I'll think of others.

[watch me boogie]

When I was maybe 8 I used to mix equal amounts of lemonade and orange juice, add loads of sugar, and drink it with a spoon. Ugh, what was I thinking?

That's pretty much it; I was funny about mixing foods together and liked to have everything separate, so there wasn't a lot of concocting going on.

[Sparkina]

I think that lemonade and oj beverage actually sounds plenty of tasty, and I'm not eight!

[Dagney]

Potato chips dipped in Kool-Aid.

Lea & Perrins Worstershire on pizza.

[Michelly]

I remember one time when I was still becoming familiar with the alphabet, I found a jar of something that started with an "M". Thinking that it was marshmallow fluff, I took a large spoon and ladled some of the contents into my mouth...and immediately spit it all out onto the floor.
It was Miracle Whip. To this day, I can't stand the stuff.

[lovessushi]

torn up pieces of ham on saltine crackers - my mother's remedy for a bad stomach... (I haven't eaten ham in decades)
roast chicken pieces dipped in mayo (I hate mayo)
pieces of scrambled egg between pieces of "italian" bread (you know the long loaves that they call Italian bread but really are not)...this doesn't sound so gross except I am not such a fan of eggs anymore...
campbell's soup - any kind (seems like a salt-lick to me now)
breaded veal (eeeekkkk!!!!)
bologna on "wheat" bread from that company that used to sell it in the yellow package (remember that?)

What's funny is that so many of the things I hated back then I find so good now - grilled cheese, cottage cheese, etc.!

[Bob W]

Jell-O and milk.

One that I paid good money for was the chocolate mint ice cream sodas at the Newport Creamery. The "mint" was supplied by a hideous green syrup. People used to get sick just watching me drink these things. In fact, the mere order made people scrunch their faces in disgust.

I remember going once at the conclusion of a baseball season. The other kids all ordered Awful Awfuls (a thick shake). I ordered my usual. I didn't understand the whole "fitting in" concept.

[Chinon00]

Sliced hot sausage mixed with corn kernels in a ketchup sauce. Enjoyed it through to my high school years.

[Michelly]

It is incredible how we all ate so much processed food back then! Mom used to serve us sandwiches witha side of Campbell's soup (add cubed American cheese to the tomato soup), Spam in every way shape or form. She'd also mix canned corned beef with mayo and make a sandwich of it.
There was also:
mayonnaise sandwiches
chef boy ar dee anything
Swanson tv dinners
Vienna sausage sandwiches
salads consisting of iceberg swimming in Kraft thousand island

While I wouldn't necessarily turn down a butter-and-sugar sandwich (and I still love cinnamon toast), there'd be no way I'll eat American and Velveeta "cheeses", Wonder bread, or most canned veggies again.

Oh, I forgot: ice cream (any kind) with a cup of Ovaltine on it. It was dark and crystalline, like Folger's instant coffee, but now I see that it's a lighter brown and is softer-looking now. Maybe they made it so that it melts into the milk faster and better, which would be sad because the pile of sludge at the bottom of the milk glass was what you wanted.

[haolebaby]

I used to eat cream cheese & green olive sandwiches all the time. Also fluffernutters. And canned ravioli. All of these still sound edible to me but I am incubating a baby so um.. I have been eating kind of strange things lately.

I don't think I could survive the above mentioned "suicidal swamp juice." I think I have a headache just from thinking about all that sugar.

I used to eat baked beans and hot sauce on a tortilla too.. It was kind of an interesting sweet/hot combo. This one doesn't sound quite so appealing now.

I had Bosco too growing up on the East Coast.. but Hershey's always won out for flavor and actually resembling a chocolate syrup.

[betsydiver]

sometimes i do diet coke topped off with root beer so i can cut down on the sugar and still have the yummy root beer taste

[CyndiA]

I can't say that this is disgusting, but I thought it would be grand to have bakery cakes for my birthday. Mom always did homemade. So, I thought it would be grand to have a fancy cake with flowers etc. I got my first in college. After a couple, I sure wished I had homemade cake. Mom's cakes were much better tasting, but I thought the other kids had the leg up with those cakes with cartoon characters.

[waytob]

Three childhood favourites, one of which is still my go to comfort foods:
Sliced bananas with ghee and sugar - saltimess from ghee, crunchy sugar and sweet finger bananas...hmm, might be worth a revisit
Boiled rice with homemade yogurt, salt and crushed cumin....still a great quick fix
Semi-ripe mangoes - smothered in a mix of red chilli powder, salt and sugar....would completely ruin the white shirt of my school uniform with dribbles of red tinged mango juice

[jbsiegel]

Fessing up now...Powdered sugar and water mixed together into a nice pasty consistency!!!

[cycloneillini]

We made graham cracker sandwiches with a good thick layer of powdered sugar "icing" in between.

[alwayscooking]

My first invention made in grade school - omelet filled with strawberry/raspberry jam and sour cream. I find it a tad cloying now . . . although I've made something similar with fage, quince and thyme.

I served to my mother then - she balked and then enjoyed . . . I was on my way,

[kimmieokc]

I used to make a few things for myself that I would never eat now.
A dish I used to call "crumpled hamburger". I would brown chopped up hamburger meat and then mix it with mustard, ketchup, mayo and grated cheese. I would put it in a bowl and eat it with a spoon.

Also I used to make chipped beef on toast.

But, the all-time nastiest thing I ate was something my dad intoduced me to, peanut butter and mayo sandwiches. Yuck!!

[Sparkina]

I had a friend who had a fondness for peanut-butter-and-pickle sandwiches

[buttertart]

I had never heard of them until I read Sue Grafton's mysteries -- must try sometime.

[momofthreems]

I would eat a salad (mostly lettuce) with several little packs of Captain Wafers crackers mashed up in it. Cover the entire thing with bottled blue cheese dressing and mix together. It had to be real thick. I can't imagine why my mom let me do this! I would fix sandwiches on soft white bread with a slice of ham, plastic wrapped cheese, mustard and squished potato chips on it. Microwave just a few seconds. I would make cinnamon sugar and just eat it straight out of the bowl...no bread required. Top Ramen or some other name Ramen noodle. I would eat these dry with the flavor packet sprinkled on top. Most of the time this had to be chicken flavored. So salty and so good at the time.

[cycloneillini]

Who needed croutons when you had Captain Wafers?! That really brought back memories Momofthreems. Only in my case it was Western dressing which is a bottled red french that was very popular in the midwest. The mixture was about 60% lettuce (iceberg of course), 20% crackers and 20% dressing.

[EWSflash]

That wasn't Mullens dressing, was it?

[EWSflash]

I can't believe that growing up in southern AZ we were fed- and enjoyted!- those Gebhart canned "tamales" that were like decomposing flesh or maybe lard wrapped around some horrible squishy meat paste, and they were wrapped in paper before being canned.
Also "pancake syrup" I thought I hated the hell out of maple syrup, it smelled like the upholstery in my dad's 1948 Mercury and tasted like an accident. Then I had the real thing and realized it was a beautiful food, especially on vanilla ice cream, or snow. Don't get to do the snow much, but I like how it makes hard little shards to crunch on.

[jaypeezy]

I used to eat:
-ritz or club crackers with butter
-tortilla chips with kethup (because salsa was too spicy for me back then)
-sliced cheese with butter and milk melted in the microwave and served with tortilla chips - kinda like nachos i guess..
-those small half and half containers at denny's etc...just drink them straight til my food came...

now i would not eat any of those things...haha

[Sparkina]

I used to drink half-and-half straight up out of those little containers too when I was a youngster. That was some TASTY stuff

[EWSflash]

So did my beautiful son- I hope he doesn't get a coronary at an early age. He's strong and wiry at 21.

