Childhood Food Inventions

[Orual]

it is a truth universally acknowledged that kids are weird, and do weird things.

It is for this reason that they sometimes make up odd foodstuffs. Sometimes for the purpose of being gross and sometimes ... just because. Kids. Weirdness.

My sister and I liked to cook Cheerios in melted margarine. I also liked to stick a spoonful of peanut butter in the Ovaltine jar.

Or I'd cook ramen noodles, and instead of making the requisite soup, make some kind of ghetto alfredo sauce with milk, margarine and parmesan cheese.

Now that I think about it, most of these things came into existence because we were left home alone in a house with no real junk food.

Anyone else have bizarre food inventions they came up with as a kid?

[Zuul]

Maple syrup milk because there wasn't any chocolate syrup left.

But we used the last of the milk.

And it was gross.

So we put it back in the jug and hoped no one would notice.

And then my mom made mashed potatoes with it.

[pepperlandgirl]

PB&J tacos.

[Revs]

One day when we were out of milk, I discovered that Crunch Berries and Pepsi go together surprisingly well. Crunch Berries and oj...not so much.

[Inner Stickler]

I used to nuke the marshmallows from boxes of lucky charms. Apparently, I preferred hard rocks instead of crunchy fake marshmallows.

[Orual]

Maple syrup milk because there wasn't any chocolate syrup left.

But we used the last of the milk.

And it was gross.

So we put it back in the jug and hoped no one would notice.

And then my mom made mashed potatoes with it.

That's hilarious.

We would just fill cups up with snow and dump maple syrup on that. Because we read about something similar in the Little House books.

[What Exit?]

My daughter has made PB&O sandwiches. Yep, Skippy Extra Crunchy with ovaltine.

My son use to love peanut butter and butter.

My son still loves vanilla milk: Take a cup of milk, add a little sugar and a little vanilla and mix and then slurp it down.

I love to this day, rootbeer with milk. About 4/5th rootbeer and 1/5 milk.

Not so odd, but I use to really enjoy peanut butter spread on apples slices.

[CrashMyBicycle]

Okay, these two are sort of gross.

When I was about 8 to 10 years old, I would put packets of Equal into apple juice, to make it sweeter. I would often think of it as "medicine" I was putting into it.

And, when my sister and I were little, we would beg our dad for "juice and milk together!" Which was orange juice and milk, together. He's said since how it used to gross him out, because the milk would curdle right away, but we liked it *shrug*

[Zuul]

And, when my sister and I were little, we would beg our dad for "juice and milk together!" Which was orange juice and milk, together. He's said since how it used to gross him out, because the milk would curdle right away, but we liked it *shrug*

Faces I just made --->

[Inner Stickler]

Tell us about the infamous milk and 7-up incident, Zuul!

[CrashMyBicycle]

edit: reload error, double post

[Orual]

PB&J tacos.

Was this just Pb&J on a tortilla, or was there taco meat involved too?

[Zuul]

Tell us about the infamous milk and 7-up incident, Zuul!

Why do all of my traumatic childhood stories involve milk?

So there I was, a feisty four year old. My older sister was at school, so it was just me and Mom at home all day together. She made me a nice sandwich for lunch and a big, tall glass of whole milk. But I also had a full can of 7-Up.

She told me I couldn't drink my 7-Up until all of my milk was gone. Clever child that I was, I decided I would make that disgusting whole milk taste good by pouring 7-Up into it.

It promptly curdled. It was sourish milk clumps and sickly sweet soda. But my mom told me I had to drink it and I was terrified of getting in trouble, so I attempted to continue drinking it anyway. So when she came back into the dining room she found me sitting there, sobbing and gagging as I was trying to force down what appeared to be a full glass of rotten milk.

She did not make me drink any more milk that day, thankfully.

[Inner Stickler]

I think this story is hilarious when coupled with the fact that in the 50s there were ads like this floating around.

[Taumpy]

I like milk with maple syrup, and with OJ. As an adult.

But as a kid I mixed it with blue raspberry Kool-Aid, and that I'm not sure I could drink now.

[Katriona]

My mom claims I used mustard as a dipping sauce for Oreos. I do not remember this.

[Hatshepsut]

Beware of anything called a "blended food drink."

A a kid I had to eat what passed for "cuisine" in the United States in the 1960s, so there was no way I could surpass some of the peculiar concoctions that showed up on my dinner plate, courtesy of mom, General Foods, and a new issue of Good Housekeeping. I've mentioned before the "salad" she made, consisting of lime jello congealed with mayonnaise, containing grated onions, walnut pieces and lumps of cream cheese. Four decades later I still want to gag.

However...I do have a story akin to the maple syrup mashed potatoes to share. For some reason I once had some pot that I didn't intend to smoke (I was pretty darn clean in high school, I'm not even sure why I had it). So my boyfriend and I made pot brownies, then left the house while the brownies cooled on the counter.

While we were out, it suddenly occurred to me that my mother would come home while I was not there, and, seeing the fresh brownies, would probably gobble up about half the tray.

Sure enough, that's exactly what happened.

[Queen Tonya]

For some reason, eating half of a dill pickled wrapped in a slice of american cheese delighted me and disgusted my parents and siblings. It had to be a half pickle and not a whole one for the proper pickle/cheese ratio, which was problematic since I wasn't allowed to use knives yet. There was just something wonderful about the sharp bite of the pickle being jacketed in the smooth blandness of the processed cheese.

That stopped being appealing about 9 years old, though.

[jali]

I still squish Jello in my mouth to make a Kool-aid-like beverage. I started this as a kid and found myself doing it just this past weekend.

I will never grow up!

[Exy]

Sure enough, that's exactly what happened.

Holy shit, what happened after that?!

[parzival]

Was it something like

Going back to the OP, Fried Cheerios were one of my favorite treats as a kid, better than popcorn (which was good when I could no longer eat popcorn comfortably once I got braces).

I was actually the first in my family to put milk on my cereal, and for some time my brother & sister thought it was gross (though they came around eventually). I admit I wouldn't call that much of an invention; I probably learned it from the teevee.

[Orual]

Going back to the OP, Fried Cheerios were one of my favorite treats as a kid, better than popcorn (which was good when I could no longer eat popcorn comfortably once I got braces).

We did the fried Cheerio thing initially because it smelled like popcorn while it was cooking.

I also preferred to stir my ice cream into ice cream soup before I ate it. I was under the impression that it would last longer that way.

[Hatshepsut]

Holy shit, what happened after that?!

I spent the evening looking at her out of the corner of my eye, wondering if she would start behaving out of character. She was in a very good mood all evening (which WAS a bit out of character) but if she recognized that she felt odd, she never mentioned it to me.

I ate what little was left of the brownies myself the next evening and, as I recall, spent about two hours pacing in circles on the throw rug in my bedroom, overcome with excitement at a FANTASTIC IDEA I suddenly had, of starting a high school newspaper with my friends.

Mind you, the school already had a newspaper and, more to the point, this was two days before my high school graduation ceremony. So I leave it to you to judge the potency of the brownies.