Nostalgic Nights: Vintage Snacks and Lasting Memories from the Ultimate Sleepover
Taking a look at the vintage foods that fueled our childhood sleepovers
A few days ago as I was grinding my own salt and kneading bread dough, I suddenly remembered that my son was having his best friend over for a sleepover this weekend. It was at that moment I realized, I was unprepared in the 9-year-old boy snack department.
So, off to the store I go to pick up their usual favorites. Doritos, chicken nuggets, hot pockets, etc. filled my basket. They both love spaghetti so that’s what’s for dinner, we were good to go.
When we got home the boys broke into the arsenal of Nerf guns and subsequently one of the most epic Nerf battles in history ensued. As the darts flew past my head I got to thinking about the sleepovers I had as a kid, more specifically the snacks and dinners that fueled our late-night movie or game sessions.
In this article, we will take a look at some of the vintage foods from our not-so-distant past to see which ones went extinct, what stuck around, and the vintage foods just might be making a comeback, let’s dig in!
The first thing that comes to mind when I think of an old-school sleepover is, as I said above, the snacks.
When I think of vintage sleepover snacks or junk food from my childhood my immediate go-to is Totino’s™ pizza rolls. These bite-sized pizza snacks were guaranteed to burn the skin off the roof of your mouth instantly but were oh-so-delicious.
These microwavable pockets of molten deliciousness were not only quick and tasty, but they combine the best parts of pizza, ravioli, and eggrolls all in one. A classic sleepover food.
When there’s something that’s this hot and delicious on the menu you have got to have a tasty beverage to go with it, and there was no better beverage than Hi-C Ecto Cooler. This libation was the official drink of the Ghostbusters or at least I am going to claim that it was. Nevertheless, this was my Mountain Dew until I discovered the real thing.
When I was a kid this was awesome but I am pretty sure that if I consumed this now as an adult I would probably vomit, and just like any good parent should, I would never buy this crap for my kid. Wait a minute, yes I would!
When sleeping over at a friend’s house for the night you would often have been subjected to some interesting Vintage Dinner choices. Some of these offerings included 1980s dinner favorites such as Swedish meatballs and tuna noodle casserole, or as some call it, toodle. These concoctions looked terrifying most of the time but usually didn’t taste all that bad.
On a side note, just because I’m a chef doesn’t mean that I’m pretentious. If someone cooks me a meal in their home I am going to eat it, as long as it’s safe to do so.
Vintage foods like Crystal Pepsi, Pac-Man cereal, and Space Food Sticks are relics of the past, but snacks like Pop Rocks, Fruit Roll-Ups, and Nerds are here to stay.
The same goes for what I call the Vintage Dinners like Chicken a la King, Quiche Lorraine, and Beef Stroganoff. These retro staples live in obscurity in your grocer’s freezer, waiting for some nostalgic soul to grab them off the shelf and let them live their short microwaved life, one last time.
Some Vintage meals are coming back to the table, take the simple grilled cheese and tomato soup. This meal has gone from American cheese, Wonder Bread and a can of Campbell’s to an artisan tomato bisque and a gourmet five-cheese grilled cheese sandwich on house-made sourdough.
Meals like simple roasted chicken, meatloaf with mashed potatoes, and pot roast are being reintroduced into the culinary canon with updated twists and a focus on fresh, high-quality ingredients simply prepared.
We can’t forget about the candy, every sleepover needs something sweet. Warheads, Sour Patch Kids, and Pixy-Stix encapsulated an era of innocence and sugar-fueled laughter. Retro confectionary delights such as Bubble Jug, Bonkers, and the Reggie bar, (named after baseball legend Reggie Jackson) survive only in memory.
No matter how crazy the snacks were or how diabetes-inducing the candy was, none of that really mattered. Nor did it matter what Vintage Dinner was served, what movies were watched, or what games were played.
All that mattered was for one night, time seemed to slow down just enough to let us grab onto every fleeting moment, creating memories that would linger in our hearts for a lifetime.
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Yes, I agree. Those were the days. You're right - it was not just eating those snacks that was so incredibly satisfying. The camrodierie brought it all together for the pure joy of it all.
We definitely baked our own little pizzas in the 80s, those $2-a-pop meals were amazing for us kids. I remember when Cool Ranch Doritos came out, too, because I was playing D&D (I was a tad older than the classic sleepover age, but not by much, maybe 12 or so).
Purplesaurus Rex was the King of Kool-Aid where I grew up.