Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

Growing up my parents didn't have a lot of money, so we didn't have a lot of "convenience food" in our house. My dad did all the cooking, so we mostly had Mexican meals; lots of beans, rice, chorizo- that kind of thing.

My best friend across the street, however, lived off of fast/junk food. Her parents went out to eat everyday and her pantry was jam-packed with crap. Her grandma used to split a hot dog down the middle, melt a slice of Kraft cheese on it, and then serve it to us with sour cream & onion Pringles. My friend and I would then chop up the hot dog into bite-sized pieces, dip each piece into ketchup, and then plop the meaty/cheesy, tomato-ey morsel on a Pringle and pop it into our mouths. It sounds so gross, but I seriously loved it as a kid.

these are funny!! seems a good few of us have childhood food memories containing processed junk (that we loved).

the funniest bit that sticks out in my mind is this thing my best girlfriend growing up did-(we're still great friend):
every saturday her family did Krispy Kreme every single solitary saturday morning. Without fail, she would spread her plain glazed doughnuts with a good amount of [real] butter and nuke for a bit. It sounds so nasty, but believe me, it was such a delish idea!

You know that marbled "co-jack" cheese? I had a friend who would grate a big pile of it onto a plate, microwave it until it was melted and stringy, and then take a fork to it.

Man, I loved going to her house.

My little sister used to eat butter plain. We had to put it on a high shelf so we'd stop finding finger holes in it. So gross. Freak.

@embolini years ago, when I had custody of neice and nephew I walked into the kitchen to find my neice (4 yrs old at the time) sitting in front of the fridge with a stick of butter in her hand, the wrapper peeled down like a bananna, munching away happily, with a carton of 1/2 and 1/2 beside her. I threw up a little then cleaned her up. so your lil sister isnt the only freak
;-) dont be to hard on her, someday you'll be able to embarass the crap out of her with your stories :-)

my favorite was white bread, probably wonder bread, miracle whip and pickles. I used to love that. But it had to be miracle whip, not mayo.

White bread with mayo, sliced pickles and crushed Frito's.

white bread with peanut butter & pickles. Slices of pepparoni with peanut butter, eaten like a ritz cracker...My Dad made us sugar & butter {soft} sandwhiches on white bread when my Mom wasn't around!

@italiancupcake - that's nice, i'm glad you got a good memory from that.... they're called "babalush" in sicilian.... another of his favorites was the head of the sheep "gabuzella" (of course in italian it would be capo - but we're talking sicilian which is it's own dialect. every have that?????my mother used to make him eat it outside on the stoop!

BLT sandwiches on white bread (toasted lightly) and cut into quarters. Except that when I was a child, I hated tomatoes and lettuce, so it was just bacon.

I used to eat bricks of co-jack cheese. My brother, too. I have no idea why my mother actually no only allowed us to do that to ourselves (we are talking a lot of cheese in one brick!), but actually *gave* it to us!

I used to eat Cheerios (the original, plain kind) with cheddar cheese on top. Did this for years as a snack. Oh, and the other one would be a rolled-up slice of bologna with a smear of mayo on it. And not only did I too once eat part of a stick of butter before my mother discovered me (I have no memory of this), but I've also been told that I once ate part of a bar of soap.

@rdrnr44 ~ That thing about the mushrooms...that is DISGUSTING. The thought of it alone nearly made me vomit.

For awhile my friend and I would wrap slices of turkey around whole pickles and eat them. We stopped when my mom refused to keep buying pickles because it was too expensive.

As a little child I was addicted to this thing called "anzu-bo", which is reconstituted dried apricot in syrup in a plastic tube, and you eat it frozen.
I ate so many of them.
Also loved dried pickled squid on skewers.
(btw, they are marketed toward kids)

Traveller, I do the same thing! Not sure why it tastes best before bed, though. I open the can (little can) and rinse it with cold water. No utensils, only fingers. It's just so tangy and crunchy!

@Kerosena: I am exactly the same! In fact, when I was in Eastern Europe a couple of weeks ago, I would go to the local markets, buy fresh sauerkraut and even take it with me while I walked around, just reaching into the bag with my fingers now and then for a pinch. I feel so much better that I am not alone!!

@alclyp: I did saltines with squeezey-style cheese from a can. Does that count?

These are fun.
I don't think I ate too many weird things as a kid--
I was a fan of peanut butter cups, which we rarely got, so I would sometimes make a little nest of PB with chocolate chips in the center, and nuke it till melty and eat it with a spoon or graham crackers.
I also liked bacon and PB (before it was fashionable to like bacon with everything) and jam and cream cheese sandwiches. Not so odd.
According to my folks I liked to eat sand and tulips as a toddler.

