Childhood Memories Meme

More than two weeks have passed and I have yet to post my responses to this meme that Clare over at Eat Stuff has tagged me for.  She is definitely owed an apology, and no, this one will not contain Spam® (sorry Clare).

The rules of this meme are simple.  Write about five foods from your childhood that you miss...what's the catch?  There is none, really.  AND so that the people that started this darned thing can keep track of it, here's something else that you need to do:

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; link to each of the other blogs for the desired cross-pollination effect.  Then tag three people and you're over and done with it all.  Sheesh.

1.  Secrets & Lies
2.  Do or Do Not
3.  BeautyJoyFood
4.  Eat Stuff
5.  'Ono Kine Grindz

So here goes...

1.  Tomoe Ame brand rice candy.  These chewy and extremely sweet rice candies are covered in a thin edible rice paper.  The rice paper starts to dissolve as soon as you pop the candy into your mouth, with the candy itself being a bit sticky and gummy.  Each box contained an "amuzing toy" -- sometimes this meant a small plastic toy, but more often, it meant a sticker or a paper backed "tattoo".  Nowadays, it's hard to find these in the box, but you can buy them in bulk in plastic bags.  I bought a box for US$1.29 at my local Long's Drugs store, a far cry from the 25 cents we used to get them for when I was in grade school.

2.  Crushed Diamond Bakery saloon pilots topped with Nestlé Quik (now called Nesquik) and hot water.  As kids, my sister and I hated eating breakfast in the morning, but we did love hot chocolate.  One day a neighbor introduced us to this and it became an instant favorite.  To prepare, crumble one saloon pilot into a small bowl, then add one heaping tablespoonful of Nestlé Quik over the crackers.  Pour a small amount of hot water over it all, quickly stir and gobble down.  The trick was to gobble it all down before the crackers turned to mush.  Not much fun after that huh?

3.  Horlicks Malted Milk Tablets.  Memories of visting Long's Drugs and asking my mom to buy me the bottle of Horlicks which was perched way up on the top shelf.  Nevermind making it hard for the kids to see -- we were actually the only ones that ate them right?  Slightly chalky, a little chewy and not too chocolatey, I could eat the whole bottle of Horlicks in one sitting.  I also got a stomach ache afterwards, but these were so addicting that I kept wanting more and more.  The best thing about Horlicks was having to scrape them off your teeth. 

4.  Maui hotdogs.

5.  Mountain apples.

Almost finished here, but...

...in the meantime, the three people that I'm going to tag are Jo at Truly Thankful, Kirk at mmm-yoso!!! and milgwimper at Some Like it Hot.

Comments

[clare eats]

Thanks Reid! *grin*

[Cathy]

I remember those rice candies! I'm not certain they were the same brand, but they were packaged just as you describe. We used to buy them at Dockside (a now defunct store that carried all sort of interesting imports - sort of like Pier 1, but better and cheaper). I think what we liked best of these wasn't the toy (though that was pretty great too), but the novelty of the edible rice paper that they were wrapped in. As little kids we thought paper that dissolved in your mouth was pretty cool!

[Reid]

Hi Clare,

No problem. Now all I need to do is finish this.... =)

Hi Cathy,

I think that's why we liked them too. I was so fascinated by the melting paper that after it was gone, I didn't want to eat the rest of the candy. =)

[Jo]

We have Botan for the candies. Exact same deal. In Spain they had sunflower seeds packaged with little toys. One of the toys was a plastic white poodle mounted on a brooch pin. I still have one!

[Kirk]

Reid - I used to peel the paper off - and eat the paper, just to see what it tasted like - over, and over....I guess I'm not a real quick learner, huh?

[Reid]

Hi Jo,

I've heard about the Botan brand as well as a BoNtan brand. Seems that they are quite similar to this one. As far as the poodle broach...you must have been excited to get that when you were younger! =)

Hi Kirk,

Great minds think alike. I used to try to do that too. I did it a number of times as well, but stopped after I figured out I couldn't get enough of the paper off to get a real taste of it.

[Pupule]

fwiw, you can get a box of Tomoe Ame at the little store at the Rehab Center of the Pacific (Nuuanu) for $1.00US. Yeehaw!

[Lia Jordan]

I attended Fern Elementary years ago and back then, we had juice time in the mornings for 5 cents and it was a huge tin cup of guava juice and graham crackers. Lunch was like mom's home cooked meals. Shortbread cookies and cherry cobbler. Oh and the peanut butter sandwiches...nothing is like that out there anymore. Something about the peanut butter, I will never forget. Ono times! No mo now...so sad. Where have all the good times gone??? Aloha everybody...from Fayetteville, NC.

[Lia Jordan]

P.S. rice candy
I still buy them but where has the surprise in the box gone?

[Gamura]

Our family lived in Point Loma (San Diego) back in 1962-63. A nearby Japanese family sold Tomoe Ame and other confections right from their home. 5 cents a box, with sometimes flimsy little metal cars as the toy.