[alc4444]

I love ritz crackers with butter. Unfortunately too much and can no longer keep them in the house. yikes.

[coll]

Just last night, we (again) realized we grew up in parallel universes: both our fathers LOVED cheddar or velveeta on a Ritz cracker with a slice of gherkin on top. We both have fond memories, he only eats Ritz out of any cracker he is offered, while I'm not as particular. But cheese and gherkin......mmmmmm. Stick a frilly toothpick in it if you have company.

[cuccubear]

Thank you for reminding me! That was one of my Mother's many any varied hors d'oeuvres when entertaining. It's so retro it's probably in vogue again.

[Smorgasbord]

I used to love brick cheese sandwiches on white bread with both sides liberally coated with a huge amount of butter. I also used to eat slices of Philly cream cheese [no bread or anything]. I find this completely revolting today. Thinking back on this now I realize I must have been fat-deprived, or just really liked the saturated goodness!

[Essex County]

Spaghettios with little meatballs on buttered toast!

[JudiAU]

Balogny rolled around Miracle Whip

*sigh*

We all start somewhere.

[jeanmarieok]

spaghettio sandwiches - buttered white bread, heaped with warm spaghetti-o's. The spaghetti-o's are just too sweet!!

[mcsheridan]

Mayonnaise sandwiches -- just white bread, heavy on the mayo.
Silvercup bread 'dough balls' -- just pinch a piece from a slice, roll up fine and eat.
Sugar sandwiches - pour sugar on white bread, blow off the excess, eat whatever hangs in the holes in the bread.
Pink Mashed Potatoes - Ketchup stirred into mashed potatoes.

How do kids THINK of these things?

[cycloneillini]

Two things come to mind... White bread, margarine and brown sugar sandwiches. And this concoction my mother used to make for me which was Sugar Smacks cereal drizzled with melted margarine (aka "olee" according to my grandma) and then sprinkled with salt. My mother used to feed me anything to get calories in me because she worried about how skinny I was. I loved both of those things back then, but now they give me sugar shock just thinking about them - not to mention the grossness of all the cheap "olee" we used to eat.

[cuccubear]

Childhood concoctions that I still enjoy...(but others may think disgusting)

Sour cream on steak
Potato chips on PB&J
Mustard sandwich
Apples with peanut butter, cheddar cheese and raisins

[abduction51]

Ok now as I'm writing this I'm starting to think I have or "had" a thing for raw onions...my poor family...

Every Sunday I would microwave bread crackers topped with Kraft sliced cheese and raw onion slices for lunch and read up on my Sweet Valley High. (I think I just dated myself)

Another favorite was...which gag! I can't believe I ate...was hot dogs sliced with a side of cubed cheddar cheese and diced raw onion....oh and tons of ketchup.

Suffice to say that I don't eat that anymore...but my love for ham rolls with cream cheese and green onions still hold true today and embarrassingly enough I do still eat Hormel's tamales...even though I'm from NM and know that homemade tamales are a treasure of the soul.

[vvvindaloo]

Bologna and mustard (Gulden's) on Wonder Bread: a childhood standby of mine (and a treat, considering that I spent most of my time in a country where you could not buy any of those three ingredients) that I wouldn't even consider eating today. Also, canned tuna salad on toast. I know there's nothing wrong with this, and that plenty of people eat it, but I think I was served it too often as a child, and now I run from just about anything made with tuna (other than the occasional piece of sushi, though even sushi grade tuna can turns me off). The smell of tuna salad on hot toast can actually make me gag.

[DanaB]

I used to love bologna and French's Mustard on that soft "wheat" sandwich bread. I also used to make fried bologna when we were out of bacon.

One that I still eat once in a while is a concoction called "cheese spaghetti" -- boil regular spaghetti, drain, and while its draining, heat spaghetti sauce in the pan, add cubes of cheddar cheese (it should end up an orangy color), then mix spaghetti back in the pan and heat until cheese is completely melted. It sounds gross but actually is pretty tasty :-) Good comfort food.

[traveleryvette]

bologna pepperjack cheese slathered in mayo on rye bread. Yuk!!!

[badmonkey]

okay i know this is an old link...but it is pretty funny....

as a kid my mother made sos sandwiches, which i later found out stood for sh** on a shingle: toast topped with deviled ham/chicken/or canned tuna smothered in campbell's cream of mushroom soup. loved it...but i can't even go there now

[cheesecake17]

Ketchup on everything. fish, chicken, vegetables, meat. If it was on a plate, it got a heavy dose of ketchup. Now ketchup kinda freaks me out.. prob b/c I ate so much of it!

Also, frozen waffles with syrup poured into every hole. I wouldn't eat the waffle until every hole was completely full.

[goodhealthgourmet]

wow, cheesecake, your post just brought back a memory from childhood that otherwise probably would have remained buried forever! i was obsessed with making sure the syrup was evenly distributed, and i didn't like to eat it with any syrup sitting *on top* of the waffle...so i would toast it, fill each & every hole with syrup, let some of it soak in for a minute, and then turn the waffle on its side and scrape any remaining syrup off the surface with my knife.

thanks for the trip down memory lane :)

[cheesecake17]

anytime :)

I can't look at a frozen waffle now..

[goodhealthgourmet]

neither can i - the thought of the sweetness & the spongy texture is pretty nasty. i can't eat them anymore anyway because of my gluten & soy intolerances, so no big loss!

[cheesecake17]

have you ever tried Vans waffles? a friend of mine likes the gf version, not sure if there's soy though. every once in a while i buy the whole wheat ones

[papawow]

Marshmallow Fluff and Peanut Butter sandwiches...

Those and ABC's 'n 123's Mini Meatballs...

http://www.papawow.com/blog/inside-th...

[fbf242]

A plain hamburger or hotdog roll (untoasted), generously spread with ketchup.

[LAWoman]

My mom used to make sandwiches w/white bread, butter and marshmallow fluff.

[RealMenJulienne]

In grade school I read about corned beef hash in a book about the history of the US Marine Corps. I had no idea what it was but it sounded delicious, so I made my own version in the school cafeteria by mashing together the hamburger patty and french fries on my tray. Pretty good with pepper and ketchup.

When over at friend Matthew's house, we would make "fried cheese" - Kraft singles placed in a bowl, then microwaved until golden brown. You would have to chisel it off the bowl to eat it and it always made a fun surprise for our parents come time to do the dishes.

Also, KC Masterpiece Barbecue sauce, squirted into instant ramen noodles. The first two I would still be able to handle, but this last one might give me a sodium stroke.

[tracylee]

I used to love canned ravioli as a kid also.

For my sister and I, a special treat was always when my folks went out and we had a baby sitter. Mom let us pick out a frozen TV dinner for our evning meal. My favorite was the fried chicken with the apple tart thing. My sister always got the salisbury steak. Back thenk I think Swanson was the only brand available.

[cycloneillini]

Oh no - the Swanson's were the "good" ones. The Banquet brand was lesser in price and definitely in quality as well. Same as the pot pies. My favorite TV dinner was always the fried chicken. I would have to be very desperate now before I would eat a TV dinner or a Banquet pot pie. Nothing less than Marie Callendar's on the pot pies for me now.

[metalgrannie]

Ah, the bad memories of Banquet! I used to buy those when I was a young, single mother and that's all I could afford. I can't believe they're still around . . . . those were foul!

[Mr Taster]

Wow, what memories.

And to think, now I make my own chicken pot pies, with my own pastry dough.

