Wednesday, January 04, 2006

Snack Food Meme

Norma, over at Collecting My Thoughts and five other blogs, believe it or not, has tagged me with this meme: "What snack items did your mother allow in your home and put out for you when you were growing up — either home made or store bought? And what item was absolutely not allowed?"


So, I'll give it a quick try now before the request fades from my memory, but I am afraid that Norma will be terribly disappointed with this result because there simply wasn't much in the way of snacks at our house, or so my memory tells me. For one thing, we were poor. While our fundamental needs for nourishment were always attended to, there weren't really funds for many frivolous extras. In addition, Maw was rather obsessed about keeping everyone thin. She must have been terribly disappointed with the disappearance of my thin self in adulthood. Not that I'm not disappointed with myself, mind you. For another thing, I didn't have a big appetite when I was young. Perhaps it was because of the very plain and often unappetizing fare that constituted our typical meal.


When I say that I didn't have a big appetite, that's correct, but, somewhere along the trail, I did get exposed to fries, chips, chocolate bars and their ilk, and I know that I always liked junk food like that: just never had it with great frequency. But those are really treats more than snacks, and I did get occasional treats. Otherwise, I didn't eat a lot on a regular, daily basis. I kept busy riding about on my bike and playing with friends as kids did back then. They coop themselves up in their houses now and watch TV or play Nintendo or whatnot, but life was different then. Actually, I feel a wee bit sorry for modern kids. Sadly, they are missing out; happily, they don't know it.


There's also my very poor memory to consider. I don't do well with blank slate questions. I require leading. Did you have salty snacks when you were a child? Not much, except that I sometimes managed to con Dad into buying me a bag of potato chips when he walked me home from Wolf Cubs. Did you have Twinkies and such? No, never heard of them at the time. What about fruits and veggies? I don't imagine that there was an abundance although these would have been provided at meals, but I never much fancied these healthy alternatives. Although I do somewhat better now, I never loved fruits and veggies as a kid.


I did drink a lot of milk as a kid. I imagine that was my main snack if that's what you'd call it. I also fancy that there might often be a piece of toast or two with my milk in the evening. I don't suppose that any snack food was absolutely verboten because whatever might fit in that category was never purchased and on hand in the first place.


Well, Norma, that's about it. Sorry that I can't do better, but it was fun trying to remember.


This meme can be passed on to people who are fifty years old or more. I don't really know who is and isn't, but I know that few are of such an age, and so I won't specifically tag anyone. I don't see why other mature adults couldn't try to flash back though.


 

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

I must admit that I do meet the required criteria.. but I too do not remember much about my long ago eating habits. There is so much abundance now.. but it was different when I was young. I just ate what was put in front of me. If I remember correctly, we did not even have a Mac Donald's until I was about 15.
I do remember that we had potato chips. When I was about 10, I ate so many at one sitting that I was sick.. to this day, I do not eat potato chips. That is a good thing. :-)

Madcap said...

When I was a kid, I ate bread, bran muffins, and Shreddies. Craved the stuff. I found out later that I'm celiac and all those things were killing me. Ah, I miss those Shreddies!

Bonita said...

I'm amazed I lived through the snacks Mother provided - icecream, oreo cookies, Nestles Quick cocoa, potato chips - we were such skinny kids, she tried everything. But now,I don't eat any of that stuff, I just eat 4 small meals a day, of what ever is available...and it is all basic food groups. Oh, and little Hershey kisses, every day.

mreddie said...

Don't remember many snacks before I was about 12, after that I had a paper route every day and I was on a see-food diet - nothing edible was safe. If you didn't hide it somewhere it was eaten. :) It was normal for me to deliver papers in the morning and stop by the soda counter at the drugstore for a banana split before going home for breakfast. :) ec

Dee said...

My mom was a fabulous baker and yes she was the mom who was waiting with cookies and milk when I came home from school. *s* She made the best yellow cake I have ever eaten. She also made great pies. One of her cake recipes appeared on the hersheys box for a long time. (She was a foster mom and 65 when I went to live with her.) Anyway hersheys had a baking contest when she was like in her early twenties and she entered a chocolate cake recipe and won. It was is sooooooooo good. I bake it but not often. *s*

Valerie - Still Riding Forward said...

Popcicles made in an ice cue tray from Kool Aide.

Fizzies! A treat we got with our allowance. Drop one nickle sized tablet in a glass of water watch it fizz then drink the carbonated fruit flavored beverage! Wish you could still get these, they were fun.

Bread with real butter sprinkled with sugar and cinnamon, then rolled up tight and nibbled.

Leaf lettuce sprinkled with sugar and rolled up to make a crunchy sweet treat.

Garden fresh strawberries, till Grampa caught us and chased us away!

Home made fudge, chocolate with home cracked walnuts or hickory nuts. You couldn't pay us to clean our room but we would spend days cracking nuts and picking the meats for fudge.

My favorite snack was a chocolate eclair from the bakery. They cost a whole quarter but were a delicate puff pastry about 4 inches across by 6 or 7 inches long and two or three inches deep, filled with yellow custard and topped with a dark chocolate icing. To die for! Could take a half hour to eat in treasured bites on the walk home.

And yes, I am over weight now...LOL though I wasn't then because we played or worked it off.

Anonymous said...

It is really an interesting subject! I'm only 23, and I can see a huge difference now from when I was ten...That is here in Norway though. I remember playing outside, sledging, skiing, riding my bike, building small huts here and there, playing different games and such. I also remember having candy every saturday and on every special occasion (like birthdays and Christmas). Now I don't see kids out playing that much, and parents just don't seem to know how to feed them well. My mom is a teacher, and she tells me many kids are all boisterous. It was recently on the news that too many kids are given the diagnosis of AD/HD. I wouldn't be surprised if it's because of unhealthy food and too much sugar.

Granny said...

My mom, now 93, baked so we had gingerbread, chocolate chip cookies, molasses cookies, all kinds of sweets. Chips were more uncommon. Not forbidden but not a steady diet either.

We were rationed on store bought candy. My brother and I could make a Hershey Bar (5¢ for a large bar) last for 3 days. My mom made fudge, taffy, and candied apples.

When Dairy Queen (or whatever the local name was) opened, maybe 1951?, we went once a week during the summer for a cone.

We had the healthy stuff as well and wonderful homemade ice cream. My uncle kept cows. You may have read part of this on the "memory" meme over on granny.

Looking back, we did very well. We weren't rich at all but I never felt poor or deprived.

Granny said...

Oh, and does anyone but me remember the "phosphate"? I don't if they traveled to Canada but they were very popular in the New York Mohawk Valley where I grew up. Reading the comment about fizzies reminded me.