A few weeks ago, I sat down to eat lunch at my desk, taking a few minutes to fuel up and get a break from working. It was going to be good – I had bought lunches at the grocery store a few days earlier and this one was special: Chef Boyardee canned raviolis, heated in the office microwave.
Those raviolis were a favorite in my childhood and early adulthood. Raviolis are among my top 10 foods and this was simple – microwave the little bowl of them, then sit back and relish the great taste.
Except . . .
That didn't happen.
The raviolis tasted bad. They were lukewarm (I could have reheated them, but the taste was so bad that it didn't seem worth it). I had accidentally bought some sort of "mini" raviolis that would barely stay on my plastic fork.
It was a major disappointment. Food that I had always thought highly of – and considered a treat – was terrible. It turns out my tastes have changed.
As a kid, I was very aware that adults had different tastes than me. Some adults liked things like liver and very few liked Rocky Road candy bars. But had you asked me, I would have assured you that even if I grew to like liver (I haven't), I would always like canned ravioli.
I don't. And it's not alone. As far as I'm concerned, canned ravioli goes with a few other "staples" that I liked (we liked, since I assume you're along with me) years ago that don't work with taste buds later in life.
Before we begin, a caveat. There remain some young-adult foods that I still like. Ramen remains tasty. Taquitos are very good. Macaroni and cheese remains good (although the microwave version is a massive step down from traditional mac and cheese).
But others? There are some major disappointments:
Pizza rolls. These were fantastic in the 1980s, when you could pull a bag out of the freezer, dump a dozen or so on a cookie sheet and have ready to eat in 20 minutes. Maybe the taste changed, but more likely I came to realize they don't taste like pizza, but more like over-sauced, poorly wrapped biscuits with some sort of pepperoni-ish meat inside. Not great.
Bagel bites. The bagel version of pizza rolls. They aren't really bagels, they take more than a bit and they don't really taste good. But at one point, they seemed great. And kind of exotic, since they were bagels!
Pizza pockets. Mrs. Brad and I ate a lot of Pizza Pockets early in our marriage. A lot. They were cheap and they were a treat. You could microwave them (or cook them in the oven) and you had a slice of pizza! In a pocket! You could dip them in ranch dressing or some other dip and make them even better. Years later, I' tried them and they made me gag. Is it because the food is bad? Or is it that we overindulged in them when we were trying to get by on a few dollars a week? I don't know, but they're awful.
Chicken pot pies. No food was more pleasing to Young Brad (I capitalize both in case a rapper tries to take that name) than a Swanson chicken pot pie cooked for 40 minutes in the (avocado-colored) family oven, then eating it while watching TV as my parents were out for a Saturday night of cocktail parties or whatever they did. Try it now? It's overly breaded, the meat is questionable and the taste is subpar.
Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.
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