Secret Indulgences Lost and Kept

[Lore]

This month, I've realized I've become what I feared: a food snob.

It's not a good thing. Some of my old treats are lost to me, and I just don't enjoy them anymore.

Hershey's bar left over from Halloween? Gone. I can't eat one without thinking of the bite of Chocolat Bonnat it might have been, or at the very least, Chocolove.

Lay's chips? Too salty. Snickers bar? Too sweet. I can't even conjure up how I used to like Corn Nuts.

Yet some are still with me: Haagen Daz pints, or Ben & Jerry's. Goldfish. Peanut M&M's.

Am I the lone closet food-snob? Have you lost anything you used to enjoy, or are there favorites still with you?

[pax]

Sadly, I am a food snob. If it's not worth it, why put it in my mouth? It's just consumption for consumptions sake, at that point.

I've evolved a lot in the last 15 years, and my eating/cooking has changed with it. Very few convenience things have survived the cut. Ben and Jerry's is one. Excellent butter is another. Really good meat, sparingly. Frankly, I can cook 90% of anything I can buy, and it'll be more healthy, less expensive, and better tasting. I tend to reserve my buying of premade foods to stuff I can't /don't want to replicate easily. Sandwich cookies. Fig Newmans. Really good potato chips.

Lost: all chain fast food. Even my PMS secret burrito issue has been resolved by an organic mexican joint in town. Grocery store type chocolates. Coffee from anywhere that doesn't have a real espresso machine and real cream.

[sanrensho]

Any type of chocolate that would end up in a Halloween trick or treat bag.

Chocolate gift boxes for Christmas, even if marked as being made from "Belgian chocolate" (yeah, crappy Belgian chocolate) or "Made in Belgium."

Store-bought pies and cakes from any kind of large chain. There's almost always something wrong with these, either two sweet, gloopy or lacking in freshness or textural interest.

I'm sure there are exceptions, but the vast majority of the time I would prefer to save my eating for something better.

Edited December 15, 2008 by sanrensho (log)

[Susie Q]

Like Pax said "If it's not worth it, why put it in my mouth?" If it doesn't taste good I won't eat it.

There are many things I don't care for anymore but I don't consider my self a food snob I just have a cleansed and better educated palate. I stopped buying a lot of pre-fab foods food several years ago when I adopted my own style of portion control. I decided that if I was only going to have a small amount it better be good, made from real ingredients, and from scratch when possible. Not eating and buying all the "regular crap" opened me up to more flavorful choices. After some time passed I would try one of my old favorites I could taste how lacking or overpowering it really was.

All that being said, I do confess to once or twice a year enjoying a very toasted frosted strawberry pop tart with butter on both sides. There are a few other things I still enjoy. I'd rather eat Corn Nuts than potato chips. I'll eat an In-N-Out burger, Popeye' s chicken, but not other fast food. I'd rather have a carnitas taco with fresh salsa off a cart than Taco Bell.

Some "Secret Indulgences" I don't like anymore... Entenmans' Cheese Danish (still like their Louisiana Crunch cake), Butterfingers, Cheetos.

Edited December 16, 2008 by Susie Q (log)

[aliaseater]

As of late, I've developed a jones for Tater Tots.

[Libra20]

When I was a kid, I used to love Pillsbury Crescent Rolls. Now, I can't imagine eating such a processed food, but it would probably still taste good!

[Lindacakes]

As far as baking goes, there is very little I can tolerate that I don't make myself.

I don't think it's so much my incredible pampered palette as the ingredients have cheapened up to the degree that they are generally unpalatable. I don't know (well, I do know, I read Fast Food Nation) how food manufacturers stay in business at the prices they charge. I figure one of my fruitcakes cost about $100, maybe more, when I figure the price of the booze, the fruit, the butter, the Muscovado sugar, the time.

I can't eat Ben and Jerry's any more -- I'll eat Hagen Dazs once in a while, a simple flavor. Can't tolerate Kozy Shack rice pudding any more.

What I do like are those little cinnamon bear-shaped cookies . . . Once in a blue moon (are you ready for this?) I actually want some of those biscuits or rolls from the can. The crescent rolls.

Isn't that sick?

[Lindacakes]

Just saw Libra20's comment -- they taste like they always did. I wouldn't call it "good", but it has that smell, that texture. My mother never would have bought such a product (Bisquick was her pleasure) so it smacks of forbidden indulgence on top of the faux baking powder/butter aroma.

[gingerfreak]

All that being said, I do confess to once or twice a year enjoying a very toasted frosted strawberry pop tart with butter on both sides.

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I never thought to put butter on pop tarts!! They used to be my downfall - I wouldn't have them in the house or the box would be gone.

I can't eat bad chocolate anymore either - it's like sugared wax. Like a lot of people have said, now that I can make most things better than what you can buy, why buy? At least I know what's gone into it.

[Lilija]

I recently discovered that I still love tart candies, like Spree and Sweet-Tarts. I ate a giant box of Spree, almost singlehandedly over the course of 3 days. They were so munchy, and sour, I couldn't quit. It's unusual, because I'm generally not into candy, especially commercial kiddie candy like that. Damn were they good, though.

One thing I have lost the taste for is commercial ice cream. When I was a kid, I loved Bryers, and Ben & Jerry, and now I can't stand either. So cloyingly sweet, I can actually taste the chemicals.

[Chris Amirault]

I work very, very hard to recreate the flavor of Rice-A-Roni's Noodle-Roni Noodles Romanoff, which my mother made when I was a child with a can of light tuna. Noodles Romanoff have been defunct for a decade or two, but I make Annie's shells all the time for my kids and throw in a can of light tuna drained of its water, along with garlic and onion powders, thyme, sage, and LOTS of black pepper.

