Childhood treats

[blue]

Originally Posted by thomasinaz

My grandparents had a few fruit trees and Grandma usually had fresh fruit just waiting for us grandkids. If we visited during the right season it was peaches and cream in a bowl. Loved that stuff.

Real home grown ripe peaches and real cold heavy cream! Used to like the way the cold cream would "get into" the fuzz on the unpeeled peaches!

We also had a nectarine tree. Also awesome with cream!

I grew up in San Francisco. somehow we had plums (two kinds!), Nectarines, lemons, Apples, and Kumquats, all in the back yard of a Victorian house...

Ever fresh juice from green apples over ice?

[alnico5]

My Mom's homemade cinnamon coffee cake.
And lemon ice box pie.

[hubcapsc]

My mother was famous for coconut cakes. The kind where
you start with a coconut, pound a hole in it with a nail, and
drain the juice out to use as an ingredient. We only got one
of those a year, at Christmas. I guess they were pretty
hard to make.

Her sister is still with us, she makes pound cakes. Yummy!

-Mike

[dirkronk]

In the 1950s up through the early 1960s, my grandfather -- a semi-retired master pastry chef -- worked part time (full time some months of the year) at a local bakery and kept us supplied with (day-old) treats. Most were unusual for the time and especially for Waco, Texas: chocolate eclairs to die for...ditto Black Forest cake (nobody has ever topped his recipe IMO)...stollen and marzipan and almond torte...super-flakey fruit turnovers...and on and on. At Christmas time, Opa would write his brother who ran a chocolate store in Holland and get him to send giant boxes of Belgian chocolates for the women in our family, and huge net holiday stockings full of strange (but occasionally wonderful) filled hard candies, licorices, and odd little toys.

On the more conventional central Texas food front, my preferences were assorted local sodas (Dr Pepper was started in Waco, so was my childhood red "Jet" pop which would later become Big Red)...these were a once-every-week-or-so treat, not everyday drinks. RC Cola (sweeter than Coke or Pepsi) was an occasional treat, too.

Waco is pecan country, and my best friend Roy's mom made THE best pecan pie I ever ate...though I never told my Opa, he would have been jealous.

Popsicles (way more flavors than today) and fudgesicles...yum. Also, back then you could get both Creamsicles and Dreamsicles, which I liked at least as much as fudgesicles. Couldn't find these when I looked for them as an adult.

Moon pies? Yeah, but in Texas they had a different name, which eludes my memory at the moment. Bruce's fried pies came in all flavors, but coconut was a fave of mine.

Man...is it just me, or are you guys getting hungry too?

Dirk

[blue]

oooh! Just remembered Carnation chocolate ice cream cups at the ball park. These weren't the 2inch high 2 inch wide ones! These felt like you were really eating! It was a tradition at Candlestick park for the kids to throw the tops like a Frizbee at the seventh inning stretch from the bleachers. Not a sanctioned tradition mind you

[Steve DeRosa]

Some old Brooklyn favorites:

• Fisher's Cheesecake (packed in Saran Wrap and sold by the slice in groceries/supermarkets - and yeah, kids actually snacked on this stuff in the late-50's)
• Mrs. Wagner's Pies (of S&G "America" fame - we used to visit the factory in South Brooklyn and buy our pies from the outlet shop)
• Bonomo's Turkish Taffy (factory was one block north of the Coney Island Aquarium - someone recently found the recipe and revived the name, actually tastes just like the old stuff )
• Bond's Raisin Bread (factory was just down the block from Prospect Park/Ebbets Field - if the outlet shop ran out they'd pull you a fresh loaf from the next day's outgoing batch - and a PBJ on Bond's was Brooklyn ambrosia)
• Krug's/Dugan's cakes (door-to-door delivery of a selection of baked goods - the inter-company rivalry was intense, to the point where two delivery men got into an old-fashioned throwdown over territorial claims )
• Corn on the cob (there was a small stand in the alley alongside Nathan's - another Brooklyn treat - that sold this Fireworks Night must-have, cooked for hours in huge stainless kettles and which tasted like no other)
• Bungalow Bar Ice Cream (local competition to Good Humor, with their own fleet of red-shingle-roofed trucks)
• Chow-Chow Cup (a fleet of red-&-yellow food trucks that sold a limited selection of Chinese food, in the days before take-outs on nearly every block - for us project kids their 15-cent egg rolls were a quick hot snack, and the ruin of many a dinner appetite)

- and to wash it all down:

