One child's packed lunch obviously made all the other kids jealous .....

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I prefer M&Ms in my sandwiches. 

What a carin parent, he/she even removed the crusts from the bread. 

Oi, and to think I felt guilty whenever I bought chicken nuggets and fries from Mc Donalds to save time.  At least that wouldn't have sent the insulin levels soaring quite as much...  (not to mention rotting the teeth.) 

wait, i'm missing some hazelnut spread to make it even more yummie, bad mom!

I cook chicken fillets every morning to put into my sons' wholegrain rolls.   And sometimes that's after cooking them breakfast!!!  It's all go! go! go! in my kitchen.   Sometimes, if I'm up early enough, I even bake chocolate muffins for them to take as a treat.   No wonder they love me! 

That rivals my childhood favorite, mounds of Kraft Marshmallow Fluff and extra-crunchy Jif Peanut Butter on Wonder Bread. 

Even better if they were followed by many Hostess Twinkies, Tootsie Rolls and Strawberry Twizlers - all washed down with lots of Orange Tru-Ade, YooHoo Chocolate "Milk" or REAL Cherry Coke.

Of course, nothing beat the original A&W Draft Root Beer floats in frozen, thick-glass mugs, but you had to find an actual barrel-shaped retail soda fountain to get them. 

Cheers, Terry

I don't have any mental images in my brain to match with anything you've just mentioned Terry.

Originally Posted By Traveller (31 JAN 2012 1:29pm)

Oi, and to think I felt guilty whenever I bought chicken nuggets and fries from Mc Donalds to save time.  At least that wouldn't have sent the insulin levels soaring quite as much...  (not to mention rotting the teeth.) 

Speaking of chicken nuggets, an truly bizarre medical case involving chicken nugget addiction has popped up in the news recently:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2092071/Stacey-Irvine-17-collapses-eating-McDonalds-chicken-nuggets-age-2.html

Originally Posted By Caroline (31 JAN 2012 5:51pm)

I don't have any mental images in my brain to match with anything you've just mentioned Terry.

To be largely expected as they're quintessential American treats, I can second fond memories of growing up with nearly all of them (although I'm not familiar with Orange Tru-ade). But you have no equivalent of the root beer float? Most unfortunate.

What a long way we've come.  Now you mention it, I remember how we loved licking sour Kool-Aid from the packet - the powder of what is no doubt a beverage stuffed with artificial ickiness. Ugh, and those thick sticky toffees, and those cool eye-watering sour ones. And besides Coke and Pepsi, a fizzy drink drink I don't see around any more, called "Pine-nut".   Ah, and the chocolate spread on white bread we used to love so much. You could just as well eat cake than white bread with chocolate spread.   These days, white bread is banned from my abode, and only low-GI seeded loaves are allowed.

..and it's funny- after years of not having it, white bread tates like tasteless cotton wool, and I actually PREFER the taste of fat-free milk to that of creamed milk.

I guess food is very much an acquired taste.

(I've never lost an affinity for coffee or hazelnut/almond/liquor-filled dark chocolate, though) 

Yay for capitalism, I went to the supermarket today and they started selling foil-wrapped chocolate easter eggs today.

Although easter is still 10 weeks away, i can already enjoy those chocolate delicacies  

Originally Posted By Andromus (31 JAN 2012 5:58pm)

... 

 

Originally Posted By Caroline (31 JAN 2012 5:51pm)

I don't have any mental images in my brain to match with anything you've just mentioned Terry.

 

 

To be largely expected as they're quintessential American treats, I can second fond memories of growing up with nearly all of them (although I'm not familiar with Orange Tru-ade). But you have no equivalent of the root beer float? Most unfortunate.

Tru-Ade was a short-lived brand of soda pop that came (I believe) only in orange and grape flavors. 

It was similar to Nehi, but with far less carbonation.  So you could chug a whole bottle like fruit juice. 

No idea where the brand was sold other than the U.S. central east coast back in the late 1950's to early 1960's.  

Of course, we kids lived on Kool-Aid and homemade lemonade during the summer back then and bottled soda was more of a special treat.

At drug-store soda fountains and soda shops, they made Coca-Cola from syrup and selzer water, mixed on the spot with a healthy squirt of marachino cherry juice added on request.  That was the original Cherry Coke. 

The also sold candy by the foot in the form of long, thin strings of black or red liquorice and chocolate or fruit-flavored "buttons" on thin strips of paper. You could also mix and match dozens of other individual penny candies and gums by the bag or buy larger packs / boxes / bars for a nickle. 

My dad used to say packaged candy was a total rip-off, because when he was a kid you could get two giant eclairs or cream puffs made from scratch at a real bakery and smothered in rich, dark chocolate or an extra large bag of assorted candies for five cents or less. 

Gasoline was only twenty cents a gallon and you could get a complete sirloin steak dinner at a fancy restaurant for around a dollar.

