4 Iconic Childhood Snacks From The ’80s We Can Still Taste In Our Memory
AI Generated Image Childhood comfort foods fuse taste and smell into memories, which researchers call food-invoked nostalgia. Most '80s kids can still pull up the flavor of 1984 Cup-O-Noodles (the 'O' had not been streamlined out yet).
If you ever had a favorite childhood treat adjust their recipe — looking at you, Fruit Roll-Ups — you know the impact the sense of taste can have on the human mind. Another terrible recipe change was the switch from natural extracts to the more '80s-friendly artificial flavoring. You could taste the change in the lingering chemical taint.
The Jolly Rancher was never the same after that cost-efficient tweak around 1983. (Some Gen Xers still cast a jaded eye on the now-defunct confectionery company Leaf International.) If only we had figured out the advantage of freeze-drying candy back then, we could fetch a king’s ransom for a bag of original recipe Jolly Ranchers. Add a fresh pre-1985 bag of nacho cheese Doritos and these other iconic '80s childhood snacks we can still taste in our memories, and we can retire.
Here are four iconic childhood snacks from the '80s we can still taste in our memory:
1. Bugles and Jell-O pudding pops
Life coach Stephanie Lazzara misses Bugles and Fruit Wrinkles, and career coach Ellen Kamaras was fond of Nerds, Jell-O pudding pops, and Cheese-Balls. The '80s did not lack for creative snack names.
Bonkers!, Astro-pops, Wax Lips, Pop Rocks, Tato Skins, and Big League Chew. Named for shape, texture, or innuendo, the snacks of the 1980s satisfied a craving while adding a bit of a chuckle at their names.
2. The Marathon candy bar
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There's one thing every '80s kid remembers: being forced to go grocery shopping with a parent. There was also one universal rule: if you were good and you didn't ask for anything throughout the entire trip, maybe, just maybe, you'd be offered a candy bar at the checkout counter.
The candy bars were the delight of every '80s kid because they were a true treat. Buying a candy bar didn't happen every day. You had to have money, and most of us didn't. Most of the kids I grew up with were on food stamps, where you're more likely to get a slice of government cheese than a candy bar. Except when a relative slipped you a quarter.
The one snack I recall in the '80s you have to really, truly have been around to enjoy was The Marathon Bar, which was sadly discontinued in 1981. It was the longest bar in the whole world! 8 inches of chewy caramel covered in Mars chocolate. You had to be rich to get one, because while all other chocolate bars ranged from 5 to 20 cents. This one was 30 cents. It was top-shelf candy, our caviar.
Nearly a foot long of yumminess, a total American treasure. It hit the spot as the chocolate melted perfectly into a goo to linger longer than the caramel Sugar Daddy.
3. Bagel Bites
Therapist Gloria Brame confesses, I can't say I crave them, but I would buy a box of Bagel Bites just to see if they were as awful as I now think they were. It was inevitable that the pizza craze would spill over to every form of store-bought bread there was. At home, people were already experimenting with cheese and ketchup on top of English muffins and toasted white bread. At my house, the fact that "bagel" was even in the name made it seem a little more kosher to eat, too!
All the frozen pizza treats of the 1980s: Bagel Bites, Jeno's Pizza Rolls, Pizza Sanditos were pretty awful. The cheese was rubbery, the sauce was sweet ketchup with "Italian seasoning," and the pepperoni didn't look or taste like real meat. But it had two important virtues: it lived in the freezer (easy to make) and was somehow still close enough to pizza to make people heat it and gobble it down. I really don't miss those snacks. But I do miss being so young that I thought they tasted great.
4. Mallomars
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Life coach Susan Allan takes us a bit further back to the mid '50s. Before her family's housekeeper arrived, her snacks included Mallomars or powdered donuts with lemonade. And to make it more intriguing, her father was even a famous doctor. But clearly, he was not paying attention to his daughter's breakfast menu.
Now, we are set to lose Minute Maid frozen juice. A future nostalgic taste will be yearned for in the years to come. We will miss those mornings we would take a deep breath and exhale a memory, the smell of citric goo hitting the nostrils as the concentrate slumped into a plastic pitcher. Followed by the splash of tap water with a slight bouquet of copper pipe. We truly loved the smell of frozen concentrate in the morning.
The flavors from the ‘80s linger on a misfired taste bud that was accidentally stimulated to recall a lost taste combination. This is not a bad thing: A study of food and mood explained how food-evoked nostalgia lets us connect socially and maintain identity throughout life. So, if you sniff just right, you can still taste those greasy Doritos and know today's Takis-inspired flavors have forever changed the way a chip hits.
Will Curtis is YourTango's expert editor. Will has over 14 years of experience as an editor covering relationships, spirituality, and human interest topics.
