Chow In Praise of Pixifoods
posted by on August 29 at 13:41 PM
As blogger/neologist Joe Posnanski puts it:
Pixifood (PIKZ-ee-food), noun: Any food substance that is highly pleasant to the taste as a child and tastes shockingly unpleasant once you become an adult.
Among Posnanski’s key pixifoods:
Tang As a child it tastes like: Fruity drink goodness. As an adult it tastes like: Laundry detergent
Pop Tarts As a child tastes like: Flavor-filled pastry with delightful crunchy coating. As an adult tastes like: Manila folders injected with jelly.
Dinty Moore Beef Stew As a child it tastes like: The absolute best camping food available. As an adult it tastes like: Dog Food
My personal pixi-faves: frozen fish sticks, Salisbury steak TV dinners, and the entire culinary ouvre of Chef Boyardee.
Read Posnanski’s full pixifood manifesto here.
Hi-C. A sickly sweet taste no one over 10 could possibly like.
Totino's pizza is still gloriously, greasily, and tragically, delicious.
Whatever, I still love Tang. The trick is to make it slightly thicker than the directions advise, and to only - ONLY - drink it hot on a cold night. It's a great replacement for when I've already had seven cups of tea and cocoa doesn't sound good.
All those sugary cereals I could only enjoy when sleeping over at friends' cos my mom wouldn't let me buy them. Subversion loses much of its flavor when you grow up, I guess.
YES! I LOVED Dinty Moore as a child. Then one time I tried it recently, and it was NASTY! How does that happen? What is the science? Someone, please, explain.
I completely agree with the Chef Boyardee thing. I used to LOVE having the ravioli when we went camping. It was the highlight of the whole camping trip. I tried it as an adult and Geee-ROSS! @2, Sadly, you couldn't be more right.
I always liked dad's spooge.
The last time I ate a can of spaghetti-O's it was horribly disgusting. Can't believe I used to eat that shit a few times a week as a young one.
The one pixifood that has survived my transition to adulthood is Hot Pockets, but I just chalk that up to the fact that they were always on sale while I was in college.
I still like Poptart(s).
frozen fish sticks make great fish tacos.
I still like Fruity Pebbles...man I love that cereal. But other than that there are none of the kiddie foods I like. Maybe adults like salty more than sweet?
Oh, and the KFC item on the website. I think that the chicken really has gone down hill A LOT over the past decade. It was never as slimy and nasty as it is now days.
Sorry, the C-B ravioli is still damn tasty as an adult But boy, 50-50 sucks now that I'm an adult.
i was recently surprised to discover that both strawberry and chocolate pocky no longer give my tongue a boner the way they did when i was a young bomb.
Mr. Poe once and for all explains his fetish for old men @7
HEY! I do not taste like a manila folder injected with jelly.
My kid thing that I can no longer stand is anything in that artificial grape flavor, lollipops, gum, etc.
Kool Aide popcicles. Pop corn balls. Caramel apples. Still tasty, even without teeth.
Ha! When I was a kid, I went to Florida and the McDonald's there had this new thing called the McRib. I insisted on eating it every day, sometimes twice. I was so distraught to return home where it was not on the menu. Fast-forward to: my late teens, when it was introduced in my market. FOULNESS! Utter and complete foulness! I love having a name for this bit of taste bud trickery.
Let the record reflect that pink Dippity-Do does NOT taste like strawberry jam.
Does breastmilk go without saying?
I remember being pretty fond of Little Debbies snack cakes as a kid. Now, they taste like petroleum wax, polyethelene foam, and silicone grease.
This is the funniest Slog entry & postings I've ever read. Great way to kick off a long weekend.
I submit frozen dinners in general. As a kid, they were a sublime culinary sensation. Now, I'd just as soon eat the cardboard container they come in.
Every food product from my Atomic Age childhood still made with real sugar tastes fine, like Kool Aid when made at home. But some of those foods now contain (in place of sugar) high fructose corn syrup or aspartame or Sweet N Low (from coal tar, just like Tylenol!) or some other sugary chemical & those taste like Gigantor's metallic ass. Who's up for some Space Food Sticks? http://www.funkyfoodshop.com/index.php?cPath=23
i've always been interested in the reverse phenomena: food that tasted like crap as a kid, now you love it.
for me, couldn't handle mashed potatoes. now, of course...
it's all about the TEXTURE.
Pringle's Potato Chips. Delicious as a child: distasteful now.
I hated pickles and onions when I was a kid, now I try to put them (with garlic, too, if at all possible) into most of my dinners. Oh, and black pepper. I've inexplicably become an Arab.
Instant mac & cheese dinners - yum! Forever and always! Even better when stoned!
My pixifood is McDonald's chicken McNuggets. I loooved them as a kid -- it's what I always got. Out of curiousity, I ordered some a few years ago and they taste like fucking cardboard. Greasy, nasty cardboard.
I will never, ever, ever outgrow my craving for my favorite childhood food, which happens to also be the only food I've ever really eaten.
C'mon, do I have to tell you what it is?
My recent discovery on a culinary trip down memory lane, that should make the list: Spaghetti-o's and Spam sandwiches. Not the taste treats that I remembered. What in the hell was my young mind thinking?
Balogna was delicious. Now it is not.
One more for the list : THE MAN-WICH!
Cheetos - packaging peanuts dosed with artificial cheese powder
@24 Peppers and Onions. Never liked it until I turned 24 or so.
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