Soul Food Of Ones Childhood Essay, Research Paper

Why did it always seem that in order for me, as a child, to enjoy the food I was eating it had to have come from some sort of a package perhaps a box or can. Mom could have slaved all day in the kitchen to prepare a nice garlic roast with mashed potatoes and fresh vegetables, and yet the irresistible taste of powdered, process cheese sprinkled over soggy noodles and splattered with Heinz ketchup always seemed to have that edge.

Who needs fresh pasta and homemade meat sauce served with oven backed garlic bread, when you can have animal shaped pasta from a can, already immersed in some sort of orange wanna-be tomato sauce at the press of a button.

Fruit snacks were a big thing. Coming in all different shapes and sizes, musical instruments, animals even round ones that when you bite into them gushed out fruit juice into your mouth. It seemed appetizing at the time. The best though, still to this day, would have to be the ever famous Fruit Roll Up. Wrapping them around our dirty, little kid fingers made them that much more tasty. Sucking them down till there was nothing left, but still leaving that desirable, artificial fruit flavour on our finger for hours to come. The best part, the crusty leftover pieces imbedded in your nails gave you the taste you could enjoy until the next time you washed your hands. When ever that may have been!

The trips to the local convenience store always proved to be exciting. “Excuse me sir, what is the most I can buy with this dollar?” we would ask with our little eyes just barely able to see over the counter. That giant stick of frozen juice , the freezee, so big it would cut open the corners of your mouth with its plastic wrapper, as you sucked all of the flavour and colour out of it and were left with a succulent stick of ice to gnaw on, always seemed to be such a bargain for only fifty-five cents.

How about the lick-a-stick. They were great. Mom loved when we got those. Two different flavours of sugar eaten off a solid sugar stick. The biggest challenge was to not break the stick or eat it before you were done, or else you would have to resort back to the good old finger to scoop up the powder and slurp it off.

How can anyone forget the famous words of Dad giving in at the grocery store,

“OK, all right, you can each choose a chocolate bar.”

Well the choice always simple. What kid wouldn t instantly grab for the Mr. Big. The name said it all. It truly was the biggest of them all. It didn t matter that it was pretty much my least favourite chocolate bar. Snickers, Mars, Skor, you re all great but I was going for quantity not quality.

I was always sure to get my share of fruits. Fuzzy Peaches, Cherry Blasters, candy apples, and those Styrofoam like bananas that always seemed to render themselves tasty somehow.

The gummy family, gummy bears, gummy worms, even soda pop gummies, “so sodalicious!”

A whole line of jewelry. Necklaces and bracelets that left a beautiful colourful ring around your neck or wrist, and watched that constantly read 4 o-clock. All made from the finest most exquisite solid sugar around.

Then there were the famous tear jerkers or sour balls, that never actually tasted good only made you that much cooler if you were able to put yourself through the torture to finish a whole one in one bite.

Whipped cream. Countless memories of running to the refrigerator for a shot of whipped cream right onto the tongue when mom and dad weren t watching.

Then to wash it all down, a nice tall glass of swamp water. A perfect mixture of orange pop, Coke-a-coal and root beer, blended marvelously to taste, leaving that unmistakable mustache across your lip.

How could it have been that these foods, if you can even call them that seemed to be such a delicacy to me as a five year old, now the mere thought of actually in taking them kills my appetite and sends my taste buds into chaos! Now I won t lie, I still enjoy the odd shot of whipped cream, the trip to the convenience and perhaps I even still grab for the Mr. Big, but that nice roast I once turned my nose at or the pasta and meat sauce as oppose to the childhood Zoodles or Alphaghetti are far more enjoyable then I ever could have imagined a decade ago.