Food memories.
Dec. 12th, 2008 03:50 pmEvery once in a while, when I get nostalgia for my childhood, I decide to go online shopping for the foods which were a meaningful part of my childhood.
You can actually find Entenmann's baked goods in grocery stores here in the Midwest now, but I remember that when I first moved out here you couldn't.
You still can't find Tastykakes, though, which is a shame. Man, I could go for some of their pudding-filled eclair pies right now. Or some krimpets. Damn.
Speaking of baked goods, I've finally found a website-- Pennsylvania Pantry-- which will ship me genuine shoo-fly pies. This excites me greatly, since I'm not that great at making them for myself. (The results are definitely edible, but I prefer wet bottom pies, and whenever I make them they come out dry bottom.)
Gertrude Hawk chocolates were some of my favorites when I was a kid-- the best part of Easter and one of the most delicious parts of Christmas (aside from the dozen and a half varieties of my Grandma's homemade cookies). My favorite things are what they're calling smidgens on the website: creamy chocolate filled with even creamier peanut butter. Quality shit-- the chocolate wasn't waxy or stiff, the peanut butter wasn't grainy or sticky. I haven't had a single other peanut butter-filled chocolate that can even come close to the mind-blowing awesomeness of GH smidgens.
I've been craving birch beer like crazy, and although I did finally find a restaurant around here that sells it, I'm thinking that I eventually will order a case of it from Pennsylvania Dutch, which is the brand of birch beer I remember from my childhood.
Then I decided to see if I couldn't find the salt and vinegar chips in the "white bag", which was the only brand I even thought was worth buying. Damn, those things were a kick in the teeth. So much salt and vinegar that I remember the roof of my mouth bleeding and my tongue being sore for days...delicious! Bingo-- Herr's brand, out of Bloomsburg (famous for its fair)!
Two things I can't order online and-- ironically-- two of the things I most want are Senapes pitza and Farmer's Iced Tea.
Senapes pitza was sold at the IGA two blocks from my duplex when I was a kid, so I ate TONS of this shit. Everything that write-up says is Truth: you can only get it near Hazelton and outlying towns; it's best cold; and it only gets better with age. God, I'd kill for a few squares of that!
Farmer's Iced Tea has a mySpace page and there's an anti-DIET Farmer's community on Facebook, but that's all I can find.
The "About Me Blurb" on MySpace cracks me up: While the rest of the country drinks Red Bull to stay awake, Hazelton has it's green and yellow pints of Farmer's Iced Tea. The sugar and caffeine content of one pint of Farmer's Iced Tea is enough to keep you awake for at least a few hours. It's definitely an acquired taste. It's not like Snapple where everyone can pick it up and enjoy it from the first sip, but if you grow up with it or drink enough, it becomes crack cocaine. Guaranteed to awake any Hazeltonian from a coma if only for a few minutes. Use with caution. This is also Truth. *nodnod*
...and when I do this, I remember what a weirdly insular place Pennsylvania was. (Is? *shrugs*)
You can actually find Entenmann's baked goods in grocery stores here in the Midwest now, but I remember that when I first moved out here you couldn't.
You still can't find Tastykakes, though, which is a shame. Man, I could go for some of their pudding-filled eclair pies right now. Or some krimpets. Damn.
Speaking of baked goods, I've finally found a website-- Pennsylvania Pantry-- which will ship me genuine shoo-fly pies. This excites me greatly, since I'm not that great at making them for myself. (The results are definitely edible, but I prefer wet bottom pies, and whenever I make them they come out dry bottom.)
Gertrude Hawk chocolates were some of my favorites when I was a kid-- the best part of Easter and one of the most delicious parts of Christmas (aside from the dozen and a half varieties of my Grandma's homemade cookies). My favorite things are what they're calling smidgens on the website: creamy chocolate filled with even creamier peanut butter. Quality shit-- the chocolate wasn't waxy or stiff, the peanut butter wasn't grainy or sticky. I haven't had a single other peanut butter-filled chocolate that can even come close to the mind-blowing awesomeness of GH smidgens.
I've been craving birch beer like crazy, and although I did finally find a restaurant around here that sells it, I'm thinking that I eventually will order a case of it from Pennsylvania Dutch, which is the brand of birch beer I remember from my childhood.
Then I decided to see if I couldn't find the salt and vinegar chips in the "white bag", which was the only brand I even thought was worth buying. Damn, those things were a kick in the teeth. So much salt and vinegar that I remember the roof of my mouth bleeding and my tongue being sore for days...delicious! Bingo-- Herr's brand, out of Bloomsburg (famous for its fair)!
Two things I can't order online and-- ironically-- two of the things I most want are Senapes pitza and Farmer's Iced Tea.
Senapes pitza was sold at the IGA two blocks from my duplex when I was a kid, so I ate TONS of this shit. Everything that write-up says is Truth: you can only get it near Hazelton and outlying towns; it's best cold; and it only gets better with age. God, I'd kill for a few squares of that!
Farmer's Iced Tea has a mySpace page and there's an anti-DIET Farmer's community on Facebook, but that's all I can find.
The "About Me Blurb" on MySpace cracks me up: While the rest of the country drinks Red Bull to stay awake, Hazelton has it's green and yellow pints of Farmer's Iced Tea. The sugar and caffeine content of one pint of Farmer's Iced Tea is enough to keep you awake for at least a few hours. It's definitely an acquired taste. It's not like Snapple where everyone can pick it up and enjoy it from the first sip, but if you grow up with it or drink enough, it becomes crack cocaine. Guaranteed to awake any Hazeltonian from a coma if only for a few minutes. Use with caution. This is also Truth. *nodnod*
...and when I do this, I remember what a weirdly insular place Pennsylvania was. (Is? *shrugs*)
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