Mr Taster

[DawneeBabe]

Oh Geez....I still shudder when I pass by the Banquet frozen products...Mom couldn't even boil water so she thought those red boxed breaded 'mystery meat' pieces were 'gourmet'....Dad cooked huge pots of goulash , chili, beef stew...etc on weekends, Thank Goodness!! ;-D

[trolley]

crack a raw egg and mix it with some soy sauce. stir it in to very hot rice and top it with okaka or kastuobushi. we called it "nekochan gohan" which translates to kitty rice. although pretty simple and love raw egg i just can't myself to revive this one.

[Sam Fujisaka]

PAO and I had the same: eggy - gohan! It was always a treat.

[PAO]

Indeed, ,my mother used to make it for my brother when he was a toddler because he wouldn't eat anything else. I still have it occasionally. Trolley, I think you should make it again.

[trolley]

ok sam and PAO. i'll give it a whirl again. I've been doing oatmeal with an egg in it so I suppose I can venture back into rice with egg. i just think about the texture and feel like I wouldn't be a big fan.

[lcool]

Get the rice really hot,the egg will cook past ?slimy,
My breakfast of choice 28 days a month is 1 bowl hot rice add 1 raw egg and ?some left over vegetables,stir;egg is cooked enough.The Hubby does a ? poached egg on hot oatmeal or polenta with dried fish.

[pikawicca]

That sounds very good, and I think the piping hot rice would cook the egg nicely.

[vballgal]

my brother and i used to sneak oreo cookies that we'd use to scoop up vanilla frosting and then cover in chocolate sauce - seems like so much sugar now but i remember it being sooo delicious!

[victoriafoodie]

A couple of other things.

Berry stew - we'd pick wild berries (usually blackberries and salmonberries) and then cook them down with sugar and eat it out of the pot.

Rollups - crepes with cinnamon and sugar, rolled up into cigars and munched.

Come to think of it, those were both pretty tasty.

[hungryungry]

Those both sound pretty good to me... although my crepes are rolled up with maple syrup and eaten with a fork (it's just so messy!)

[cycloneillini]

OMG... berry stew. I bet it's been 35 years since I've even thought about that. For us it was mulberries off the tree in the yard. We just mushed them together with sugar and called them mulberry stew. Didn't even bother with the cooking part.

[Caralien]

I miss the mulberry trees on Shore in Brooklyn. Yes, I did grab them by the handful and pintful in season. And now I miss them

[Kari]

My dad used to crush soda crackers in milk then eat with a spoon. I loved it as a kid, can't eat it now.

[dartanian]

My mother did this with graham crackers. I thought it was good back then but no way could I do it now.

[laliz]

Beefaroni ~~ I still remember the song "Beefaroni's fun to eat; Beefaroni's really neat; hurray, whee! for Chef Boy ar Dee!!!!!

Miracle Whip on white bread (shudder)

An entire sleeve of crushed saltines in my (fill in blank) Campbells soup at lunch time

Creamed corn (canned) on mashed potatoes (in place of gravy)

those orange cracker sandwiches w/peanut butter in them and a cold orange crush

not a concoction but, whole milk

[dingey]

"beefaroni beefaghetti beefaroni beefaghetti....they're both so goooooood!" Oh, the insidious jingles of childhood....

[mogo]

When the snow was good and deep, we'd run outside with a bottle of Strawberry Cow and treat the entire backyard as a snow cone.

[PAO]

Girl Scout camp cooking: ground beef fried up and then mixed with Campbell's vegetable beef soup (undiluted). Pieces of angel food cake dipped into sweetened condensed milk and then into sweetened coconut shreds and then toasted on a stick over the campfire.

The bleached out fake cherry in canned fruit cocktail. Actually everything in canned fruit cocktail.

[Sparkina]

That angel-food cake dessert with the sweetened condensed milk and the coconut sounds like a divine delicacy of the highest order. My mouth just watered all over my keyboard!

[EWSflash]

Wow- I concur. Gotta get me some.

[roxlet]

My cousin, who went to Girl Scout Camp, made that concoction of ground beef and Campbells soup, and taught us to make it. In our "recipe" it was Campbell's vegetarian vegetable soup. The whole mess was cooked together and served over toast. My sister and I thought it was very modern compared to all the Italian food we ate daily. My mother would only make it for us when my father would have to work late. He would have been as horrified by this meal, as I am now!

[hotteacher1976]

Peanut butter and syrup sandwiches
Sugar sandwiches

Pretty much sandwiches that would make your teeth chatter were to my liking.

[betsydiver]

my mom introduced me to butter and sugar on white bread she called it "poor man'scake"

[Mattkn]

Of Course...Chips on a sandwich and fries in my chocolate frostie.

My step brother and I would make 3 pieces of toast each and then completely saturate it with Parkay squeeze margarine--so much that it pooled around the toast and we would top it off with a dollop of homemade strawberry preserves. Our dad came home for lunch one day and we were both kicked back in the recliners (a no no) and we had so much Parkay on our plate that he thought we were eating open faced cheese sandwichs. Ohhh, those were the days!

[Caroline1]

Cant think of anything I loved as a kid but wouldn't eat today. My favorite after school snack was a huge glass of milk. I grew up on raw milk and Mother was at work when I got home from school, so I would defy her by pouring the milk without shaking it to redistribute the cream. Basically, I had a glass of cream after school. No wonder I was a chubby!

Oh wait! There WAS something I don't think I'd eat now... When the apricots were ripe, one of the trees produced the most luscious apricots on planet earth, and I used to pick about three of them -- they were the size of mandarin oranges! -- and seed them, mash them and pour on some milk. The acid from the fruit would coagulate (clot) the milk, then stir it up and eat. I loved it. It looked kind of gross. I don't think I could get it in my mouth today. But I'd give anything form some of those apricots! As a kid, I liked milk "soured" by fresh fruit. Weird.

[Sam Fujisaka]

Car Alien, I don't have a childhood concoction that I now think is disgusting. I do have my fave concoction that I still love (but can't get): frozen mochi tossed into a small pan, covered, and heated to where it puffed way up, was scorched a bit black a bit more brown, and served with a sugar and soy sauce dip. Crisp and crunchy on the outside, severe in-mouth burns from the sticky molten goo inside.

[Steady Habits]

Ahhh, nothin' like a severe in-mouth burn to revive fond memories of childhood treats! ;-)

[goodhealthgourmet]

seriously...i'm reminiscing about the gooey, molten interior of a freshly roasted campfire marshmallow right now!

[Sam Fujisaka]

Hilarious! Same basic idea!

[Caralien]

Sam--I've often told people how to spell my name with that same method! So glad you picked up on it

Never tried the molten mochi, but might now, or at least when camping to do a modification on the roasted marshmallow burn

[PAO]

I put mine under the broiler until it's puffed and slightly charred and eat it dipped in either milk or hot tea and then in a mixture of sugar and toasted soy flour (kinako). I hope you had yours for New Year!

[Sam Fujisaka]

PAO, mochi is not available here in Colombia - and I really miss it sato shoyu!

[PAO]

You're in Colombia! Wow! I guess it would be too difficult to go to Peru or Brazil, where they have significant populations.

[EWSflash]

That sounds really good, except for the intraoral burns.

[Querencia]

To Sam Fujisaka: Find a Trader Joe's---they sell Frozen Mochi. Filled with ice cream. Mango is the best.

[gaffk]

The danger of responding 3 years later--sadly, Sam is gone.

[spellweaver16]

I used to make what I called french toast when I was a kid. Toast bread, spread with peanut butter and place on a plate. Cover in pancake syrup and microwave for a minute or so. I thought it was great. I tried it again recently and I just didn't like it at.all.

[Steady Habits]

I don't think this would qualify as a "concoction", exactly, but I went through a phase in high school during which I loved canned green beans, french style.

