Nostalgic Snacks You Forgot Existed

Taste and smell are wired straight into memory in a way sight and sound aren't quite as good at, which is the only real explanation for why one bite of a candy you haven't had in twenty years can put you back in a specific hallway, at a specific age, mid-conversation with someone whose name you've since forgotten.

Snacks were also currency, in a way toys never quite were. A good lunch trade was a skill. Certain candies had leverage — the kind of item you'd hold onto specifically because someone else wanted it, not because you even liked it that much yourself. Other snacks were the opposite: you hoarded them because sharing felt like a genuine sacrifice.

None of this stuff is particularly good for you, and it never was, and that was never really the point. This is the list of exactly what was in the vending machine, the gas station checkout line, and the bottom of a Halloween pillowcase — the tastes that, for better or worse, are permanently filed under "childhood" in the back of your brain.