I was once told that I express longing and wistfulness when recalling memories of my favorite food much like an unrequited love or past flame.  It is true.  Nothing compares to…food that steps up to make an impression on the taste buds whether it’s five-star molecular gastronomy, home-cooked from a mom and pop, or some genetically modified, chemically generated packaged concoction with a shelf-life that challenges your mortality.  To paraphrase Prince/Sinead O’Connor “I can eat my dinner in a fancy restaurant but nothing, nothing can take away these blues…(except for an amazing hole in the wall in Monterey Park).”

Here are my favorite foods from childhood – from the gourmet to hyper artificial:

1.  Baked Tapioca Custard:

This version of tapioca is a Hong Kong Cantonese spin on an American classic except there’s a gooey center of red bean paste within the bed of tapioca egg custard that is baked until golden-brown.  I remember I had a hankering for the corner pieces that had the chewy, crispy burned out crust and loved the rich, red bean paste filling that complimented the vanilla flavored, eggy custard.  It was an odd, yet perfect fusion of Eastern and Western tastes and flavors.  I can’t remember when I started eating this stuff, but it was at least since I was three years old.  (My mom has a photo of me blowing out a candle stuck in big glass pyrex dish filled with piping hot tapioca custard that was a proxy for my birthday cake.)

2.  Stoeffers French Bread Pizza:

Before the microwave, there was the toaster oven which was one step up from an Easy Bake.  The great thing about the toaster oven is that kids can still can get as close as they can to preparing their own hot food without risking major injury or burning the house down by fumbling around with bigger, grown-up appliances.  One of the best kid-food items that was perfectly paired with the toaster oven, was the Stoeffers French Bread Pizza.  Crunchy, savory and with that addictive salty, spicy pepperoni that only nitrates can produce, I loved every bite of it.

3. Prosciutto:

When my mother started working as a self-made real estate agent, I became the beneficiary of her working mom guilt and saw my sandwiches upgraded from packaged ham to shaved prosciutto from the local Italian deli.  Once I had the taste of hand-cured artisan quality meat aka charcuterie as opposed to the Oscar Mayer process kind, I was hard pressed to go back.  Fortunately, mom’s business grew and she was able to feed my prosciutto habit until I graduated from bag lunches to cafeteria food in college.

4.  Ovaltine:

My grandmother started me off on a bad sugar addiction as a child by sweetening my morning hot milk with sugar.  At some point, she made the switch (perhaps fear of skyrocketing dental bills?) and started mixing my milk with Ovaltine.  Though I liked the creamy, chocolatey taste I was merely satisfied though not overwhelmed by my morning milk routine (perhaps I needed to be won over by a promotional decoder ring like Ralphie in ‘A Christmas Story’).  Then, when my parents first took me to Hong Kong, I tasted Ovaltine’s Hong Kong/British formula, was hooked by its distinct, malty aroma and never looked back.

5.  Hostess Mini Powdered Sugar Donuts:

As a kid, I was so addicted to Hostess powdered mini donuts, I looked like a coke fiend after consuming a pack of those sugar bombs.  Something about the donut’s compact size and the rush of fast dissolving sugar in powdered (vs. crystal) form was particularly good for a covert fix during recess.

What’s your favorite childhood food?