By Haley Kim
*Disclaimer: Please do not try these at home!*
As a young child, I’ve enjoyed diversifying and expanding my palate (mainly due to the fact that I will literally eat anything) when allowed access to a classroom or pantry with no supervision. From the start, I loved to explore and conduct highly questionable culinary experiments for fun. My childhood diet consisted of a combination of some highly toxic materials along with some extremely healthy and organic substances (the closer to the dirt the better!) that I often question how I made it out alive past the age of 10. Anywho, here is a rating of some of my all time favorite snacks and appetizers from my childhood!
#1 Officially named a “Yellow Woodsorrel” but known to all as the “yellow flower with the yummy stem”
100000++/10
This was the all-time BEST snack for all the elementary kids out there. That little bunch that would always grow right across from the girl’s bathroom was the most hunted spot of all the 1st graders. We would cut the stems with our little scissors, rinse them off in the sink and crunch on that delicious, sour, tangy stem and occasionally the flower petals when we felt like it. Ultimately, the school banned all kids from eating the plants after they noticed a chopped stump of stems in the dirt, but we continued to search constantly for these yummy afternoon treats around campus.
#2 The Neon-Pink Kindergarten Single Person Play-Doh
9/10
Oh my goodness. The light airy texture of this dough along with the sour/salty aftertaste was the absolute banger snack for a kindergartener right before lunch time. For the best Play-Doh experience (coming from an expert over here), I advise you to first, roll it up into a snake, then cut into small flattened balls with your pencil and nibble on a couple when the teacher isn’t looking.
#2 A Dry Packet of Hot Chocolate
8/10
Imagine having a fun-dip but make it a Christmas blend. This was a favorite snack year-round and I still eat this presently. Just the way the powder dissolves and the flavors burst in your mouth is a whole lot better than drinking it out of a cup. Why spend the time to boil water and mix the powder when you can just consume it straight from the packet?
#2 The Good Ol’ Wide-Ruled Composition Notebook Paper
4/10
Is this giving you flashbacks to your first grade English class? I wouldn’t say this goes on my top ten snacks but definitely a good substitute for when you run out of gum. The texture sometimes cuts your mouth but when you’re running out of things to eat you must survive with the resources you’ve got in the classroom. My favorite method for eating this snack is to rip a strip of paper from your notebook, roll it up into a ball and chew on it for a good three seconds before you spit it out. Or usually in my case, just swallow it.
#5 Cherry Seeds
2/10
This one is absolutely so terrible and I’m still a little traumatized to this day. I was simply unable to ever effectively spit out the seeds so I would resort to swallowing them whole (as you can tell with a lot of the other items listed). My mom got so fed up with it that she made me believe that if I kept eating them, eventually a cherry tree would start to grow inside my stomach. That thought still churns my guts to this day.
Looking back, while I do question some of the dietary choices I’ve made, I still appreciate all the fun and curious experiences I’ve had with food as a child. They’ve truly shaped my endless appreciation and love for food and which I should probably thank for my iron stomach. And while I’ve finally retired from my old diet, I advise all of you, including myself someday, to dive back to your roots and retry that nostalgic saltiness of Play-Doh, the dryness of wide ruled paper or your favorite corner of a pillow, just to remember where it all started.
(I’m just kidding, please do not try any of these again, but you get my point.)