I can't imagine what was wrong with me at the time. I would do practically anything now to avoid eating a canned vegetable, due to textures that I find completely unappealing.

*shrug* Just a phase I was in, I suppose.

Caralien, I think you get the prize for that mint-chocolate chip ice cream and cranberry sauce. I'm certainly disgusted--but I admire your character in admitting you did that. ;-D

I *love* mcc ice cream. I'll put maple syrup on anything. I'll put cranberry sauce on almost anything. Just not mcc ice cream--don't want anything to interfere with the maple syrup topping. :-D

[LolaP]

Hilarious! I just found this thread, but I went through the exact same phase when I first lived by my self in college. I would eat an entire can, heated up on the stove and seasoned with garlic salt and/or chicken bullion powder and sometimes butter. Oh man, how vile that sounds, just to remember it. Another favorite of mine was a heated up Veg-All doctored up with a chicken bullion powder broth. Deeeeeelicious! Gag.

[MGZ]

McDonald's Quarter Pounder and Filet of Fish, one half of the rolls removed from each, condiments retained, smooshed together, eaten as one sandwich.

[link_930]

Oh my goodness -- my brother used to do that as well! Sometimes with the addition of a few chicken nuggets swiped from our sister. I found it fascinating.

[LA Buckeye Fan]

The McSurfnTurf!

[DeborahJ]

We used to make "Lamie Pies" Mom would let us pound some dough around, shape it in any form then bake it till crisp...ugh, I remember them turning a shade of gray before baking...too funny now. The other thing I find disgusting, no, not disgusting but boring, is my Father's honeymoon sandwich..."Lettuce Alone" We may not have had much but we sure did laugh.

[cuccubear]

My childhood concoction was simple. We would soak the wild onions that grew in the yard in water, add sugar, and sip it like a secret potion. It's a wonder we're not dead from the fertilizer!

In regards to Spaghetti-O's, I used to pile them on bread and make a sandwich.

[Sisyphus]

A slice of bologna on a plate with a thick layer of mayo spread on top then cut into pie shapes, each eaten individually with my fingers.

[jujuthomas]

i used to spread the bologna with ketchup and do the same thing!

[goodhealthgourmet]

threads in this vein - with minor variations - tend to pop up pretty regularly. entertaining stuff...

http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/549898
http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/562301
http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/545960
http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/566964
http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/404973

[HillJ]

Camp favorite...sneak down to the mess hall kitchen and grab a jar of peanut butter and a bottle of Hershey's syrup. Open jar, using a butter knife swirl a deep well into the peanut butter and pour the syrup into the well....then tell all your bunkmates that you've just invented jarred Reese's cups and pass around the spoons until you're all sick with glee.

[silvergirl]

Peanutbutter, bacon and egg sandwiches. They weren't really my concoction. My stepdad was a body builder and used to make them for the protein, but I ate them and liked them too.

[roxlet]

Campfire Stew. It was ground beef cooked with Campbells vegetarian vegetable soup and spooned over white toast. My cousin had gone to girl scout camp and this was apparently something that they cooked. We only had it when my Sicilian father was working late -- he would have found it nauseating, but we thought that it was extremely sportif...

[beej]

When I was a Girl Scout, we made something similar, called "Gypsy Gumbo". I'm quite sure the now very-PC Girl Scouts organization would not approve of a name like that today. My troop leader would buy the big cans of Campbell's Vegetarian Vegetable soup, threw in some cooked ground beef, and then added Velveeta, heated it all up and served it on top of Fritos. Lord, that was a salty and rich meal...not something I'd touch with a 10 ft pole nowadays, but back then us girls all thought that was a nice, hot filling mess on a plate on a cold fall day at camp!

Another thing I used to do, which I would consider very gross now, was take out a Kraft Single from the fridge, unwrap it and pour Italian dressing on it and eat it right in front of the open fridge...like it was a big chip with dip on it.

As a kid, I dabbled in the Nestle Quik/chocolate-cocoa type drink mix experimentations mentioned above, too. I especially liked the more drink mix to water/milk ratio because of all the clumps of dry chocolatey sugar crystals floating around, which were awesome to drink up with a straw.

When my sis and I were teens, my parents occasionally ordered ice cream and frozen foods from Schwan's--when they could afford it. One of the things they got were these French Toast sticks (basically par-deepfried and ready to microwave or throw in the oven and then dip in syrup). My sister and I would sneak downstairs to the chest freezer where they were, and nibble a few right out of the resealable bag...sounds gross, I know, but these had a sweet crunchy coating on them that we were attracted to. Oh, and those Freeze-Pop things that were bright colored sugar liquid in the plastic tubes? Snarfed 'em all the time. We used to like dipping French fries in shakes too.

When I was in college, the mess hall/cafeteria always had pretty bland food. But in the summer if the dinner or lunch was burgers or hotdogs/fish or chicken sandwiches, they usually served it with potato chips...the good wavy kind (not Ruffles), anyway, my roommates and I snarfed the chips a lot..but because they got pretty boring plain after awhile... we'd hit the salad bar and make dip. We'd take a bowl, put some sour cream in, then mix it up with shredded cheddar cheese, diced onion and a few splashes of Frank's Red Hot.

Lots of girls in school would also buy Ramen soup packs in bulk and whenever we didn't want to eat whatever the cafeteria was offering that day... we'd cook ramen soup in the dorm lounge's microwave--filling up those big plastic gas station/fast food drink cups we'd save and add plenty of water--now I'd never microwave something in plastic! If it was past a certain hour and the lounge was closed, we'd use my Hot Pot to cook the soup/noodles in (considered contraband, but everyone knew I had one and girls in the dorm were constantly borrowing it!). Oh, and we'd save those little boxes of cereal they had in the cafeteria from breakfast time, shoving them in our bags and then eating toast or eggs. We'd take those boxes out when we wanted a snack we'd take cups and go down to get milk for the cereal from the big dispenser downstairs, since even if the cafeteria was closed, the milk dispenser was accessible. Or we'd just slit open the box neatly with scissors, through the plastic where the cereal was, fold open the flaps and pour the milk right in.

When we weren't eating chips & dip from the cafeteria or noshing on ramen soup or cereal, my girl friends and I'd be at Godfather's pizza buffet or getting Taco Bell soft shell tacos by the dozen and bringing them home in bags. Yeah, we'd stuff whatever pizza we didn't eat into bags too, to bring them back to the dorms and snack on. Needless to say, I hardly avoided the Freshman Fifteen...by a landslide!

[betsydiver]

dorm friends would lift the huge containers of ice cream out of the freezer which was located right under the cafeteria windows... and throw the container out the window when another dorm mate would be to retrieve...usually chocolate mint chip, bring back to dorm and pig out...so bad!

[goodhealthgourmet]

now THAT is impressive! we actually had a pretty swank cafeteria setup at our university center, and they sold pints of Ben & Jerry's. my roommate & i would buy a pint of Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough, grab a couple of spoons, and demolish it. there was always an informal contest to see who could snag more chunks of cookie dough :)

[AngelSanctuary]

lunchables or whatever they were called, those thing parents give their kids and they have to assemble these lunches themselves...man, they were gross and unfilling but I liked them a lot.

microwaveables~

[chef chicklet]

Ah what a nice memory!
Well let's see it's a toss up between two.
It would either be Miracle Whip on fresh white bread or....
Squished up white bread (without the crusts) and eaten like dough. mmmm.
My favorite after school snack with a glass of Bosco!

