Searching for Answers Friday
While completely disregarding Cracker’s fevered, feigned umbrage at just the dang cutest little email I sent her (You know ~ one of those rare gems that manages to tell the truth but induce thigh slapping hilarity at the same time?), she did have another post that caused me great pain and emotional anguish. I’ll be spelling it out in detail here as the draft for my civil suit, but feel free to weigh in if your life has been similiarly victimized, your psyche irrepairably damaged, your very emotional well being compromised to the point of rendering YOU an unfeeling vegetable. Perhaps we have the making of a class action, who knows? But you might find this cathartic…cleansing even, as I’m sure I will.
Now, in her post she has a bullet point that asks the seemingly innocuous…
* What retired products do you miss?
She mentions “Jello Puddin Pops”. Pitiful, but hey! She misses it. I offer up in the same theme ~ “Shake-a-Puddin'”. Granted, missed more for it’s entertainment than food value, but fondly remembered none the less. No, where the emotional damage comes in is in those fond remembrances of things beloved in childhood which still exist on Winn-Dixie shelves, but in a VASTLY altered form. I am talking corporate canoodling of the most foul and unnatural description! The dreaded…
FORMULA CHANGES.
OOOOOO, that pisses me off, thereby causing extreme anguish. Wincing, I can recall the three horrible examples scarring my youth still frosting my chops three and a half decades later.
1) TWINKIES ~ the bastards changed the spongecake formula in the late 60’s. From a wonderous, moist, delectable, delicate taste treat of epic dimensions to something that now has a shelf life of…well…three and a half decades.
2) NESTLE’S HOT COCOA ~ the formula change here involved denying not only taste associations, but sensory as well. Half…no, ALL the damn fun of the stuff was the way it clumped in the bottom of the glass when cold milk was added, with a little foamy, gravelly, pumice-like dark chocolate clump flotilla that escaped to the top. Mountain Man and I were VERY particular about how our glass of milk was constructed, right down to a milk pour worthy of the finest head on a beer. Oh GOD! And the cocoa sugar sludge reward at the bottom of the drinking vessel? Sweet baby Jesus. ‘New and Improved!’ meant everything mixed the second the milk or (GOD FORBID!) water hit. No foam, no sludge. A contemporary uniform consistency.
3) GERBER’S JR. CEREAL, EGG YOLKS and BACON ~ Once upon a time, when babies and just done being babies ate, they ate Gerber’s. The ‘Junior’ foods had some consistency to them and generally tasted pretty damn good even to the adult palate ~ probably because they were full of all the hateful things adults LOVE and which we now know KILL BABIES. Or at least make them grow up Republican. One of our favorite, easy yummy morning meals as teenagers was two jars of Jr. Cereal, Egg Yolks and Bacon. Redolent with smokey bacon smell, laden with actual CHUNKS of the devine pork-fat product and creamy yet substantial body, it was the dream food of mornings. Pop off the top, jar in the microwave and voilà! Tummies warm and full for the beastly walk down the driveway and sub-zero wait for the bus. Ah, the smell of it! And unrecognizable in it’s current form. Which, I guess, doesn’t KILL BABIES or make them REPUBLICAN. (At one point they even dropped bacon from the label, but I see it’s back now.) It tastes like pooh and I’m not talking the bear. Bland…glopless…chunkless…devoid of smokey goodness…SAFE.
So there you have it. My litany of sins of egregious nature perpetrated against those sucked into the vortex of product loyalty. I’ve tried to spare Ebola the heartache we’ve suffered ~ changing up table fare so he doesn’t get too attached to any one thing. That’s what mothers do ~ protect their children.
Fun | Mr. Bingley | 
November 17, 2006 10:39 am
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Dang, that baby food was great.
I don’t know how Crusader ever grew up, since I stole every jar from him.
Ah, Gerber. I haven’t bought any in YEARS, but there has been many times I’m tempted to see if their Vanilla Custard Pudding is as good as I remember it.
Doritos. They haven’t been great since June 2005.
I remember the old Tostettes, a competitor for Pop Tarts. I always liked tostettes better, especially how if you put them in a vertical toaster, all the filling would run to the bottom. When you ate it, you had to suffer through 75% without filling, but that remaining 25% was wonderful!
Oh, and more recently, they changed the flavor of Nilla wafers. They taste like all their inferior competitors now. I miss the old taste.
I guess my kids will grow up Republican. They refused to eat that baby food slop and went straight for the real thing.
We have changed Sugar Pops to Corn Pops to just Pops but they’re still delicious to the extent that I have to keep them OUT of the house. No self-respecting Earth mother would ever give her kids anything labeled “Sugar Pops” these days. Good thing I didn’t have a self-respecting Earth mother.
Unsweetened Koolaid called for two full cups of sugar when I was a kid and we drank it all the time. Again with the self-respecting Earth mother…
Cocoa Krispies, once one of my favorites, is inedible now. They did something awful to that formula.
Hostess pies used to be filled with REAL fruit chunks. Now it’s all pureed to the point that it’s like eating a pudding pastry. Chewing is nearly optional.
And Nestle Crunch bars…..it’s almost like chewing cardboard. Where’s the chocolate? Is there a shortage in the world? Yeck!
I also noticed that Oreos have been eased back for that sugar/fat/chocolate wham. The cookies are a little thinner (less filling), and it seems that there are fewer per box. Now I have to scarf down two Oreos to get the high that one used to give. Bummer. Growing boys need their vitamins, after all.
Kids food just isn’t much fun anymore. Remember “Jets” cereal? How about “Pop Rocks”? “Fizzies”?? Trading cards and toys in the cereal boxes. Things you could order for a dime with two box tops. The good stuff cost a quarter.
Hahaha, you’re so right ~ “Quisp” amd “Quake”, Skul!
And then there was the greatest mistake in the history of stupidity, something so monumentally idiotic it’s in a league of its own: New Coke.
Dave J, New Coke is considered by most as one of the biggest business blunders of the 20th century if not of all time. But even when they brought back “Coke Classic” the formula was changed in one significant area. In the pre-“New Coke” days, Coca-Cola was made with real sugar. Now the “Coke Classic” is made with corn syrup. Coca-Cola execs claim there’s no difference in taste, but long time Coke drinkers know better. However I have heard that Coca-Cola made with real sugar is still being produced in Mexico as well as some European countries and also due to Jewish law, Kosher Coca-Cola is made with real sugar.
“However I have heard that Coca-Cola made with real sugar is still being produced in Mexico as well as some European countries and also due to Jewish law, Kosher Coca-Cola is made with real sugar.”
Yep, and since I live in Waukegan, I can get the real deal Coke across the street at Tacos El Norte in a real glass bottle no less. Drinking one of those is like a trip backwards in a time machine.