Childhood "Treats"

[annoy_ken]

Buttery-Sugary Wonderbread... That was a nice memory, I didnt eat them myself, but my dad loved them. It didn't have to be butter, he seemed to prefer magerine.

My favorites as a kid were:

Store Bought:

Entenmann's cakes: the buttery tops of the Pound Cake, Cheese Danish, and Stella D'oro Swiss Fudge Cookies. Wise Cheese Waffies. Nabisco Chicken in a Bizkit. Hostess Pudding Pies, Twinkies, and Drakes Funny Bones. Gus's Spicey Pickles and Half-Sours. Gus's pickled Sweet Peppers. Guava Paste.

Home Assembled:

Peanut Butter and Mayonnaise (an invention of my sisters) on Wonder Bread

Peanut Butter and Sweetened Condensed Milk on toast.

Lightly fried Baloney sandwich with a slice of Kraft Cheese Product.

Fried Potato and Egg with Mayonnaise.

Hamburger with Mayo on Rice.

My parents immigrated from China and never did understand my facination with sickly sweet cakes or mayonnaise.

And NOBODY understands Peanut Butter and Hellman's Mayonnaise.

[ErinM]

In my preschool years I would demand that my mother make me a big plate of noodles with lots of pure butter for lunch nearly every day. I would salt and pepper it to oblivion and then gorge. It's no wonder I'm taking cholesterol and blood pressure meds today. 

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Mmm, buttered noodles! My mom will swear that I lived on those for a few years, it was all she could get me to eat! She didn't feel too bad about it though, since she lived on the same thing when she was in nursing school. Alas, it's a treat that I don't think either one of us really eat anymore.

We also used to eat those little prepackaged fried pies that ostensibly had either "fruit" or "chocolate pudding" filling in them. I have no idea why those were so appealing, but I ate a ton of them the summer I turned 12. I looked at the nutrition label on one a couple of years ago - those things have like 40 grams of fat, about 30 of which are saturated fat grams. I think any plaque on my arteries has got to be about 90 percent chocolate pudding fried pie, all left over from that one summer.

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I ate those too! My favorites were the lemon and the chocolate pudding. In fact, I recall a time in my late teens when I was eating one lemon pie A DAY. Sometimes I do get the craving for them, but a quick glance at the nutritional facts cures me of that. I think I'm going to indulge next time I find them, just because it's been so long...

In thinking back on my childhood, my mom was very liberal. Nothing was taboo in our house, and we quite the junkfood cupboard and candy drawer that was the envy of all of our friends. I say it's to her credit, because neither me nor my brother are junk food addicts today. At least, I'm not. I can't really speak for my brother...I think he eats more than I do, but I don't think he eats so much that it's detrimental to his health or anything like that.

[Gastro888]

Buttery-Sugary Wonderbread... That was a nice memory, I didnt eat them myself, but my dad loved them. It didn't have to be butter, he seemed to prefer magerine.

My favorites as a kid were:

Store Bought:

Entenmann's cakes: the buttery tops of the Pound Cake...

And NOBODY understands Peanut Butter and Hellman's Mayonnaise.

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Ai ya! PB and Mayo?!?!

Oh my gosh, ENTENMANN'S!!! They don't make their all butter pound cake anymore like they used to. Man that joint was the bomb. It was goooooood. But now they have this sickly all butter cake that tastes like all margarine. Ew.

[touaregsand]

OMG, fried chicken skin.  *drools*

I could never understand people who DON'T like chicken skin.  I love chicken skin...it's-just-so-delicious!

When I was a kid, I would eat two Wonderbread slices slattered with butter or margarine and sprinkled with white sugar.  Funny thing is that I learned how to eat this at my dad's Chinese carryout! 

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When I worked at an Italian restaurant with a lot of a lot of Cambodian kitchen help, they all did the same thing --only with the dinner rolls - and warmed them up in the pizza oven. Maybe it's an Asian thing.

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Nah, I did the same thing but on Jewish Rye. In fact I spent a summer at sleep away camp where I had one at least once a day, but that is another thread.

