What’s the Weirdest Thing You Used to Eat as a Kid?

Right now Kitchn is testing out a recipe for pizza bagel bites (spoiler!) and that got some of my coworkers talking about the foods we ate as kids. The conversation started out about the best way to heat up bagel bites — were you a broiler or microwave family? — but it quickly turned into us discussing all the secretly weird things we liked to eat as kids. And I’m not talking about a deep, dark obsession with Lunchables or Dunkaroos — no, these strange concoctions go beyond the prepared snacks of the ’90s.

I’ll start with mine first: Because I’m from the Midwest, my favorite snack obviously involved melted cheese. When my parents weren’t looking and I had the TV to myself, I used to melt a bunch of shredded Kraft cheese on a plate in the microwave and then add a few splashes of white wine vinegar (so fancy!) and just, um, eat it with a fork.

In my defense, melted cheese is absolutely delicious, and vinegar is basically hot sauce without the heat, right? And cheese and hot sauce are an acceptable combination as long as they’re added to something else, like tortilla chips. So, like, it’s not too bad of a dish for an 8-year-old to make. Maybe?

Here are some of the other oddball things Apartment Therapy Media staff ate when they were kids.

Nancy: “We used to have this rectangular lunch meat, that I called the ‘long ham’, and I would take a piece of long ham and smash Pringles on it and roll it up and eat it like a burrito.”

Molly: “I used to fold salami into a tiny triangle, eat out holes in patterns, and then put it on my face like a mask. And then proceed to eat the salami.”

Nora: “I used to take peanut butter and pickle sandwiches for lunch.”

Kaitlin: “I was obsessed with canned herring and minced black olives. Separately.”

Lauren: “It’s not the food that’s weird, but the habit for me: I snuck big gulps of this dressing out of the bottle.”

Meghan: “White rice and Hidden Valley ranch dressing.”

Christine: “Zucchini cooked in cream of mushroom soup.”

Kelli: “I had a real thing for bologna and pickle sandwiches, preferably on white bread with mustard.”

Your turn! What’s the weirdest thing you used to eat as a kid?