[torty]

Second on the squished white bread in little balls. For some reason I remember sitting on the front curb eating it- maybe we were hiding from the grown-ups- plus our family never bought Wonder bread, it was always a firmer bread like the split top butter one so it took alot of kneading to get the right consistency. If there was hard salami around then the crust were peeled off and the salami was mashed into larger discs with the bread.

Also went through a cinnamon phase- cream of wheat made with water and then maybe a tablespoon of cinnamon stirred in. Think I was trying to lose weight and that much cinnamon made it taste sweet without sugar and it was super filling. Before the weight conscious teen years it was Nestle's Quick chocolate stirred into the cream of wheat made with milk.

[goodhealthgourmet]

we also did the white bread/dough balls.

better yet, when we had access to butter & sugar, we'd spread the butter, pour on some sugar, fold the bread in half and smush the sides together to make sure everything got really compressed...then pinch pieces off and eat them. we called it sugar bread. gack!

[hungryungry]

we also did the bread dought balls filled with sugar and butter, then we'd dip them in jam, or PB, or nutella... then we'd wash it down with orange juice blended with milk, it has to be blended though, so we could eat the froth!

[amy_rc]

I forgot the bread dough balls! I haven't had one in about 15 years--it makes me wanna buy a loaf of Iron Kids bread, tear the crust off and roll a little ball of doughy goodness.

[jujuthomas]

what is Bosco? I've heard of it before, but have NO idea what it is.
thx!

[gordeaux]

Bosco is just chocolate syrup. If you're in the states, a comparable product would be Hershey's Chocolate Syrup. I'm pretty sure it's gonna be a regional thing. I can't get Bosco in a grocery store where I live now, but I could get it just about anywhere when I lived on the east coast.

[chicgail]

You brought back strange memories, gordeaux. This childhood play on the Bosco commercial came rushing back.

"I hate Bosco
It's not the drink for me
Mama put in in my milk to try and poison me.
But I fooled mama.
I put in in her tea.
And now there is no mama to try and poison me."

[Caralien]

Bosco was a LOT thicker than Hershey's syrup, and was available through my teens (80's) in Chicagoland. I think it had a slight tang to its flavour and was more of a dark-chocolate flavour compared to Hershey's, which was a lot sweeter.

[Caralien]

Bosco straight from the bottle or actually in a glass (with or without milk?).

[metalgrannie]

Goodness, I thought I was the only one in the world who pressed crustless white bread into balls. I would layer them and would probably eat half a loaf at a time. And that was a long, long time ago. I also did the mayo on white.

[jbsiegel]

I'm right there with you! Funny thing is that my kids do it now and I have to hold myself back from telling that it's not a polite thing to do!!

[betsydiver]

guilty...my dad ad been in the navy and toldus this was hard tack that prevented the growing of mold on board

[kali_MM]

Many scoops of Cadbury's hot chocolate mix, with a trickle of water, stirred to form a thick paste. Eaten slowly out a mug by dipping a spoon in, then licking the crystally glop off it.

[alliedawn_98]

Not a concoction but I always wanted Spaghetti O's for lunch. Now I can hardly stand to smell them much less consider eating them.

I ate ketchup on almost anything. I still eat it on some things but not peas, butterbeans, and the like.

[fmcoxe6188]

haha-I did something similar- Nestle Quick with Sour cream blended together.....totally disgusting now. Sometimes Id freeze it-if I had the patience to wait.

[swsidejim]

- hot dog with ketchup
- Kraft Mac-n-Cheese with either tuna or hot dogs mixed in
- frozen pizza

[melly]

Spaghetti with pork n beans and pork n beans sandwhiches...white bread only.

[lcool]

A root beer float.Too sweet for me now.

[bubbles4me]

Peanut Butter & Mayo Sandwiches
Green Bell Peppers, (sliced) swimming in red wine vinegar and garlic salt
Hot Dogs double wrapped with Kraft singles and zapped in the microwave

[jujuthomas]

OMG Bubbles - i thought I'd be the only one to say PB and mayo (altho we had miracle whip)!!!
I also loved PB & Fluff
my favorite pre-teen after school snack was VERY chocolatey chocolate milk - esp the sludge on the bottom - we used the powdered mix, served with a stack of ritz crackers.
oh, and we dipped our french fries in our chocolate shakes. YUM. That one still appeals to me.

[ddavis]

There's more of us! Mine was PB and Miracle Whip with a glass of milk. I still love that! What I don't love now that I did when I was 10 is when my mother would mix us up peanut butter, bananas and white Karo syrup and spread that on a sandwich. Sounds disgusting now.

[lollya]

i'm down with the fries in the malt. heaven.

[amy_rc]

My dad used to take your peanut butter and mayo sandwich and throw a slice of tomato on it. Always grossed us kids out.

[Caroline1]

But did any of you kids ever try it? Best Foods/Hellmann's mayonnaise, extra crunchy peanut butter and a flavorful (home grown if available) sliced tomato on whole wheat bread is good food! '-)

[christy1122]

My Dad's middle of the night snack favorite thing....Peanut Butter and Mayo.....it's actually quite good...

[jbsiegel]

Throw a piece of American cheese on there and serve on white Wonder bread - yum!

[stymie]

Mom grew up in Spokane during the depression. We often had PB, mayo and lettuce sandw. Trying to work up the nerve to give it a try just for the heck of it. Remember liking it a lot.

[Essex County]

I used to make floats with orange soda and vanilla ice cream. No matter how hard I tried, the soda would always fizz up over the top of the glass and make a mess!

[tmlarsen]

When I was little I would make chocolate toast with butter, powdered chocolate (the one with the metal lid), and sugar. Kind of like cinnamon toast.
It's scary some of the stuff we came up with on those "saturday mornings" when the parents were sleeping.

[dartanian]

We did the same except we used Hershey's chocolate syrup.

[Blush]

Once I found out how good chocolate croissants were, I "made" them myself. Mom would buy plain croissants from the bakery; I'd cut them almost halfway open horizontally, stuff with chocolate chips and microwave until gooey. It probably *would* still taste good...

[dartanian]

I do that now. The only thing I would suggest is up the quality of your chocolate. They're just as good, and much cheaper than what you buy at a bakery.

[adventuresinbaking]

Ketchup, relish and mayo sandwhiches -- on white bread.

Canned ravioli, I grab a can of Arther O's when I'm not feeling well. Nostalgia is very comforting.

Those turnovers that came in little cardboard boxes and those marshmellow covered cupcakes that were little domes and came two to a package. I pick up one everynow and then when I am at the store, but I can't bring myself to purchase them. Sometimes, I think the memories are better than the originals.

[LA Buckeye Fan]

I believe you are refering to Snowballs. I loved the pink ones.

[small h]

Provolone cheese with steak sauce. I have no idea how I came up with that, but I used to really love it.

Oh, & it's not a "concoction," but I was also very fond of those Laughing Cow cheese cubes & the very similar round, cut-in-wedges version (I can't remember the name of it - maybe Prince Something?).

[kmills9408]

My mom used to always serve a block of cream cheese with A1 poured on top of it, with crackers to spead it on. it was always a big hit. I loved it then and love it now. Seems so lowbrow...but she served it recently again at a party....guess what--still a big hit :)

[Caroline1]

Interesting. My first thought was, "Oh, yuck!" But then the old don't knock it 'til you've tried it popped to mind, so I did. On a Ritz cracker. Are saltines better? Anyway, the cream cheese does bring out "fruity florals" and really fresh herb flavors I don't normally pick up on when I use the A-1 on beef or eggs. Thanks. Just not sure I'd ever serve it at a party though. Your mom's friends have to be less messy than mine!

[hungryungry]

what's A-1?

