Cassava Films - The List of 9

the list of 9 for april 25, 2009:
NINE FOODS I ATE AS A CHILD THAT I WOULDN'T TOUCH TODAY

It's my birthday tomorrow, and as birthdays do, it's gotten me to think about all the time that'sgone by and how I have changed throughout the years. One topic that came up was food. Now, I'mmarried to a vegan - which isn't as hard as you'd think, provided said vegan knows how to cookreally well, as my wife does - and although I still eat meat on occasion, she has influenced mydiet somewhat. However, even without her influence, I can't imagine I'd be consuming any of thefoodstuffs listed below, some of which I adored when I was a kid.

Pickles. Aside from the odd cornichon, I've never likedpickled things. However, when I was young I would eat sliced dill pickles - and only slices; Iavoided whole pickles and spears like the plague - in my sandwiches, chopped up in tuna fish, evenstraight out of the jar. I'd rather eat hair than pickles now.
Bologna. I couldn't even wait to put those big pink slicesof processed Oscar Meyer meat on a sandwich: I freely ate cold bologna right out of the package.These days, while I can still understand the allure of the mildly smoky taste, the meat itself -who knows what parts of the pig are used? - grosses me out.
Uncooked hot dogs. Just like bologna, when I was in asnacky mood I'd open up the fridge and take out a nice cold hot dog. Bun and condiments notrequired. As an adult, I still love hot dogs - again, the ingredients in the meat are a bitsketchy, but those Smart Dogs (made of tofu) are so much like the real thing that I miss nothing.However, note that I only eat these faux wieners cooked.
Round steak. Okay, I didn't like round steak. In fact, Iloathed it. But it was the '70s, and moms frequently made meals out of it. This maysicken some, but I recall round steak being so chewy that I frequently wound up chewing it likegum. Not for pleasure, but because it was just too difficult to swallow.
Sour cream and onion potato chips. I worship the potatochip to this very day. That will never change. But as an adolescent, I'd eat so many Granny Goosebrand sour cream and onion chips that I'd get sick. This happened one too many times and turned meoff from the flavor entirely. Something similar happened with barbecue potato chips, but I canstill tolerate them once in a rare while.
Slim Jims. During my early teens, I enjoyed many packagedmeat snacks. My taste for them came, strangely enough, while I was recovering from a head injurywhen I was 13. I'd lost my appetite for many days, and when I got it back I requested lots of dry,salty snacks, including beef jerky and Slim Jims. Though I don't eat beef jerky today, I could.But Slim Jims? I just remember squeezing them to watch the orange fat come out of the top.Revolting. I stopped eating them when I read that they were made out of beef lips.
Shake 'n' Bake. Do they still make Shake 'n' Bake? It waspopular in the '70s; you'd put this seasoned breading mix in a plastic bag with a raw pork chop,then, well, shook it and baked it. What's weird is that I ate Shake 'n' Bake on its own, out ofthe box, with a moistened finger, like most kids did with powdered Kool Aid. Is anybody stillreading? Have I repulsed you all?
Fudge. I can point to one specific incident that made mestop eating fudge forevermore. It happened in early 1990 while I was on winter break from CalArts.I was up in San Jose hanging out with friends. I'd skipped dinner and was hungry, so my "dinner"that night consisted of two cans of Coke and a ton of homemade mint and butterscotch fudge. Wethen went to see Born on the Fourth of July where we sat in nearly the front row. I becamehorribly ill. As it turned out, I'd come down with the stomach flu that night. But I still associatefudge with nausea and won't go near it.
Orange soda. Sunkist, Fanta, it doesn't matter; the sicklysweet orange soda of my youth was never a favorite, and today it completely repels me. I can'tthink of orange soda without envisioning a warm, flat, half-empty can of it sitting in the sand atthe beach, with yellowjackets flying around the opening. In short, yuck. But mind you, I stillenjoy a nice Orangina.