25 People Share Forgotten Childhood Meals They Don’t Eat Anymore
In a world where culinary trends evolve rapidly and global flavors dominate our plates, there’s something deeply comforting about revisiting the meals of our childhood. Recently, Reddit users have been engaging in a delightful trip down memory lane, sharing the foods they enjoyed in their younger years but rarely, if ever, indulge in today.
From simple comfort foods to quirky concoctions, these “nostalgia meals” evoke memories of simpler times and remind us of the flavors that shaped our culinary identities.
#1
Jell-O with canned fruit cocktail inside to make it “healthier”.
#2
Poached eggs in buttered toast. It’s been 20 years or so.
#3
Jello pudding pops.
#4
Jell-O with canned fruit cocktail inside to make it “healthier”.
#5
Poached eggs in buttered toast. It’s been 20 years or so.
#6
Jello pudding pops.
#7
Sliced tomato sandwich. We ate them on white butter crust bread. Mayo, salt and pepper.
#8
Grilled cheese sandwiches, cut diagonally.
#9
Coke float. Can of Coke in a glass, with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.
#10
Baked beans with cut up hot dogs. I always looked forward to this meal as a kid, but my mom recently admitted that she only made it when she barely had any money.
#11
Sloppy joes.
#12
Shepherd’s Pie. Always my favourite thing my mum made but I’ve never bothered to make it.
#13
Fish sticks used to be a lot more common. Think it was an easy no stress way to get me to eat dinner.
#14
Stuffed cabbage rolls; every Eastern European country has a version of this dish.
#15
Meatloaf. My mom was an awful cook, and meatloaf is generally awful, but for some reason my mom’s meatloaf was amazing. I can make every other dish she actually made well (there weren’t many lol), but I have no idea how she made the amazing meatloaf. I should actually have another go at recreating it, I miss my mom and her meatloaf.
#16
Chef Boyardee. I purchased some of the ravioli in a can recently. I tried it and was really surprised at how disgusting it was. I remember it fondly from childhood.
#17
Frozen TV Dinners in foil: Hungry Man, Banquet etc.
For those of you born after maybe 1980, this was before microwaves. A foil tray, usually with three compartments: like Salisbury steak for the main dish, something like corn and carrots in the side, and a brownie for desert. They took like half an hour to reheat. There was a fried chicken dinner that had an apple cobbler. I can still smell it. No microwave Hungry Man dinner can match it.
They went spectacularly well on TV trays: folding trays you could set in front of you so you could eat while watching TV from a sofa or recliner. Before the VCR, you either watched Candid Camera when it aired at 9pm, or you missed it.
#18
Cereal. Breakfast almost every day was cereal. Now I can’t stand the stuff.
Also drinking milk with everything.
#19
Lots of casseroles made with canned “cream of” soups.
I can’t do casseroles these days. As a kid, chicken and rice casserole was the best! But now, it just doesn’t hit.
#20
Taco night with all the white people fixins. Crunchy shells, ground beef, shredded cheddar cheese, lettuce, diced tomato, and miiiiiiiiiild salsa.
#21
Hamburger Helper and other box meals. I bought a box of the cheeseburger one for nostalgia’s sake years ago and it tasted like bland chemicals.
#22
Rice a Roni. Haven’t had it in at least 15 years.
#23
My age can probably be determined accurately by:
- Individually wrapped Kraft cheese slices * Cottage cheese * Campbell’s cream of X soup * Swanson’s TV dinners * Pepperidge farm turnovers.
#24
My parents are Peranakan and Teochew Chinese but immigrated to the US when I was young. I grew up eating a lot of Singaporean home cooking. Pork and peanut soup, nonya chicken curry, steamed sea bass, fishball soup, tau yu bak, achar, yong tau foo. I didn’t realize how much time some of these things take to make until I moved out. My mom did her best to pass down heritage recipes to me. I miss them a lot and have been trying to cook more Singaporean for my family.
#25
A dish my mom called oven stew. Basically it’s ground beef, veggies and potatoes layered and baked in a casserole dish. Sort of a lazy, Americanized shepherd’s pie.
It’s not too difficult to make, but when I make it, it doesn’t seem to come out right, so I’ve given it up. Every once in a while I’ll have my mom make it for a birthday dinner.
Saumya Ratan
Saumya is an explorer of all things beautiful, quirky, and heartwarming. With her knack for art, design, photography, fun trivia, and internet humor, she takes you on a journey through the lighter side of pop culture.