Cheers, Terry 

I was in high school and on a skiing holiday in Austria before I tasted Coke Cola and Fanta.  There was remarkably little junk food in my diet as a child.  I remember tasting my first hamburger (age 23) in MacDonald's in Oz and thinking it was simply wonderful - especially the salty shoe string fries!!!! 

I was raised up drinking water and eating plain home cooked meals (spuds, cabbage, carrots, etc - all boiled) but Mum baked every week.  For treats we had the occasional bottle of Tizer (a red soda) or Dandelion & Burdock (a brown one) but only in summer. 

Ice cream was mostly a summer treat bought just before it was going to be eaten in a small cardboard box, wrapped in newspaper as insulation and served sliced between two wafers.  Back in the 1960s most homes were without freezers and the supermarket hadn't yet arrived in our district so we all knew our shopkeepers and food was bought daily.   Mum never kept sweets in the house for us so our sixpence pocket money a week naturally limited our sugar intake.   We walked to and from school every day and spent hours playing chasing games in the street with all the neighbours' kids.   There were no fat kids - only the occasional old person. 

It's quite alarming how differently my kids eat and live. 

While we are on the subject of incredibly unhealthy things. Have they stopped selling those neon coloured sodas where you live? We used to have them in several different colours (blue, green & yellow), that in theory should have tasted like blueberries, "tropical" and lemon (but in reality had a vile taste of chemicals and sugar). I've been looking for those for a while now, but I can't seem to find them anywhere.

Originally Posted By Caroline (1 FEB 2012 3:14pm)

It's quite alarming how differently my kids eat and live. 

And we had to get up and walk across the room, 10 miles in the snow, to change the tv channel. 

It might sound as if we ate incredibly unhealthily, (all those toffees and fudge and brownies and soda pops and fizzy drinks), but our main meals were more healthy (I give in to convenience foods much too often these days) , and I'm pretty sure we overall got more excercise than kids tend to these days, even if they do sport.  We just had more freedom to roam in those days, for one thing.  It was simply more safe to do so than it is these days.  So we walked (and ran) more for starters.

Also, in our house, we were only allowed to switch the TV on at around 6 PM.  If our homework and other extramural activities were done before then, we had to amuse ourselves via alternate means.  This was a good thing.  I wish I had the balls to enforce this.  *sigh*.

PS @Terry - ah, those strings of liquorice!  What a nudge down memory lane you're giving me!  My biggest weekly treat as a small kid was to go with my mom to the corner store after she'd done her errands, and she'd buy me a looong string of liquorice and a comic book.   Oh, bliss!!

Not fully on topic maybe ?

I am strictly a meat & spuds person - not chocolate * sweets.

Give me any day, a prime English roast leg of lamb & baked potatoes and fresh mint sauce.

The saliva's dripping onto my keyboard !

And what about excellent roast beef and Yorkshire pudding ?

 It is said that Mr. Colman made his fortune out of the mustard (powdered never pre-bottled) left at the bottom of the small servijng pots !

I can't help it, but every time someone mentions mint sauce, I think of the movie "Asterix in Britain", where a running joke was how horrible every non-british character thought mint sauce was. 

I haven't seen the film nor heard of it, but  the description certainly sounds shpcking in more ways than one !?

It is a childrens movie from 86 (the 5th in the series, with the first one being from 67), based on a french comicbook. I don't actually dislike mint sauce, but that movie has made it hard for an entire generation of European children to take dishes containing it seriously. 

If this article was out about ten years ago when SMARTIES were full of  artificial colours, flavours and preservatives. They would have added that the teachers spent 3 hours after lunch trying to peel the child off the ceiling

Originally Posted By Spike (14 FEB 2012 11:14am)

If this article was out about ten years ago when SMARTIES were full of  artificial colours, flavours and preservatives. They would have added that the teachers spent 3 hours after lunch trying to peel the child off the ceiling

Yes, I read recently that it's not actually usually the sugar that gives the "sugar rush" symptoms, but rather some of the preservatives, artificial colourants and flavorants.

the cuisine in the UK is indeed non memorable, iit had not recovered from the war when i was livng over there, and i had to go to France, Italy or Greece to get REAL food. however...

fish and chips .................  mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Fish & chips !

" Ahh yess, I remembare eet welll"  One of the tastiest as well as cheapest (and maybe most nourishing) foods.

Mind you they may have tasted even a bit better nearly ninety years ago when they were served from the fish and chip shop wrapped in newspaper - no plastic bags in those days; maybe with newsprint added to the taste. 

Does anybody here remember the "Walls" ice cream man who used to come pedalling his tricycle tub with the slogan "stop me and buy one".

And talking about the "war" who remembers the horrible ration books that restricted the buying of food during the whole or WW2 and a few years afterwards?

NOSTALGIA !