• Egg Cream (a uniquely Brooklyn treat that contained neither egg nor cream, it was rather a combination of milk, Fox's U-Bet chocolate syrup, and a master's pull of seltzer that created a frosty head worthy of the finest craft brew)
• Manhattan Special (mostly confined to Italian neighborhoods, an espresso-coffee soda whose appearance at the local deli marked the official beginning of summer - my wife still drinks it, can't stand the stuff myself )
• Nu-Fizz (competition to the better-known Fizzies, this was a powder that came in bottle-shaped foil wrappers and sold in packs of six - didn't taste so great, but you were sure to get your minimum daily requirement of saccharin and cyclamates )
• Nathan's Orange Drink (only available at the original Brooklyn stand, this one was actually made from fresh oranges complete with pulp - and if you asked nicely they'd pull you an "O-P," mixed half-&-half with the similarly-fresh pineapple drink)

[blue]

Originally Posted by Steve DeRosa

S
- and to wash it all down:[LIST][*]Egg Cream (a uniquely Brooklyn treat that contained neither egg nor cream, it was rather a combination of milk, Fox's U-Bet chocolate syrup, and a master's pull of seltzer that created a frosty head worthy of the finest craft brew)

Yeah. It's called the egg cream because ya'll couldn't pronounce "au creme" properly.

Just like "Not for nuthin'" started out as "Naught for Nothing"

[hubcapsc]

While scrolling through again, I remembered: RIPCO bars...

Ronceverte Ice and Produce Company.

They were probably just regular ice cream bars, but you had to
be at Granddaddy's house in West Virginia to get them.



-Mike

[Organic Sounds Select Guitars]

These things were incredible. Looks like they still make them - I haven't had one in probably 40 years.

[M19]

Seven-Up bars. Love the Jelly segment.
Bit-o-Honey.
O'Henry bars.
Charleston Chew.

[Nama Ensou]

Originally Posted by Organic Sounds Select Guitars

These things were incredible. Looks like they still make them - I haven't had one in probably 40 years.

The "It's-It" ice cream sandwiches still are great and I buy them by the box when I can find them!

[llew]

In the summer heat a "Popsicle" brand popsicle was my favorite. Orange or cherry. And an "Eskimo Pie" which I assume would be banned these days in lieu of a Klondike Bar which is essentially the same thing?

[Bob Womack]

Originally Posted by marty bradbury

Chocolate Moon Pies

Those are made in Chattanooga, just a few miles from where I went to college, as are the Little Debbie Nutty Bars (now "Nutty Buddy"), made in the Collegedale suburb. The Moonpie is sometimes labeled the "Lookout Moonpie," named after Lookout Mountain, near the bakery. Mckees is run by a Seventh-Day Adventist family. The Adventists, many of whom who are vegetarians or vegans, are known for their fantastic peanut butter, and McKee's Nutty Bars are one of the finest applications of peanut butter on the planet.

When I was growing up it was known amongst the family that my mother was a choc-o-holic. It had such a hold of her that she stole Easter candies from her kids baskets to sustain her. But as a result of her addiction she became an amateur chocolatier. She taught herself to make all sorts of fantastic candies with fondant centers at Christmastime. We would catch her throughout the year in the kitchen late at night making herself a single serving bar of chocolate fudge! What this is building to, and you may get a hint from the above paragraph, is that I was a peanut-butter-o-holic as a child. I loved all things peanut butter. The thing I loved the most was my mom's peanut butter fudge. It is considered a flaw, but her peanut butter fudge was just a tiny bit grainy, but we in the family loved that texture. When my mom would make it I loved to take one piece, bite off little nibbles, and let them dissolve in my mouth. When I left for college at a school that was isolated on top of a mountain, my mom would occasionally send me a batch of peanut butter. I'd make a cup of coffee and do the business of taking a little nibble and dissolving it with hot coffee. Nirvana!!!

When I got married and moved a state away from home, mom's peanut butter fudge would always show up at my door at Christmastime. But when I was diagnosed with diabetes it was the end of the line. For ten years I didn't have another bite. Then when my wife and I were on a little retreat at a nearby resort she discovered a confectioner who made sugar-free peanut butter fudge. Since then she has always bought me a batch of fudge for Christmas. It's horribly expensive but she treats me. I've still got a bunch in the freezer from last Christmas!

Bob

[dougdnh]

I remember an unusual candy from my childhood that nobody else seems to recall - picture a Reeses' peanut butter cup, but instead of being paper it was made of tin, and was filled with a fudge like candy. It came with a tiny tin spoon. Anyone else remember this?

[tigobah]

Originally Posted by dougdnh

I remember an unusual candy from my childhood that nobody else seems to recall - picture a Reeses' peanut butter cup, but instead of being paper it was made of tin, and was filled with a fudge like candy. It came with a tiny tin spoon. Anyone else remember this?

Yes I do but I can't remember the name either. I'm originally from Northern New Jersey so maybe it was a regional thing.