[Caroline1]

A-1 Steak Sauce. It's similar to Worcestershire sauce, but different. It's opaque and a lot thicker. It's one of several bottled sauces the English refer to generically as "brown sauce."

[laliz]

Except I love Worcestershire and don't like A-1 on steak at all.

but, on cream cheese, who knows?????

[Michelly]

Actually, I think the closest British thing to A1 is HP.

[Auriana]

That's good with Pickapeppa sauce too.

[betsydiver]

something similar was always on my mom's party menu... block of cream cheese covered with apricot preserves served w/saltines; i've used pic-a peppa sauce kinda like a cross between worchesttttttersdhire sauce and chutney

[ChrisOC]

Would that be Swiss Knight? I used to love those but can't find them anymore.

[small h]

Aha! I promoted him. Still extant!

http://www.emmiusa.com/en/cheese/proc...

[irishnyc]

Ricotta w/ s&p on white bread (introduced by my dad and grandmother). These days i skip the bread and will just eat the ricotta from a spoon.

Archway oatmeal cookies with peanut butter and Hershey's syrup.

[alliedawn_98]

I never had Archway as a child as they weren't available in my area but since moving to Indiana, I've always looked forward to their wedding cookies at Christmas. I saw signs in the grocery store a while back that said Archway was going out of business!

[goodhealthgourmet]

nooo...really? that's so sad. Archway Dutch Cocoa cookies were my absolute favorite.

[KristieB]

My favorites were Ruth's Golden Oatmeal, the half molasses and half sugar cookie box, and the date/nut foldovers. And the windmills.

[kubasd]

they did go out of business, but were then bought out and brought back. We have their full line in my stop & shop in CT

[wontonfm]

Cherry chip cake (boxed mix of course) baked by a light bulb in my Easy Bake Oven.

ugh

WON
-------
http://whatsonmyplate.wordpress.com

[Georgia Strait]

i can still taste that "cake" (i think we ate it raw cuz really, what can cook under a lightbulb?! ... my friend had a bright turqoise easy bake oven -- my parents would not get me one. they said i could use the real oven and that was it.

[gaffk]

My poor father had four daughters. I shudder to think just how many EZ Bake Oven cakes he had to pretend to be happy to consume. (At least mom taught us a decent frosting recipe.)

Hey, at the time we thought it tasted good.

[buttertart]

i remember a certain Playdoh whiff to it.

[gaffk]

Wow, I remember Playdoh, but am glad dad never had to eat it ;)

[jeanmarieok]

We were talking about this at Christmas. My dad remembers the cake being pretty good,but he said that might be because my mom didn't make a lot of dessert.

[gaffk]

Yes, dad had had a real sweet tooth. So maybe something bad with decent frosting was better than nothing at all? We too had this conversation at Christmas--gone but never forgotten :)

[CindyJ]

It's got to be ketchup on spaghetti. That was my mom's version of pasta sauce.

[amethiste]

I used ti do that because I did not like meat sauce as a kid. Mom would reserve some pasta and I would make a ketchup creation to pour over it. Maybe that's why I don't like ketchup now.

[robin_o]

Although spaghetti and meatsauce was a meal my mother made regularly, I sometimes had spaghetti and ketchup for lunch as a child...and still enjoy it with less ketchupif I ever have a stomach virus and can't digest much. It seems to go down easy and is good enough to meet with no appetite.
I also put ketchup on just about every bland food my mother cooked...roast chicken, brussel sprouts (using a lot since it was the only way I could toerate the "odd" taste.)
Something else I loved was baked beans and strips of bologna. Sounds kind of gross now, but I loved that

[amy_rc]

Mom made a dish of spaghetti, bacon, sauteed onion and ketchup and called it spaghetti red. Tangy and de-lightful! I usually make it about once a year.

[Georgia Strait]

i still make "spaghetti western" --

cook the noodles, drain and add some real butter, some ketchup (real brand name, not generic version) and grated real cheddar (not velveeta type) and celery salt and black pepper. The celery salt is a "must" FLAVOR in this motley meal. Quantities? i would say half a pkg of spag dry (like put your thumb and forefinger around the dry noodles) - maybe a half stick of butter, one cup of ketchup and maybe about a cup and half of grated sharp (like the tillamook in black wrapper) cheddar. add the celery salt and black pepper to taste and make sure you stir it in to the melange.

make sure the noodles are hot enough to melt the cheese / ketchup - it should turn out like alphaghetti sauce.

[victoriafoodie]

"Swamp water". We'd go to the corner store and get a slurpee with every single flavour of slurpee in it, mix it up, and call it swamp water. This was also done with pop at those self-serve pop stations.

[Melanie]

I used to do this too! Except we called it a 'Suicide.'

[lollya]

are you from mpls? we called it suicide too!

[Melanie]

Nope, I'm from California (San Francisco proper, specifically). Gosh, those were so good at the time, weren't they? I can't imagine trying one now :)

[bermudagourmetgoddess]

We call that drink "Round de World" in Bermuda

[KristieB]

We called them that in Bradford, Pa too.

[Auriana]

I'm from San Diego, and we called those Suicides too!

[rosewood]

I used to work in a Burger King in North Carolina and we were forbidden to call them Suicides- the management thought that it was too offensive!

[JungMann]

I was about to bring up suicides, too. I haven't done it in years, but I don't my adult palate would much like the combination of Coke, raspberry ginger ale, grape soda, maple syrup and Lipton iced tea mix, inter alia, any more.

[alliedawn_98]

From southeast Georgia here, and we called that a suicide, too. In high school, everyone congregated at the Flash Foods (local convenience store chain) and would hit the soda fountain to make suicides and buy tons of candy. lol

[goodhealthgourmet]

we called it a Suicide in Jersey too.

[cuccubear]

Here in VA it's "suicide" as well. I still do a variation on it when I get a fountain drink - I fill the cup about 3/4 with Dr. Pepper/Pibb and the rest with Orange soda. It's been a favorite of mine for years, creamy with orange flavor.

[lollya]

i just love that it as all over the states!! we got ours from 7-11

[Starka]

Growing up in Phoenix, we called 'em Kamikazes. And funny enough, now the QT gas chain actively encourages combining flavors from their many soda and coffee and "flavoring" and slurpee and whatever other nozzles they have (grin). Seems like everyone likes to experiment.

[wittlejosh]

South Carolina: called suicides

[punkin712]

i'm from altoona, pa and we called it a "suicide" too! we also used to make our own dr. pepper from coke and orange soda.

[hjordan]

We called it a Suicide in NC too...but a "true" suicide had pickle juice in it too..and 2 slices of pickles if you were really hardcore. But you needed something to counteract the sweet Cherry Lemon Sundrop!

[Bryn]

I call them swamp water too.

[FreshMango]

We used to make the soda ones, but called it a Zombie.

[dartanian]

I'm definitely older than most/all of you because I remember going to the drugstore soda fountain (after school) and getting cherry, vanilla and chocolate cokes. The other drink, a Phosphate, skipped the coke syrup entirely and added phosphoric acid to the flavoring of your choice. ... these were usually 2 cents cheaper and often necessary on a HS allowance....but they tasted good too.

[canabama]

I loved the old cherry coke drugstore fountain drinks as a teenager too! But when the canned cherry coke came out and was my daughter's favorite as a young adult, I couldn't stand it. Guess we do eventually grow up... The mixing every pop available at parties was called swamp water here in southern Ontario when my kids were growing up.

[CanadaGirl]

We call it swamp water in Nova Scotia too.

[invinotheresverde]

Peanut butter and fluff. I know some people love it, but I find it ungodly sweet.

[gaffk]

OMG, the dreaded "Fluffernutter"; never saw the attraction, but they were popular school lunches for my friends when I was a kid.

