Wig-Wags, Squeeze-a-Cheeze and bacon in a can: Childhood Memories meme

Another late night at work and I realized that I have about 8 posts in various stages of drafting, including this one!

Clare tagged me for this about a frillion years ago and I have just now managed to get off my lazy ass to do it. Clare, if send me your address I will post you something yummy as an apology!

I reckon most, if not all, food bloggers have incredibly strong memory associations between food and childhood, and it's kind of nifty to find out these sorts of random things about people. You never really know your fellow food bloggers. You only ever see a small side of who they are. It's memes like this that tell the real story.

This simple meme has only one question:  What are 5  foods from your childhood that you miss?

This meme also replicates a little differently from other memes. Replication works as follows:

Remove the blog at #1 from the following list and bump every one up one place; add your blog’s name in the #5 spot; use HTML to link to each of the other blogs in the list.

1. Secrets & Lies
2. Do or Do Not
3. BeautyJoyFood
4. Eatstuff
5. Lex Culinaria

Food Number One: S'mores

What more ubiquitous Canadian campfire food is there? None. No trip to the cabin was complete without a hefty supply of marshmallows, chocolate and graham crackers. I seem to recall that we must have eaten these every night, although I'm sure my sensible mother would have insisted we not consume so much sugar on nightly basis. Sometimes we'd make banana boats or baked apples in foil instead, but my favourites always were and always will be smores. Gooey, hot marshmallow, melty melty chocolate and crispy, grainy graham crackers. I recall one night in particular, sitting in my pink flannel nightgown in front of the cast iron stove in our cabin. It was raining outside and I couldn't have been more than 10 or 11. I was toasting my marshmallow in anticipation of some tasty smore-making, when my marshmallow caught fire. Instead of doing the smart thing and blowing the flame out, I decided to wave the marshmallow toasting stick around to put the flame out. Picture this: cute young blond-headed girl, sweet pink "ltittle-house-on-the-prairie" nightie, flaming ball of molten sugar  flying through the air and landing in her hair. Followed very quickly with screams, both hers and her mother's, and a wild flapping of arms and tea towels to try to put the flames out. My scalp was pink and sore for days. I still love smores though. That's a testament to the strength of my devotion, I tell you.

Food Number Two: fresh caught pan fried perch

Another cabin food. Heather and I and our step dad would go fishing and inevitably come back with a few perch. Jim and Heather would fillet them (I wasn't old enough to use the filleting knife) and Jim would tease me by making me pick up the heads, with spine attached, by the eyeballs. Gross. Mum would dredge the fillets in very thin layer of dry pancake mix and then fry them quickly in a little butter. Heaven. The fish was so fresh and sweet. And with so little in the way of preparation, the real flavour of the perch came through.

Food Number Three: baby sour-cabbage Holubtsi

My Ukrainian grandma never knew when to stop feeding us. "You're too skinny. Here, eat!", was a common greeting. No word of a lie. Like something straight out of a sitcom. Most of her food I liked, quite a bit of It I loved. A few things I detested (nachynka? blech!!! Beet borscht? barf!). But the tiny little sour cabbage, rice and onion rolls that were as big only as your thumb were brilliant. Also a feat of cutting edge physics to get a thick, rubbery, sauerkraut-ed leaf of cabbage to roll up that small and stay rolled. At Christmas dinner, I could forgo the turkey, the ham, the potatoes....if it meant more room for these babies. Seriously fart-inducing though they are. I suppose no more so than turkey.

Food Number Four: Wig-Wags

What happened to these confectionery delights? We used to buy them down at the confectionery booth at the local swimming pool. When we were small, maybe 7 or 8, a whole bunch of us kids on our street would get a few dollars from our mums and wander down to George Ward Pool a few blocks away and spend a hot summer day basking in the sun, swallowing deadly amounts of chlorinated water, splashing around, becoming red-eyed, belly flopping and raiding the confectionery stand for wig-wags and Popsicles.  Almost everyone I know remembers these chocolate covered braided toffee miracles, but no one can recall when they stopped being made. Every once in a while I hear a rumour that you can still get wig-wags in some remote part of the Southern States or some such nonsense. I've never been able to track them down. I reckon I'd pay a fair bit to relive that sticky-toothed part of my childhood. I kind of wonder whether my own (eventual) kids will ever have the luxury of the carefree childhood that came with those wig-wags. It seems as if seven or eight is a bit young in these times to allow your child to walk the four or so blocks, across a busy street, to the pool. It saddens me that you can't get wig-wags any more. It saddens me that you can't let an eight year old go to the pool with her friends any more either. What happened to childhood? Did they stop making that when they stopped making wig-wags?

Food Number Five: bacon in a can

Another cabin food. Because we'd go to the cabin for weeks and weeks at a time (it seemed like that anyway), and because we only had a gas powered generator, we couldn't keep a lot of refrigerated things, so mum would buy this bacon in a can. It was very thinly sliced, and came like prosciutto, separated by tissue paper, all rolled up into a tube-shape and canned with some sort of jelly-liquid (kind of like canned ham, I suppose).  This bacon was so thin, it got unbelievably crispy. I think that's where I developed my love of crispy bacon. Sometimes, as a special treat, mum would relent in the face of my persistent whinging, and buy some to cook at home so that I could pretend I was at the cabin. Like a lot of food memories, I reckon it was more about the circumstances than the food itself.

Bonus Question: What is one food that you never ever wish to have again from your childhood?

Cheese and Bacon flavoured Squeeze-a-Cheeze. I just can't contemplate it without feeling queasy.

----I guess I've left this so late, I can't imagine that there's anyone left who's not done this yet.... so I'll just leave it open to whomever reads this and wants to join in the fun! You can nominate yourself!

Comments

[clare eats]

See, See!! That is why I wanted you to do the MEME!!! it was Perfect!

[Stephanie]

Lyn, you may want to look here: http://www.yummyco.com/United%20Kingdom%20imports.htm

[Lyn]

Clare:

You make me blush.

Steph:
I love you forever.

[Stephanie]

Lyn...right back atcha!

[ejm]

Wonderful!

I too loved s'mores but was particularly partial to banana boats. Although, I did love to cook marshmallows til they were perfectly golden all over. (Yikes about the flambe'ed hair)

I just got tagged for this meme but luckily didn't have to fill in the bonus question. I feel compelled to answer it now:

The one food that I never ever wish to have again from your childhood is (drumroll) canned spaghetti.

-Elizabeth

[ejm]

oops!!! that should read "from my childhood"....

[Moira]

Hi Lyn...the only thing that I'm familiar with is the s'mores, from Girl Scout camping trips! We used to have the canned ham, but I'd never heard of canned bacon. Do you think it's still around?