Sweet Sugary Nostalgic Sunday- Breakfast Cereal

I was doing a little shopping in the supermarket this morning while waiting for a renewal prescription to be ready, and this display caught my eye.

Would you believe...

...these were in the cereal aisle.

OK, I admit it.  When I was a kid I ate my share of Cocoa Puffs (introduced in 1956) Lucky Charms (introduced in 1964), and Cap'n Crunch  (which was introduced in 1963).  And, if you know how old I am, you would know that I was not eating Lucky Charms and Cap'n Crunch as a young kid, either.

Not pictured, but loved, were Froot Loops (Fruit Loops when introduced back in 1959) and Trix (1954).

There was also Sugar Smacks, and the key word there is "sugar", because there wasn't too much of anything else in them.  And finally, Sugar Frosted Flakes, which were "Grrrreeeaaat!", and came out the year I was born. Somehow, by the 1980's, the word "sugar" was dropped from the title, but I'm sure the sugar wasn't dropped from the cereal.  I wonder why not.

Somehow, I did manage to survive all the sugar and the artificial colors.

But Kisses cereal? Peeps Cereal?  Aren't those candies? So, candy made into cereal?

Maybe the endmilk (the milk left in your bowl after you finish your cereal) is what you are after when you eat cereal?

OK, I admit it.  That cereal aisle above made me think.

I don't like Peeps as candy, either, but Kisses are an old favorite, both the original ones, and the ones with almonds, and the ones with cherry cordial centers, and....(besides Oreos, this may be part of why I ended up on Weight Watchers.)

But, back to the topic.

One more child confession.

Strangely, as a kid, I also enjoyed Cheerios, Shredded Wheat (where you added your own sugar and I never added that much) and Kix, which were the healthier (supposedly) version of Trix.   Today, I'm still into Cheerios and Special K, but I'm more an omelet person.

So, as an adult, are you still a fan of sweet cereal?  If so, which cereals do you prefer?

If you don't eat them as an adult, did you like them as a kid?

Finally, would you eat any of the stuff in the above pictures?

Restaurant Nostalgia #blogboost

Last Sunday, I wrote a post suggesting we say no to nostalgia, and...here I am being nostalgic.

Do you remember restaurant chains that have gone under?  I thought about that after reading an article predicting the possible demise in 2020 of various restaurant chains:  Steak and Shake, Ruby Tuesday's, Friendly's, and others.


It's curious.  Chains that have come and gone in the 30 some odd years I've lived in the Binghamton, New York area (some of which are still alive and well) include:

Ground Round, Pizzeria Uno (Uno Pizzeria and Grill), Hooters (yes, even a Hooters couldn't make it here), Fuddruckers, and more.

Which led me to another thought:  how many restaurant chains I knew from my childhood and early adulthood no longer exist?

Many.   Let's name a few.

Horn and Hardart.  Remember the Automats?  I do, from my New York City childhood.

Howard Johnson's.  There was one in the Bronx (near to where I grew up).  My aunt would take me there and it was such a treat.

Steak and Brew, which became Beefsteak Charlie's. My spouse and I had many dates at Steak and Brew.

Or Lums, which I remember from living in Florida for a brief time in the 1970's.

Chi-Chi's Spouse and I frequented in Wichita, Kansas in the late 1970's.

Steak and Ale.

Charlie Browns, a chain my mother in law loved.

It's quite a list.

Do you have any favorites to add?

 Day 19 of the Ultimate Blog Challenge #blogboost.

Nesselrode Pudding Pie #FlavoursomeTuesdays #Blogboost

One of my spouse's childhood memories of growing up in a suburb of New York City resolves around a pudding/pie made with Nesselrode sauce.  His mother served it around "the holidays" (in our country, the period between late November - Thanksgiving - and Christmas Day, December 25).

It didn't come out to be like a pie in a crust.  It came out more like a pudding.  He remembered it being made from a nesselrode sauce that came in a jar. He doesn't remember much more about how his Mom made it.

He remembers a "Delmonico pudding" with layers of ingredients in a tube pan, and nesselrode sauce was one of the layers.

The nesselrode sauce was chestnut based with cream.  What he remembers didn't have raisins or dried fruit in it but we are finding online recipes do have those ingredients, plus rum.