This Halloween, for the annual party I made s'more cupcakes (devil's food cake, marshmallow frosting and graham cracker crumb topping--with gummy worms, of course). The whole time I was making the marshmallow frosting I had the annoying Fluffernutter jingle running through my head.

"First you spread, spread , spread your breadt with peanut butter. Then marshmallow fluff to make a Fluffernutter!"

[Melanie]

Mayonnaise sandwiches. Not quite the breakfast of champions.

[mcsheridan]

Another mayo sandwich veteran here. Haven't had one in DECADES, thankfully.

[rosewood]

And I thought that I was the only one who at mayo sandwiches. But, it ran like this. When mom "forgot" to buy groceries, it was a lettuce sandwich until the lettuce ran out. Then it was mayo sandwiches until the mayo or bread ran out. Then, it was anything in the fridge that was fit to eat.

[metalgrannie]

No, you aren't the only one. And, I'm now 66 and will have a mayo on white bread once in a while, when I get a craving. Except for those now I use the mayo made with olive oil which I find has a bit of a kick. Great when I'm sleepless at 3-4-5 am and on the computer.

[canabama]

Childhood memories! (I'm "over 60", too) My favourite was mayo and jelly sandwiches -- then there were the peanut butter and dill pickle sandwiches my "northern" grandma made us when we visited. But my all time favorite was fried bologna sandwiches with mayo (and one my kids loved, too. but without the mayo) .

[KevinB]

Oh, this was easy. Saturday mornings, while my parents slept in, I had the twin pleasures of 1) superbly better cartoons (the multi-level intelligence of "Rocky and Bullwinkle" vs. the pan-linguistic stupidity of "Pokemon", for example), and 2) Cocoa Puffs drowned in chocolate milk. Still like the cartoons; the cereal, no so much.

And, Linguafood - your "sugar sandwich" - if you toss in a little cinnamon, and change the cooking order, don't you end up with the ethereal fresh cinnamon toast? I don't make it very often these days, but I'd never turn it down!

[linguafood]

The good cartoons seem to be on late at night nowadays (adult swim), and a fresh cinnamon toast -- straight outta the pan with some molten butter -- sounds like the perfect snack for any ATHF episode '-)

[gordeaux]

Oh the memories.

Bologna and ketchup sammiches

Anything with american cheese on it.

Liberal use of ketchup in general.

Oh here's a really gross one. We used to put ketchup on white bread, cover it with a slice of american cheese, stick it in the microwave, and call it pizza.

Potato chips with ketchup on the side for dipping

The canned ravioli stuff too, for me.

Kraft macaroni and cheese. I usually make a box every few years now - just to satisy an urge. I usually take a few bites, laugh, and pitch it.

I used to eat Miracle Whip on sammiches when I was a kid, and I LIKED it. (hard to admit that one)

Three pieces of bread smeared with butter, topped with fake maple syrup, and into the microwave. Sweet, salty,starchy, and easy.

[Caralien]

My husband still likes mayonaise sandwiches (won't touch Miracle Whip) and mentioned that he used to toss whatever was in his sandwich and eat just the mayo with bread as a kid.

On hot dog day, did you ever take a tootsie roll, put it into the ice cream cup, then set up the wooden spoon/paddle as a tombstone before eating the whole thing with potato chips as scoops?

[amy_rc]

I had two roommies in college. One made the BEST Kraft mac n cheese and the other roommie and I couldn't figure out her secret. It was an ENTIRE stick of butter. Nothing is a better cure for too much beer than that little blue box.

[small h]

There are three possible answers to "why does this taste so GOOD?"

1. butter
2. salt
3. butter + salt

Would that it were not true.

[hungrystudent257]

I can attest to that. By the last day of a camping trip last summer, the only food my friends and I had left was a pound of bacon and a few boxes of mac and cheese (and of course, no butter or milk to make the sauce with). Fried the bacon, dumped all of the fat on the cooked noodles with the offensively orange 'cheese' powder, stir, et voila.

"This is the best Kraft Dinner I've ever had"-- while eating
"Thats the grossest thing I've ever had"-- after learning the secret ingredient

Looking back now, I can't even imagine the taste. Or how we all avoided simultaneous heart attacks

[TampaAurora]

Ginger ale & strawberry soda, any fountain mixology creation - or really most sodas now.

One potentially gross mixture that I haven't grown out of - sauteed mushrooms, onions, peas, white rice, ketchup and sumac. It was my creation out of boredom at the dinner table and trying to avoid eating my mother's steak. I still crave it occasionally, and now eat it without the addition of the ketchup.

[MsMaryMc]

I can't claim this was a childhood whim--we invented this one my freshman year of college. It was Velveeta mixed with sunflower seed kernels. It had to be eaten on Wheat Thins. And since we were 19, it was probably accompanied most times with whatever god-awful alcoholic experiment we'd thought up that night--vodka and grape juice, Southern Comfort and pineapple juice...

[Caralien]

or vodka and black cherry soda? tasted like robitussen, but we drank it anyway. another gross drink was Bengal Spice Tea with Southern Comfort (my memory included a lot of overly sweet drinks based on Southern Comfort, Midori, and Amaretto, and Peach Schnapps)

[coll]

I used to love Jack Daniels and root beer.

[chicgail]

Admittedly disgusting.

But as a child?

[coll]

I wish I was 17 again, I was such a baby....and actually it doesn't taste that bad, even now.

[bermudagourmetgoddess]

Jack Daniels and Pineapple was pretty good, from what I can remember...would I drink it now?...NO

[small h]

Hah! Grain alcohol & iced tea. But please note, not a CHILDHOOD favorite, exactly.

[dingey]

Oh, gawd. I used to mix cheap vodka with orange or pineapple orange FAYGO.

[tracylee]

In college we'd mix cheap vodka into a 2 Liter bottle of orange soda and take it to campus movie night. We called it "econo-drunk".

[amy_rc]

Oh, mine was SoCo and Cherry or Strawberry limeades from Sonic.

[FreshMango]

That actually sounds really delicious. Granted I've got a huge crush on SoCo, and generally drink it on the rocks with a splash of rose's lime, but the cherry lime sounds tasty.

[invinotheresverde]

That sounds positively nausea-inducing! I loathe, loathe SoCo, though.

[EWSflash]

Sorry, but what is SoCo?

[onceadaylily]

Southern Comfort, I think. That's what we used to call it in Michigan.

[Sparkina]

that cheese-spread-sunflower-seed thing actually sounds TASTY and is packed with protein! :-)

[linguafood]

Maybe not *the* favorite of my childhood, but certainly things I used to eat that I don't anymore:

- canned ravioli (I actually really, really loved those)
- sugar sandwiches (toast, butter, sugar)
- marzipan "potatoes" -- ok, more of a confection than a concoction, since you buy them in the store. I'm sure most of the appeal came from the shape and color of the marzipan. I now find them waaaaay too sweet.

Oh, and my mom would whip up the occasional OJ with a raw egg & some sugar. It was called 'sugar egg', and I am guessing it was supposed to be healthy. Gross.

Ah, the 70s :-D

[Caralien]

I used to love toast with butter and sugar (a huge smear of butter topped with as much sugar as possible until the top was crunchy...

The OJ thing reminded me of Orange Julius--that disgusting orange juice, milk, and sugar combo we all had to make in Home Ec. Ugh

[tjr]

Cinnamon sugar toast was one of my favourite breakfast items as a child, after cinnamon rolls!

[hungryungry]

I loved sugar cinnamon toast. I made it for my boyfriend because he had never had it...still great!

