Monday, November 05, 2007

FOOD OF THE PAST

I was thinking, today, about some of the food choices I made in my youth. We three kids were brought up on unfailingly healthy and nutritional food, so it's the food that I snuck that I was remembering.

I used to make myself peanut butter-and-butter "sandwiches"...when my mom and dad weren't looking, that is. What I would do is cut off a couple of pats of butter and use those as the "bread" of the sandwich. Then I would take a spoonful of the all-natural (just peanuts and salt) chunky peanut butter and spoon it in between the two slices of butter. Voila! A cholesterol sammich was never better.

I also liked sweets. I still do. But now I have all kinds of money to go to the store and buy Reese's peanut butter cups or Heath bars (to dip in peanut butter) or Three Musketeers, or whatever. Back then (when candy bars were twenty-five cents) I had only my allowance to satiate my sweet tooth. My sisters and I would walk the quarter-mile to Sav-On Drugs and load up the small paper bags with contraband like Coca-Cola and candy bars and Doritos. I was partial to Mallo Cups, too. If you've never had them, they come in a yellow wrapper and they're like whipped coconut cream in a chocolate cup. Just like a Reese's, but with coconut chips. Ambrosia.

I also remember secreting away the Minute Maid frozen concentrates of lemonade and orange juice. I would take a grapefruit spoon (with the serated tip) and I would scrape at the tangy sweetness (um, not that tangy sweetness) until it was melted enough to squeeze out into my mouth. And then there was that container of frozen strawberry pie filling that I, over the course of a month or two, surreptitiously scraped at until all that was left was a sort of frozen sweet red backwash.

Ah...good times.

9 comments:

Nanette said...

I used to put loads of butter on a peanut butter sandwich--silly me though, I always used the bread.

And, I've eaten my fair share of butter creamed with sugar, mmmmmm.

Good times. :)

Anonymous said...

Ok, now I'm all for butter, but just eating butter by itself doesn't exactally sound good. I'll take your word for it though! lol

I'd put butter ON a pb sammich though. hahaha!

Jay said...

Butter in the peanut butter? Brilliant! Must. Try.

Melissa said...

Mmm ... Mallo cups. Marshmallow Creme. Brownie edges. Plain spaghetti. What? Just me? Fine, then. Doritos. Pepsi. Bologna. The secret vices of kids raised on carob cookies made with wheat flour.

Anonymous said...

wait mallow cups had coconut in them? I thought they were marshmallow! who knew?

Adamity73 said...

Nighthawk: "Butter creamed with sugar"...hmm, that sounds mighty...interesting. ;-) As kids, we used to have peanut butter-and-jelly sandwiches with butter on the jelly side. It was actually pretty damned good.

Teasah: See above. ;-) And, before you speak, why don't you try eating a pat of unsalted sweet cream butter, straight up? It's quite delicious!

Jay: I agree whole-heartedly. That's the way I always make my peanut butter toast. Toast it, then spread the butter and then layer on the peanut butter.

Missy: LOL "Carob cookies made with wheat flour." Yummy yummy in my tummy. Brownie edges kick ass. Chewy and chocolate-y and delicious. And what the hell is wrong with plain spaghetti?! :-P

Terry: I *think* that there is some kind of coconut influence in them...I could be wrong, though. I'll have to eat another pound to verify. ;-)

Candy said...

Mmmm...I still use peanut butter in my pb&J's. My kids freak out everytime I do it, but to me, it is perfection.

Melissa said...

Adam and Terry, you're both right. Mallo Cups are filled with marshmallow and topped with coconut. Read more here.

Looks like a box of 24 (that's 48 individual treats!) goes for $22.03. Eligible for free shipping.

Adamity73 said...

I'm THERE, Meliss! Thanks! =o)