Several years ago, my sister in law came up from New York City to visit, and we went online to try to find nesselrode sauce.  Apparently, they stopped making the sauce commercially some 25 or more years ago.  I tried again this past weekend and could not find a commercial sauce version.

But nesselrode pie itself is apparently making a comeback. 

Here is another version.

And if you are really ready for a workout, how about this heirloom recipe from 1874?

It would seem this wonderful desert (originally served frozen) dates from around 1814.  In other words, it is over 200 years old.

I also found a recipe for nesselrode sauce.  Apparently this was a New York City area favorite between the 40s and the 60s.  My spouse grew up in the 1950's and 1960's, so the timeline fits.

Day 2 of the Ultimate Blog Challenge #blogboost.

Join Shilpa and Bellybytes on the first Tuesday of every month for #FlavoursomeTuesday.  Their theme this month is Breakfast but, as some like to say "Eat Dessert First!"

Food Nostalgia Isn't All It's Cracked Up to Be

I was a child of the 50's and 60's and I remember the "bad old days" of American cooking, before "ethnic" (as it was called back then) ingredients became every day staples in our supermarkets.

No mangoes.  No jicama.  No fresh water chestnuts.  No salsa.   At least, none in our local Bronx markets.

Back then, someone could publish directions for a "Honorable Chinese Dinner" and feel they weren't insulting one of the oldest cuisines in the world. (In all fairness, the article did compare the "art" of Chinese cooking to the "art" of carving fine jade.) Meanwhile, my introduction to "Chinese cooking" was the double decker cans of LaChoy Chow Mein - one can with the chow mein, and a can of crispy "chow mein" noodles that I sometimes made for dinner as a teen -  before I discovered the joys of baking my own bread and cooking in a wok.

I love to look at old cookbooks - but the "Better Homes and Gardens Meals with a Foreign Flair" cookbook from 1963 a blogger recently wrote about shows just how much cooking in the United States has progressed.

In fact, there's a blog devoted to horrible cookbooks of the 40's, 50's and 60's.  (You must read this blog, even if you weren't alive back in "those days" - you owe it to yourself).  No wonder the residents of the United States didn't have a weight problem!

I don't want to insult the "home cooks" of the 50's and 60's who made genuine, "down home" food - including, in this area, spiedies and "hot pies" - just the commercial versions of what someone out there thought we should be eating.

So, my readers, it is true confession time.  'Fess up in the comments:
Did you eat  Swanson's TV Dinners?
Did you make molded food with Knox Gelatin?
Or, worst of all - did your Mom serve you Miracle Margarine? (mine did)

Or, are you nostalgic for those days, perhaps because you never lived through them?

Duck!

So many people, when they think of ducks, think of several things:
1.  That "duck" dish that some Chinese takeout places sell, the one with pieces of duck crowned with tops of fatty skin
2.  Those nice ducks quacking in ponds, with the brownish females and the colorful males.  Nice to throw bread to and watch them dive for it
3.  And, if they have been to a zoo, maybe those really beautiful mandarin ducks (not related to the ducks in item #1).  Long ago, when I lived in Wichita, Kansas, I lived near a park that had a small (free!) zoo, and they had a pair of these ducks, if my memory is correct. They were so colorful and regal.
4.  Ducks for hunting, duck decoys, duck and cover...

Many of us don't know it, but ducks are so much more.  How about eggs?  Years ago, when spouse and I lived in rural Arkansas, we raised ducks for eggs. We mail ordered a breed called the Campbell, which, sad to say, is now on a "watch" list of rare, endangered livestock.  The Campbell duck is a bit on the thin side, with an upright posture.  Their eggs are a tiny bit bigger than chicken eggs, white in color.  They make excellent baked goods - I would gladly buy duck eggs from someone for that purpose.  So moist, and like goods baked with honey, containing natural preservatives. They also make excellent hard boiled eggs.  (sorry, vegan friends.) Scrambled or omelet- not so good-their whites have a consistency, if cooked in that way, that reminded me of (sorry), mucus.