Chicken skin, turkey skin, duck skin. If I was really lucky I got the tush of the chicken on Friday nights (I can't remember the Yiddish word for it).

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Actually, all my other Asian friends (and non-Asian friends) think I'm off my rocker when I do my bread-butter-sugar bit. Before this forum, I've only met one other person so far (until now!) that did this and she was from Scotland!

Wow, I didn't know that non-Asians enjoyed the chicken tail! My father and I love that part of the chicken. Growing up, I never liked it until one day I saw the light. I get flack from my relatives for liking it. OK, would it be strange to admit that I would like to have a meal of salt-roasted chicken tail au jus with rice?

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I always thought the bread with sugared butter or margarine was a Korean thing.

(I'll sit back and wait for the Korean contingency here to emphatically state they have never heard of such a thing. )

[Gastro888]

I think it's an Asian thing - perhaps to make up for the fact we don't have alot of dairy, white sugar and bread in our diets!

(What's really yummy is to do this with fresh soft rolls from the farmer's market. Oooh yeah)

[touaregsand]

I think it's an Asian thing - perhaps to make up for the fact we don't have alot of dairy, white sugar and bread in our diets!

(What's really yummy is to do this with fresh soft rolls from the farmer's market.  Oooh yeah)

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My favorite way to eat it when I was a kid was to flatten the bread or squeeze it untill it was totally compressed.

Man this thread brought back alot of memories. Made me feel really American.

Eating Jello straight out of the box

Dipping my finger into kool aid powder

Crisp chicken skin

Deep fried rice cakes with sweet bean filling

Raw Sapporo Ramen (noodles smashed with the seasoning added, eaten like chips. This I know is Korean, probably Asian thing)

Raw Korean bbq (basically yukueh) before my mom had a chance to cook it

There's more I just can't remember now. My parents pretty much let me eat everything.

[Mooshmouse]

There's been talk of butter and sugar on white bread as well as condensed milk on buttered white bread in the Bizarre Bits Between Bread thread. Until I read about sugar bread on eGullet, I always thought it was a Filipino thing too.

Sparked by touaregsand's description of "Eating Jello straight out of the box" and "Dipping my finger into kool aid powder", I suddenly remembered my childhood love for drinking cream straight out of the little plastic containers, dipping my finger into a dish of CoffeeMate and squirting ketchup out of the little packets. Sucking on sugar cubes, of course. And the sheer pleasure of eating a soft, buttered hot dog bun. No hot dog. Just the bun.

Edited May 6, 2005 by Mooshmouse (log)

[ludja]

I'm thinking of "afterschool" treats when I read the title of this thread--and also "non-transfats"...

Besides common things liks cookies--other 'treats' were:

licking batter from making cookies/cakes or whipped cream

saltine crackers with butter and peanut butter

softened butter with brown sugar spread on bread

if a roast chicken was coming up for dinner-- pan fried chicken livers smooshed onto a piece of white bread.

raw sticks of rhubarb with sugar (bite, dip, bite, dip...)

edit to add after re-reading some of the above--my Austrian mom is(was) a big fan of butter-sugar bread--I never thought of it as Austrian b/c I believed my Mom's sweet tooth trumps all national roots!

Edited May 7, 2005 by ludja (log)

[touaregsand]

I think ludja and moosh are my lost childhood culinary soul mates!

[Viola da gamba]

Sparked by touaregsand's description of "Eating Jello straight out of the box" and "Dipping my finger into kool aid powder", I suddenly remembered my childhood love for drinking cream straight out of the little plastic containers, dipping my finger into a dish of CoffeeMate and squirting ketchup out of the little packets.  Sucking on sugar cubes, of course. 

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Ha ha - sucking on sugar cubes - I swear - the horses never got half as many sugar cubes as we said we were giving them. As to sticking fingers in packets - wasn't that the whole reason for the existence of pre-packaged cake mix & those little packages of stuff you got for the Easy-Bake Ovens? I know we never actually cooked them ...

[Corinna Dunne]

Eating the knust off my grandmothers homemade bread, slathered with butter. 

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Me too... except it was the crust of my mother's brown soda bread, straight out of the oven. Cutting the bread when it was hot used to make it crumble and fall apart, but she knew I was incapable of waiting.