You can have my duck confit and my truffles. But you'll have to pull that bowl of modified Annie's shells out of my cold, dead hands.

[HungryC]

Plain Lay's, even after the switch to sunflower oil, are my platonian ideal of salty-crunchy junk I can't live without. Homemade or specialty chips don't even come close.

On the other hand, I can't eat mass-market American chocolates; they're downright inedible, with the sole exception of Reese's peanut butter eggs (or trees, at christmas). The holiday-theme shapes have more peanut butter and less chocolate than the standard cups. Oh, and the dark chocolate on the outside of Junior mints still tastes of real cacao. But the chocolate in Snickers, M&Ms, Milky Way, Sno-Caps, etc? A mix of congealed insecticide, sugar, and fake vanilla. Blech.

I'll trade every Milk Dud on earth for just one de Rubeis milk chocolate barwith himalayan salt!

Edited December 17, 2008 by HungryC (log)

[maggiethecat]

I love creamy /salty/crunchy and fiddle about with salsas, guacamole,creme fraiche, yogurt, crudites, home-cooked tortilla slices, tartines, bruschetta et al.

But there's nothing like opening that bag of onion soup mix, stirring it into a tub of sour cream, ripping open a bag of Wavy Lays and having my way with California Dip, eaten standing up, straight from container. With a big glass of decent white wine.

[Peter the eater]

When I was a twenty-year-old rube, my (Commerce student) roommate made BMWs -- baloney and Miracle Whip sandwiches. Served on a Wonder Bread hamburger bun. If we were lucky, they'd be PC -- with a slice of processed cheese. I tried to re-create the experience recently and it really, really sucked.

[DTBarton]

I don't care for a lot of the schlocky sweet stuff I liked as a kid. Things like Captain Crunch cereal, ring dings, cheap candy, etc.

However, some of the crunchy salty stuff I liked back then I still like. Fritos and bean dip (although the dip isn't as good since they stopped using lard) and good potato chips are still enjoyable.

And, unlike the topic starter, I still like corn nuts. Our local hispanic store has them in three flavors, hot, BBQ, and lime. Crunch city!

[pax]

Wow, Captain Crunch cereal. I loved that stuff. I loved to find the little "berries". Oh that's a memory.

[LizD518]

Although I know that most real, home-cooked macaroni and cheese is going to blow the pants off of the supermarket stuff, I succumb to the craving for a box of Annies or other white cheddar boxed mac & cheese about once every couple of months. I often make some "taco beef" and mix that in, replace the butter with sour cream, and have my own version of Hamburger Helper.

On the other hand, I hate cheap chocolate, especially Hersheys. Hershey kisses taste like wax. M&M / Mars products are still fairly palatable though, especially peanut M&Ms!

[Sabrosita]

When I was a kid I looooved Bugles, you know the corn chips type things....So we were on a road trip and I was starving and the options at the gas station were really limited, so I bought a bag... And it became the exception to hunger being the best sauce because those things were REVOLTING. I had loved them as a kid, but now they tasted like rancid butter covered in salt. And nothing else. What was I thinking???

[CKatCook]

Lost? The taste for just about anything processed, cheap chocolate, boxed food of any kind.

But every couple of years or so I HAVE to have kraft macaroni and cheese w/ spam mixed in. I don't know why, my mother use to make it when I was young so maybe that is it. I know it is nasty, but man when I gotta have it, I gotta have it.

[Libra20]

Just saw Libra20's comment -- they taste like they always did.  I wouldn't call it "good", but it has that smell, that texture.  My mother never would have bought such a product (Bisquick was her pleasure) so it smacks of forbidden indulgence on top of the faux baking powder/butter aroma.

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I also used to wrap the crescent rolls around stuff, e.g. blocks of cheese. Or make mini pizzas with them.

LOL about Bisquick. I used to love Bisquick pancakes, but now I make them from scratch.

[JimH]

Just about anything canned or in jars, too much salt. I don't know how I ever consumed commercial salsa on salted tortilla chips.

[Dr. Teeth]

Reeses peanut butter cups. Only problem i've found is that the two cups to a pack container gives false hope to spouses and friends that you will be sharing with them.

[Batard]

I grew up on Spanish Rice-A-Roni. I can't reproduce it -- I'd probably need a science lab -- so I still make it sometimes as a comfort food. I do submerge some fish fillets when it's almost done and top with chopped scallions. But it's still Rice-a-Roni. I get a real jones for Rice Krispies sometimes, and peanut M&Ms now and then, too.

[Kouign Aman]

I love creamy /salty/crunchy and fiddle about with salsas, guacamole,creme fraiche, yogurt, crudites, home-cooked tortilla slices, tartines, bruschetta et al.

But there's nothing like opening that bag of onion soup mix, stirring it into a tub of sour cream, ripping open a bag of Wavy Lays and having my way with California Dip, eaten standing up, straight from container. With a big glass of decent white wine.

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Amen.

[Kim Shook]

I love creamy /salty/crunchy and fiddle about with salsas, guacamole,creme fraiche, yogurt, crudites, home-cooked tortilla slices, tartines, bruschetta et al.

But there's nothing like opening that bag of onion soup mix, stirring it into a tub of sour cream, ripping open a bag of Wavy Lays and having my way with California Dip, eaten standing up, straight from container. With a big glass of decent white wine.

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Amen.

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Yup! I love wavy chips! It's hard to find the truly wavy ones - they've almost all gone over to ridges! Can I bring my fritos to the CA dip party - I like to switch off between the potato and the corn!