Comfort Foods

My wife woke up dismayed to discover she was out of milk for her morning coffee. “Use our powdered milk, “ I quipped and just had to laugh. I haven’t thought about powdered milk for over 30 years and it’s probably over 40 years since I last had some! It was our go-to for camping and we also had some in the pantry for emergencies like this. But no nostalgia here for the taste—it was pretty bad. 

 

And that got me thinking of other foods that were a big part of my early adult life. Like using carob instead of chocolate. (Bad idea!) Making alfafa sprouts. (Okay, but fine without them.) Tofu cheesecake. (Not as bad as it sounds, but missable.)

 

From my childhood, there was a habit of drinking milk with molasses, buckwheat groats (kasha) for a hot breakfast cereal, putting wheat germ (Kretschtmers) on my cereal (actually, pretty good— I think they still sell this. Maybe I’ll buy some!). I used to have bananas and sour cream (now yogurt) and almonds and raisins (still do—and there’s a lovely Yiddish song of that title). 

 

No deep metaphor here, just fun to start with powdered milk and think back on foods that are like old forgotten friends, the “whatever happened to…?” variety. Could be fun to have a party serving all of the above while listening to 70’s music. 

 

What’s on your list?