My sis was the odd one. She liked mayo and iceberg lettuce on white bread. Her best was cookie crumbs on white bread, which she then sat on to flatten, then ate. Yuck.
Even now she eats oddly. One of her fave quick suppers is bran flakes and a sliced green pepper. Not together in the same bowl, but eaten at the same time. Makes my tummy hurt to think about bran flakes/milk/sugar/green pepper all at the same time.

Fried bologna cups! We would get this thick cut bologna and my mom would fry it in a pan and for some reason it would create a cup shape and then she would scoop (with an ice cream scoop) a dollop of mashed potatoes (it made for a perfect ball) in the center and we would drizzle ketchup over the top...so good. And we'd each get our own cup. I don't think I've had it since I was 10. Sometimes my sister would get a piece of bread and smush the bologna/potato mixture between the bread and it would ooze out the sides...but she was gross. :)

When I was little, a standard breakfast for me was "Mushed up Graham Crackers in Milk". It is exactly what it sounds like. A brown pablum served cold in a bowl. I retch now to think of it.

Pooch - we had snails a couple of times a year at least. I love them!

I ate a lot of ricotta and jelly on toast. Dad worked for Polly-O and we had ricotta and mozzie in the house.

We always ate exotic foods. After JAWS came out, my mother was one of the first in the neighborhood to buy shark steaks after they became available at the fish monger.

One favorite meal was something my mother called soffrito - which was not like the spice blend favored by latino cooks. It was - cow esophagus and windpipe. She cooked it in tomato sauce. Eventually it was outlawed (something about how it couldn't be thoroughly inspected) but my mother was friendly with a butcher who used to give it to her.

We had calamari with ink - it turned the sauce black and we loved it. The taste was very sweet.

Not sure if it could be considered a "treat" but my mother was one of the few people I knew who could cook liver so it didn't make us nauseous. Most people dry it out and then it just grows as you chew it.

I'm thankful every day that my brother and I were able to experience new and different foods.

celery sticks dipped in ketchup. I thought the peanut butter on celery thing was revolting: still do (and I like peanut butter).

Ahhh POOCH ..here we go again!! YES, gabuzella.. same experience too!! Tried it as a kid and grandpa tried to get me to eat the eye!! No dice though..pretty gross and yes, he ate it out on the stoop!!! Oh! How about tripe!! I love tripe to this day..we're probably in the same family--haha.

@therealchiff, you're another kindred spirit to me and pooch!

Ooh, an awful lot of talk about microwaves here. I'll scroll back the time reel. How about good old baloney (thin sliced & rind removed) fried in butter until crispy & curling. Pan toast some white bread in the drippings. Makes a great sandwich drenched with ketchup.

Ritz crackers with PB and Welch's Grape Jelly for a no-cook treat.

Space Food Sticks. Loved them!

-Dawn

@italiancupcake & realchiffonade - funny .... glad i'm not the only one who was raised on snails, eels, sheeps head.... we must have had the same grandfather -- he would stick the eye on a fork and wave it in my face and then pop it in his mouth! when i was 10 years old i was eating raw clams at the feast with him.... he'd squeeze the lemon on the clam and tell me "watch it move"... oh, and chicken feet! my mom always made soups from chicken feet. i love chicken feet.

I still snack on canned sliced mushrooms. That's the only reason we even buy canned mushrooms, so I can snack on it straight from the can. For our meals, we use fresh or dried mushrooms only.

Another snack I still make for myself...just out of the rice cooker medium grain white rice, mixed with a raw egg, and a dash of shoyu. If I feel like adding a topping, I'd either make a quickie chicken salad (canned chicken with mayonnaise -- no time for boiled eggs!) or very rare roast beef from a deli. Most of the time, I prefer to eat it with Korean nori.

Just a bag of saltines. Oh and also a big stick to play battle or whatever with.

white bread, grape jelly, slice of american cheese (only white american from the deli would do)

My mother's favorite after-school snack, circa 1945, was a sandwich of thinly sliced red onion soaked in vinegar. I never tried it myself, but I'm tempted now.

As a child, I preferred fried-mushroom sandwiches. Simplicity itself - slice, fry in butter, and pile on good sturdy white bread. When I was younger, though, I loved ketchup sandwiches - just ketchup and bread. Can't stand ketchup today; won't have it in the house. I also loved licorice jelly beans; I was in hog heaven when one of the local markets offered them in bulk for a while.

My daughter, when she was young, would eat tofu straight out of the box. Also beansprouts, raw and unadorned.

My son, as a small child, loved popcorn with Taco Bell's taco sauce.

Growing up in the Ucraine, often had this snack with my grandma : LARD, straight from the fridge, cut in little pieces, with some raw garlic and a bit of dark rye bread. Could't touch it now!

Strangely, a big old bowl of Uncle Ben's converted rice with tons of butter and salt.