Need a good, lean duck for meat?  The muscovy is your choice.  We personally did not keep them as we leaned more towards birds for eggs and companionship (can you tell I love birds?) but many small farmsteads in Northwest Arkansas kept them.  They are large, and they don't quack. They have very warty heads but, as people like to say, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

  The game FarmVille (no, please don't run away, this isn't about my obsession with FarmVille) is finally recognizing the world of ducks, too. (Hurray, they are finally listening to me!)  They are having us build duck ponds (using construction items donated by our farming neighbors) and when we are done, rumor is that we will be given the opportunity to obtain these ducks:
-Pekin (these are your white supermarket meat ducks, btw)
-Golden Eye (these are a sea duck, to my knowledge not domesticated)
-Cayuga (for some strange reason I can't remember for sure if we ever owned a pair-well, it's been almost 30 years), domestic meat/egg ducks that originated in NY State
-Muscovy (there are many colors/types, I hope they pick a colorful one)
-Scoter (another sea duck)
-Red bill (an African duck)

The nice thing is, we will have opportunities to learn more about ducks of the world.  (the probably not so nice thing will be that most if not all of these will be expensive, and I refuse to spend "real money" on this game.)  Still....it did bring back nice memories of a time when ducks were in my life every day.

What we Did Not Do Today

Too many things and so little time.  The battle cry of the middle aged person.  Yup, that toilet roll keeps spinning.

We just can't be everwhere at once anymore.

It would have been nice to go to Ithaca today.  A couple of things would have been on our agenda:

1.  The Ithaca Dragon Boat festival.  I was in Philadelphia several years ago (gee, it has been almost 10 years!) and they were having practice rounds for a great Dragon Boat race.  I always wanted to see one.  I didn't know Ithaca had been having one.  Awesome!  I just couldn't be there. (If you don't know what dragon boats are - the name is somewhat descriptive.  But you have to see them to believe them.)

2.  The Ithaca Scottish Games. 
(memo to the web site designer, not trying to be critical here, but please reconsider your use of color on the website-much of it was difficult to read - please consider those who are middle aged or have visual impairments-Thank You!)

I haven't written about Ithaca in a while and it would have been nice to.

Oh yes, one other thing- the Finger Lakes cheese trail had an open house today.  We didn't go but we did the next best thing-went to our local farmers market.

More on that in my next post.  (I haven't been talking about some of my favorite topics lately, and I need to be getting back into that groove.)

Monster Cereals, Wink and TaB-the Wonderful World of Forgotten Foods Part I (maybe of more)

Who would have thought about fans devoted to Monster Cereals (Count Chocula, Franken Berry,etc.) or other current or former manufactured food and drink products.

But they are there, both on Facebook and in the blogosphere.  And on the Internet.  Here are a few of my favorites:

The Facebook Monster cereal group is especially interesting; you can view some of this site without joining Facebook.  If these cereals were a blast from your past, by all means check it out.  Apparently they are making a comeback.


There are also groups for various cereals, such as Count Chocula.

If you look at this blog, they  have an extensive list of more links.

To each their own.  I do have my obsession with arctic and antarctic sunsets.

Next I have to talk about a guy I know who is crazy about a soda called Wink.  It hasn't been sold here in the Triple Cities for years.  For a while this man got his Wink from someone he knew who worked in Binghamton and lived in Maryland (he commuted back and forth on weekends) but that went away at some point.  Now he cherishes his Wink.  Gotta love that authentic wood rosin taste.  He's even brought it to holiday parties.

And, last but not least, TaB.  I must admit, working for a company who provided us all the Coke and TaB we could drink, that I drank many gallons of TaB.  Back in the early 1980's that was one of the few (compared to today) diet sodas.  Sweetened (if you could call it that) with saccharin, TaB had this bitter aftertaste that grew on you after a while.  TaB still has a lot of fans. Sure enough they have a Facebook page.  And there's a website, too.

If you are under....30, I guess, you probably don't know much about TaB.  So, if it is sold in your supermarket, grab some.  IF you are lucky, your local Coca-Cola dealer carries it so you can get it.  One of our local supermarkets has it, sometimes, but it isn't cheap.

So many forgotten foods to write about....so little time.  Hmm....Fizzies....

Do you have a forgotten food or drink you want to talk about?