Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

Butterscotch Krimpets! Mini-bagels with cream cheese! Combos (those pretzels stuffed with spreadable cheese). Doritos (back when there were only the original and cool ranch varieties). Tastycakes, and yes, pb on white bread with grape jelly.

I know I'm supposed to say that the Skippy on rye bread and the still frozen sandwiches with gobs of lettuce and tomato with cold cuts, or worse, foil-wrapped tuna with Miracle Whip set me on a course of healthy eating, with apples or tiny boxes of rasins for dessert, but I really only found healthy eating after realizing that my craving for junk food was based partly on feeling deprived those lunch days rather than the taste of the food.

That said, my mom did spring for lunch money, and I always participated in hot dog, pizza, and McDonald's days, as well as ice cream sandwich days.

In other kid's kitchens--just the idea of being able to eat sweets of any kind with impunity floored me and although I don't care for Mexican food now, because it wasn't served in my home, I adored the ceremony of 'taco nights' or going out to eat at a local Mexican place when dining with one friend.

I followed Slashfood on and off. It is a local to my area flavor. It sometimes mirrors SE in reporting and topics. Last year I noticed that what was some great food stories became the Marisa show and beloved Bob Sassone and the rest of the gang were posting not so often. I kind of ODed on Marisa. The little blue kitchen was kitchy. The videos were funny. I am over it now. Thanks Jep for having me go wander over again after a sabbatical.
The show has more players again.

Oh, there were so many things my parents wouldn't let me eat as a child: cheeze whiz and pop tarts are the two that really stand out. I can remember being at friends' houses and being amazed they were allowed to eat such things.

I think I found most of my friends' moms' home-cooking a bit weird. My folks are extremely health-conscious, and both have always been overweight. Our eating definitely reflected that, with lower fat and calories, lots of fiber, and very little processed food, long before it was stylish.

So, I'm mostly in the camp with what I think of as "commercial" foods. The ones that are advertised as NEW! and IMPROVED! and NOW YOU CAN HAVE ___ AT HOME, WITHOUT THE MESS/WORK/TIME/ EXPENSE (choose your qualification). And most especially those that are advertised relentlessly to children on Saturday mornings.

I too was simply dumbfounded when I first began to realize that other people's parents provided "foods" on a regular basis that in my house were deemed "treats" (at best) and "forbidden CRAP" (most often).

The list of things that literally NEVER crossed our threshhold is so long... Pop Tarts, Hostess Cupcakes or donuts, Twinkies, Ding Dongs, Pillsbury chocolate chip cookies (the slice and bake kind), Pillsbury rolls (the kind in the can you had to break open, which just looked so fun), Jiffy Pop or was it Magic Pop (whatever, the kind in its own foil-covered pan that puffed up as the corn poppped), a pantry stocked with those mini-bags of chips and packaged cookies that were there to eat whenever you wanted, without even having to ask permission! And I was endlessly astonished (and envious) by all the FUN sugar cereals that were clearly available on a daily basis in my friends' houses (Cap'n Crunch, Lucky Charms, Coco Puffs, Count Chocula, etc.).

My mom would buy a big bag of Fritos about once every two months. It was meant exclusively for sack lunches. We were allowed to put a small handful into a sandwich bag (the kind you had fold over, because there were no Ziplocs yet). We could not eat them as after-school snacks. We certainly could not have them with dinner. Same goes for cookies. I think it was usually Oreos.

About three or four times a year, we got one box of sugar cereal. When it was gone, it was back to Cheerios, Chex, Shredded Wheat and Grape Nuts. The only one she ever bought was Trix. I'm not sure why. I'm going to email my mom right now to find out why she picked that one.

Luckily, my dad was a huge fan of ice cream (before his lactose-intolerance progressed to dangerous levels). So that was around fairly frequently.

All of our sweets were homemade and far superior to packaged anything. Everybody always wanted to eat at our house and they would rave about the food as if they had never even tasted food before. My school didn't have a cafeteria. We ate bagged lunches at our desk. One girl used to bring a ton of candy every day and trade it or gift it. I was jealous, until I realized she was basically buying friends. Another incident that stands out was a sleep over. I don't know where her parents were, but her older brother made us breakfast. Coffee and donuts!!! I poured in lots of milk and sugar and felt grown up at 8 or 10. I didn't dare tell Mom, or she'd never let me sleep over again.

I never had home cooking. my mom cooked only when company was coming over. We ate at the pizza parlour all the time. We also went to a hamburger joint often. My grandmother loved to bake cookiees and bread so that is home food. Now i cook everything from scatch. i am 31 a diebetic with high cholestrol and trying to change that.

http://organicandnaturalmom.blogspot.com/

I was at a friends the first time I ever had Chinese take-out (my family usually hit the buffets), probably 7 years old. It came in those paper cartons that I had only seen in movies. Very cool.

Other than that, I would suppose that the awesome smells from my friends' houses were mainly onions, garlic, and lots of herbs like parsley and thyme. In fact, they were probably from onion soup packets and the like--I don't remember any gourmet moms--but my mom almost never used any kind of herbs in any of her food.

There was one mom in particular, though, that served me a couple of dishes that mine would never think to fix or have expected us to like. Split pea soup, and some simple sandwich with ham, tomato, cheese, and dill, toasted. The dill did it for me.

Mostly my mom was feeding boys, and not the kind with adventurous appetites. Being the one girl, and happy to eat everything, I was easily impressed with anything different. Also, my least favorite foods were chicken breast and steak, my brothers' favorites.

My childhood best friend's mom made waffle cookies. In a waffle iron (the classic, not belgian style), with powdered sugar. I was crazy for these, pathetically so. If anyone knows what these are and has a recipe, I beg you to share.

My dad rarely cooked and if he didn't, that meant my mom was. She was a really big fan of pre-packaged, processed, pre-made stuff. I grew up eating that kind of thing and oddly enough, I was always envious of my friend's parents who cooked ACTUAL meals. I specifically remember being 12 or so and going to a friends house for dinner. It occured to me that my friend's mom was making actual mashed potatoes, like, with potatoes. My mom always used the boxed instant potatoes. It made me realize that- and I think it's ok to say- my mom's food sucked.