I also loved 'the scrapes'... licking the raw cake mixture that was left on the bowl, particularly madeira cake.

[rajsuman]

Other than the normal treats like candy, soda and icecream, these are what we (my brother & I) frequently had as children:

-We used to eat white bread with sugar too. Except in our case, it was ghee instead of butter. So it's an Indian thing too, I guess.

-Lemonade with an obscene amount of sugar. During summer vacation every year, we'd go to my grandparents' house and all the children (about 10 of us cousins) would volunteer to make our own saturated-with-sugar lemonade

-Climbing trees and picking our own fruit like guavas, starfruit, mangoes and mangosteen from our grandparents' garden was a big treat for me and my brother, since we used to live in the city.

-My grandma would frequently send parcels to us with at least two types of my favourite sweetmeats and snacks. To this day when I see a particular sweetmeat, I think of her, just as she thought of me when she saw/made them.

- And at the risk of sounding really weird, these were treats to me: powdered milk eaten with a spoon, same with horlicks and powdered sugar.

[afn33282]

Well when I was a little baby kid my mother, God bless her, gave me crackers and told me that they were cookies. Until my sainted Grandmother set me straight.

Also, when I was in my "biscuits are my favorite food" phase, and I was young enough to talk the lunchladies into giving me thirds and fourths, my treat was for my Mom to take my brother and I through the KFC drive-through for biscuits with butter and honey. MMmmmmmmm

[lexy]

Well when I was a little baby kid my mother, God bless her, gave me crackers and told me that they were cookies.  Until my sainted Grandmother set me straight. 

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There's a family story that when my brother and I were little, my parents didn't serve us dessert. Then one fateful day at our grandmother's house, she asked us what we would like for dessert after out meal. "Dessert? What's that?" we asked - and despite my parents' good intentions, it was all downhill (or uphill? ) after that

Definitely another vote for licking bowls of icing clean, and hot slices of homemade bread slathered with butter here.

[easternsun]

OMG, fried chicken skin.  *drools*

I could never understand people who DON'T like chicken skin.  I love chicken skin...it's-just-so-delicious!

When I was a kid, I would eat two Wonderbread slices slattered with butter or margarine and sprinkled with white sugar.  Funny thing is that I learned how to eat this at my dad's Chinese carryout! 

←

When I worked at an Italian restaurant with a lot of a lot of Cambodian kitchen help, they all did the same thing --only with the dinner rolls - and warmed them up in the pizza oven. Maybe it's an Asian thing.

←

Nah, I did the same thing but on Jewish Rye. In fact I spent a summer at sleep away camp where I had one at least once a day, but that is another thread.

Chicken skin, turkey skin, duck skin. If I was really lucky I got the tush of the chicken on Friday nights (I can't remember the Yiddish word for it).

←

Actually, all my other Asian friends (and non-Asian friends) think I'm off my rocker when I do my bread-butter-sugar bit. Before this forum, I've only met one other person so far (until now!) that did this and she was from Scotland!

Wow, I didn't know that non-Asians enjoyed the chicken tail! My father and I love that part of the chicken. Growing up, I never liked it until one day I saw the light. I get flack from my relatives for liking it. OK, would it be strange to admit that I would like to have a meal of salt-roasted chicken tail au jus with rice?

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in my house we called the chicken tail "the pope's nose" - but i have no idea why....

my favourite snack? i didnt get any snack foods or junk foods. honestly, saturdays and sundays, we ate eggs benedict and that has to be my ultimate.

i wanted to eat all those junk foods but i would not disobey mom. and mom did not make ANYTHING junk foodish or "bad" for me.

i still dont know what a hostess twinkie tastes like.

i grew up drinking milk and occassionally, fresca as a treat. i ate diet yoghurt until i was an adult (ok, until last year) .

my weakness - the one thing that i indulge in about once or twice a month - white, squishy, soft bread and i think the only reason that i do it, is because i was never allowed to eat it!

i want to be the nana who makes bacon fat sandwiches and lets you eat raw dough bits!

Edited June 2, 2005 by easternsun (log)