Tastes Change
As I’ve aged, it’s unsurprising that my tastes change as well. There are also comfort foods that seemingly never change.
How Tastes Change
Before I retired, one of my clients was Campbell Soup. They had a company store that sold products from the various companies they owned…Pepperidge Farm, Godiva Chocolate, Spaghetti-O’s, etc. Browsing through the company store, I remembered how much I LOVED SpaghettiOs with Meatballs!
We used to beg my mom for this at the grocery store.
So I decided to pick up a can. You know…so I could re-live my childhood.
Bloated, overcooked pasta rings in watered-down ketchup and little chunks of dog-food strewn throughout. Fucking disgusting. I honestly had to force myself to taste it.
Also recently, Thaddeus and I went to White Castle. We chatted with some customers in line and asked how many sliders is a normal-size portion for one person. They insisted it was at least 10.
They were wrong. At least for us. We ordered 20 sliders with cheese, fries and beverages. The sliders came in a cardboard suitcase.
Unlike the SpaghettiOs, I enjoyed the White Castle sliders. But there was no way I could enjoy 10 of them. After I forced down the 8th slider, I realized the law of diminishing returns compelled me to stop and throw out the remaining 2 sliders.
Aging and Comfort Food
Honestly, aging has changed what I find appealing. Gorging on 10 sliders is no longer enjoyable. But I still do enjoy some of the more simple things from my childhood.
Well…technically, I never had Marias Galletas as a child. But they remind me of animal crackers when I was young. A simple cookie with a nice hot cup of tea will do quite nicely for me now.
How about you? Disgusting food from your childhood? Comfort food that you still enjoy?
Current Crochet
I wrote that I’d do better in the last blog entry, so I finished one of the Crochet Thermal Stitch hats and made a lot of progress on the other one.
I have become quite obsessed with this hat design and seeing what it looks like in various yarns.
Perhaps I’ll stop when I reach a dozen. Perhaps not.
Omg. Exact same thing but with chef boyardee ravioli. Though I was also a spaghettios fan.
Of course we should also take into account that they have likely gotten to be of an even lower quality over the years as so many things have. 😼
I’m with ya in the Spaghettios. Blargh!! Liptons chicken noodle soup is still my go to when the world is too much with me. Lol. I started this hat in yarn that I just couldn’t figure out what to do with, and I am so pleased with it! It’s a highly variegated merino/cashmere, and it’s a joy to work with! Thanks for the inspiration!
Blargh is exactly right…OMFG. Liptons chicken noodle soup was never a big thing at my house growing up, but I’ve always like the seasoning they use.
Finally, “thanks for the inspiration” is one of my favorite expressions. Both saying it and hearing it. So glad this stitch uses what sounds like a beautiful yarn to it’s best advantage.
How about a reverse concept: foods you despised as a child and love now? I still cannot fathom why I loathed pizza as a small child. Considering that I grew up in one of NYC’s boroughs filled with tasty ethnic delilghts, the competing pizza joints offered the best. Finally, in later teen-age years I got with it and to this day delight in the splendors of good NY-style pizza.
Oh, and trips to While Castle were prized — especially for their thick shakes with god-knows-what ingredients in lieu of ice cream.
Thanks for your posts, Joe, as they start my days with a smile.
Even as a child, I never could tolerate canned pasta from any popular brand. I was fortunate to have a mother with a great talent for cooking–she actually cooked professionally for a private household for several years. Cooking pasta is so fast and easy that paying extra for a canned product is–for me–not a good choice.
On the other hand, over a long lifetime I have always had a real liking for milk-shakes and malts that has never changed.
Tossing half the buns and doubling the filling might have worked. I honestly can’t say how many bazillion years it’s been seen I had White Castle. Couldn’t possibly eat canned pasta.
I can’t proofread either, LOL. The word “seen” clearly doesn’t belong—should have been “since.”
I loved Chef Boyardee beef ravioli as a child and still do. Strangely, when I had health problems back in 2016, quite a few foods ended up tasting horrible. I could force down most things. Well loved Chinese was just too much and Fred got a double share.
If we made a formerly delicious pasta with tomato and meat sauce, it was awful to me. But the Chef Boyardee canned ravioli never failed to taste good. It was so odd and a mystery.
Today, my family gives cans of it to me at birthdays and Christmas. It is always a “too tired to cook” treat.
Not fond of Maria crackers, but can’t resist Graham crackers. Ha, ha!
I can still eat ring dings (ding dongs). The chocolate hit and the texture is still right on. Cereals like corn pops, sugar flakes eeeek! Too darn sweet. They melt almost immediately leaving you with sweetened milk. Sodas too. Once you give them up the sugar content is overwhelming. And the carbonation. My system just can’t take it. I’m over peeps too. WAH! I see them everywhere but the taste is so disappointing. Any sweets you can no longer stomach?
I can’t think of a sweet item that I can’t stomach anymore. As LauraRose mentioned, some items have gone down in quality and I don’t like the current version of them. But if they were still making them like when I was a kid, I’d probably still be eating them. Funny Bones (chocolate covered cake filled with peanut butter cream) is a good example…the current version is inedible, but I used to LOVE them.
Funny story about Ring Dings – during the years I lived in Massachusetts, ’64-’69 about, a neighbor woman worked at the Drakes factory. A lot of “seconds” were pulled from the line when they were poorly wrapped or unevenly coated with chocolate. This neighbor would bring home Hefty bags filled with Ring Dings and give them to our family. So good.
Never been to White Mountain, but I still enjoy the odd box of KD. It was a forbidden fruit in my childhood.
Oh, man, you have totally hit on my weak point. White Castles! So many memories. Once or twice a year, I still indulge, but only in the true, pure, cheese-free burgers, the originals — not those gussied-up johnny-come-latelies. (Yes, that’s how old I am.) After burger #4, pleasure starts morphing into “what was I thinking.” But I always buy extra to heat up for breakfast the next morning.
PS Because of your hats, I may have to learn to crochet.
Mac n cheese from a box. Hot dogs. Zebra cakes. All once beloved, I find them inedible now.
I can eat piles of veggies blissfully though.
A good burger is a rare but comforting tradition.
I still love potato chips.