[dartanian]

Butter the bread on one side and top with sugar & cinnamon. Place bread slice(s) on cookie sheet and place under the broiler for about 3 min. Check for desired level of toasting. Growing up we called this oven toast, and it's still my favorite way to make toast - with sugar & cinnamon, or just plain buttered bread, it's the best.

[gaffk]

Toast the bread. Spread the butter. Mom always had a jar she had pre-made with cinnamon and sugar mix--shake that on the buttered bread. It's been decades since I've had this, but now I'm thinking maybe a good option for breakfast tomorrow.

[betsydiver]

if we were sick mom would make cinnamon toast covered with warm milk (milk toast) for us... the butter would float on top of the milk and the bread would melt in your mouth

[gaffk]

I was lucky; mom made this for us pretty regularly, not just when we were sick. (And yes, I did make it myself shortly after this post, and it's still delicious :)

[meems_PDX]

My mom made this too! She also made the same thing but substitute cinnamon for cocoa powder...mmmmm!

[goodhealthgourmet]

ugh, the memory of that canned ravioli (and canned Spaghetti Os) makes me shudder...but we thought it was such a treat back in those days!

[PurpleTeeth]

I know i used to love Spaghetti O's had some the other day sooo gross. Also used to love mayo, balonga and white wonder bread. Yuck now.

[EWSflash]

Ditto that. I wonder if they actually taste different now or if my palate never picked up on the bland-bitter thing that I taste now.

[Mr Taster]

I'm not Italian, but I grew up around the heavily Italian-American influenced suburbs of central New Jersey. My parents were hardly gourmets, but they had grown up around home cooked Italian food and small local Italian restaurants, and therefore knew enough to pass up Chef Boyardee for a good Italian/New York brand of frozen ravioli, and to avoid Little Cesars for the local mom and pop pizzerias.

Because of this, I wasn't raised on the canned ravioli, nor do I remember having it at my friend's houses growing up. However, I distinctly remember a time as a teenager where I had a little money in my pocket, and found myself at the supermarket, and gave it a try.

A funny thing happened... it was gross. I knew it was gross. Mushy, overcooked pasta... tinny, sharp tomato sauce. Mealy, gritty "meat" filling. However, there was something comforting to me about the brand-- that smiling chef on the label, a lifetime of memories of Chef Boyardee commercials, and I continued to buy and eat those horrible canned ravioli well into my college years KNOWING FULL WELL IT TASTED TERRIBLE. I knew better, yet I continued to vote with my wallet.

Ever since I discovered Chowhound about 10 years or so ago, I've made a concerted effort to focus on deliciousness as the exclusive factor in determining where my next meal will be. For me, fancy trappings of an elegant restaurant serve the same purpose as that comforting Chef Boyardee label... a way to seduce you in to trying something which may (or may not) be delicious.

Today, 15 years later, I just purchased my first homemade pasta maker-- a Mercato Atlas 150 from ebay, for $13 :)

I guess it just shows you that people eat things for many different reasons, and taste/flavor is just one of many other criteria that goes into our decision making process.

Mr Taster

[EWSflash]

I LOVE your post, I really do. I hve a lot of the same thoughts and impulses. :-)

[meems_PDX]

I used to love canned ravioli, especially the cheese filled ones! I sometimes find myself craving it but I literally cannot eat it now since finding out I am gluten intolerant (maybe even celiac, yikes!).

[jujuthomas]

My mother in law still keeps those in her pantry for DH to have when we to go visit. yick.

[manraysky]

I used to *love* canned ravioli! Every week my mom would let me get one can, and I would take awhile to decide which one I wanted. Then when we got home I doctor it up with all the dried spices we kept in the house, thinking I was being very fancy and gourmet. So good!

I don't think I could eat it now.

[linguafood]

Yeah, I doubt my mom even doctored it up or anything. I think the overall blandness of those dough pockets with their mystery meat filling and the super-bland tomato sauce must be appealing to kids' palates. I am pretty sure I wouldn't like it now either, save for some serious garlic & crushed pepper added. But that would only solve the sauce problem. The ravioli..... ew.

[amy_rc]

It was a treat to go to my Grandma J's and eat Spaghetti-O's with meatballs. I also liked spaghetti straight outta the can, no heat applied. I don't know why she had canned pasta on hand, she was an excellent cook--I guess she thought I really liked it (and I did).

My friends and I all enjoyed a concoction we called barf dip, which I believe the third grade me can accept credit for. It was refried beans, sour cream, Pace picante sauce and guacamole (when available) stirred together and served on tortilla chips. Big hit with third graders in Gardner, Kansas during the summer of 1983.

[Sparkina]

That oj egg beverage reminds me of Sly Stallone in Rocky I drinking raw eggs as a nutritional enhancer (Boy, is my face GREEN!)

[linguafood]

You know, you couldn't really taste the egg, thanks to the OJ and added sugar. And she whipped it so it would have this frothy texture (like many adult cocktails that contain raw egg). It really was not as bad as it sounds, but I would not drink it today. I'll have to ask her next time what that was all about '-)

[dartanian]

We had a full farm breakfast every morning when I was growing up, even though we lived in the city. My mother thought children could not learn unless their stomachs were full. If, however, we were running late,, mom got the milk, raw egg, vanilla flavoring or perhaps Nestle Quick, and beat the concoction to frothiness. She met us at the door and insisted we down it before leaving the house. Actually, I don't remember it tasting bad. Our neighbor, raised in Italy, would just poke a hole in the end of a raw egg and suck it down...that I never even attempted.

[Miss Needle]

I loved canned ravioli as well. I remember the strange look my piano teacher gave me when I told her that Chef Boyardee was my favorite (this was after she was telling me about her love for Raffetto's beef and spinach ravioli -- Raffetto's is an artisanal pasta shop in NYC).

The OJ with raw egg and sugar sounds vaguely like Orange Julius. Also used to love those as a kid. Haven't had it in years.

[rosewood]

I used to love the beef canned ravioli too- now I think it is nasty!

[pegrosen]

roast beef sandwich with tons of mayo and melted swiss cheese

[FibroLady]

@pegrosen : That doesn't sound too disgusting to me! Well, it depends on what you mean by 'tons' of mayo, I guess. I love roast beef sandwiches with melted Havarti or Muenster cheese, especially served on crusty French bread or baguettes. I usually toast the bread on a grill and brush it with butter before grilling. I might add a little mayo (or not) depending on whether I add lettuce and tomatoes, etc. to the sandwich. But, the combo of the rare roast beef and the melted cheese...I LOVE it.

[FibroLady]

Ha! I just noticed I replied to a two year old comment! Too funny. Some of these threads go on forever.

[Mr Taster]

Nothing wrong with replying to a 2 year old comment as long as the topic continues to be relevant and interesting.

However, it would be nice if Chowhound highlighted or red-flashed the date of older comments so people would know immediately what they're replying to.

Mr Taster

[umbushi plum]

i used to make tomato sauce sandwhichs just plastic white sandwhichs with tomato sauce. i'm from australia so i guess its kind of like having a sausage sizzle without the sausage. i also used to eat raw dough, basically mixed up flour and water which i found in the cupboard. thats about all i can remember which was thinking back disgusting. :-)

[Greeny17]

I love eating raw dough! Mix up some flour salt maybe a touch of sugar and milk...its a great snack. or just any left over dough from anything I am cooking.

[KitchenBug]

I was a raw dough eater too... still am actually! I think the most disgusting "dough" I ate was play-doh! My mum used to make it herself, and it was bright pink and super salty, which I loved. She caught me more than once putting chocolate chips in the play-doh, making myself a pizza out of it, and then actually eating it!

[bac0n]

You're right... raw dough does sound disgusting! :p