Saturday, January 31, 2009

Foods I've Never Eaten

As I was preparing my kids' dinner tonight it occurred to me that I've never had a fish stick in my life. I had a pretty typical childhood except for the fact that I was a picky eater and didn't eat many different foods growing up so I have many foods that I've never tried (and don't particularly want to now) that most people have.

Another factor in my void of foods is that we didn't have prepared or boxed foods as I was growing up (for instance, I had never had mac and cheese until after college) . In the past couple of months my mother has remarked to me a couple of times how shocked she is there is that much packaged food in the grocery store (she buys it now to send to my brother in Afghanistan).

Unlike most kids in college I always had money because I worked 3 jobs in college. So I never had those cheap foods that most people who went to college get nostalgic for.

So I thought I would compile a bit of a list here and you, the dear reader, can try to talk me into trying one of the items on the list. So here goes:
  1. Fish sticks
  2. Hungry Man or other type of frozen meal (excluding those Bertolli pasta things)
  3. Cup o'Noodles
  4. Ramen
  5. Tuna fish, I've had tuna, I'm not sure the stuff in the can is tuna
  6. Dinty Moore beef stew
  7. Hamburger Helper
  8. Any canned vegetables (excluding corn)
I'm not sure if this list is normal for someone my age or not. But, Stella has been consistently shocked at what I grew up eating and the list of foods I've never had. If I had made this list 10 years ago it would include olives, mushrooms, virtually any food from the middle aisles of the grocery store.

If you have a hankerin' for getting me to eat any of the above 8 foods, make your case in the comments.

9 comments:

swgiffin said...

All of it is worthless, minus the ramen (and Hamburger Helper every once in a while). Nooodles, sodium, three minutes? What's not to like?

Old Fart said...

Hamburger Helper is good if you get the "cheesy" ones. I've never liked the beef strokinoff mixtures they have... but if it says "cheesy" or has potato's in it then its really pretty good stuff.

rubigimlet said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
rubigimlet said...

tuna in a can is acceptable as an MRE should the apocalypse come in our lifetime. That said, anything less than the Chunk Light FILLET (gotta be the fillet) is not edible even in an post-apocalyptic wasteland.
I recommend putting the fillet in a bowl, chopping up 1/3 a white onion, green pepper, yellow pepper. Add 1 TBS lemon juice, 1 tbs grey poupon, 3 TBS mayo (get out of here with that Miracle Whip abomination), liberal amount black pepper freshly ground. Put on a warm flatbread with a nice lettuce leaf. Thank me when your wife slaps you awake after you pass out from sheer astonishment at the wonder that is the canned tuna fillet.

Donna. W said...

I use canned tuna to make tuna salad or tuna-noodle casserole. I don't care for fish sticks; they hardly taste like fish. I didn't even feed them to my kids often when they were growing up, although all kids like them. Mrs. Paul's fish fillets aren't so bad.

Hamburger helper? yuck. Pure salt. When my daughter was starting to help out with meals and I was working, I did buy it a few times to have something easy she could make for us.

I miss old-fashioned, made-in-the-oven macaroni and cheese, but all kids seem to like the boxed stuff better.

Chimpotle said...

You should by a box of Tuna Helper and kill two birds with one stone.

My list still includes olives, unless you count drunken encounters with a pizza.

kcmeesha said...

I tried ramen noodles/cup'o'noodles stuff. Tuna just tastes nasty, but there are kinds of canned fish that I like. the other items I don't have any desire to taste. never tried dinner in a box of any kind. I also never bought a jar of miracle whip, I get mayo every time. whipped cream over coolwhip any day. never tasted kool-aid. never touched any butter substitutes,vegetable spreads etc. list goes on.

Anonymous said...

Another item that people I think are irrationally nostalgic for are tater tots - what's the deal with people's love of those boring, bland things?

Anonymous said...

Never had Fish Sticks? Seriously? Jesus, with your dietary habits I don't understand why you don't have your own reality show.