80s Nostalgia Grab Bag: Food, Movies & Memories

Hey y'all, welcome to another episode of Past Times at 80s High. Awesome one for you today. We are gonna do our favorite foods, a buffet, if you will, from the early 70s, eighties, and early 90s. Just, you know, not really a hodgepodge, so to speak, but just gonna get a lot of things out there. I have Kevin today. Kevin.

Good afternoon.

Yes, Donald. Hey, how you doing? Good man and brother Mark.

Hey there.

And I am AJ. And uh Mark's gonna have the honors today, but before we kick it off, I just want to get a few things out there and bear with me if you might. But first, if you could check out our website, it is pastimes at 80shigh.com, and that is 80s. Then our email address is pta80H at gmail.com. PTA80H at gmail.com. And then on one other side note here, all you Facebook users, if you want to check it out, we just are launching a page called Past Timers at 80s High. And that's gonna be where we're gonna hope to get a lot of threads there to uh you know converse with one another as fans and hosts, and should be a great time. So check that out if you will. Like and share. Yes, indeed. Please. What is it, Kevin? Smash that like button. Don't you love that?

And I will hurt you if you say I hate when people smash that like button. How about I smash your teeth instead? Exactly. Fire. That's right.

So I had to say it. Pencil neck geeks. Awesome. So anyway, the categories today will be fun. Uh a little random. There's a couple in there that will be just kind of, you know, our personal households growing up, but that's okay. What we're gonna start off with today, with you, Mark, is our favorite breakfast cereal.

All right. Well, in uh 2025, I no longer eat cereal. I have not eaten cereal since I was a child, honestly. Wow. But I used to eat it like crazy back in the day. I used to love going to Ruggles Supermarket on Saturdays and going through the cereal aisle. But I'm gonna go with it's a Captain Crunch flavor that no longer exists. It was called vanilla crunch.

Crispy, creamy colored gloves of goodness. And the best part is it's vanilla flavored.

A vanilla flavored cereal, that be all.

I certainly hope so. Vanilla Crunch is a wheel of the cereal.

Vanilla Crunch. Yeah, it was very nice. I I know vanilla sounds boring, but it really isn't. And it was just really it was very crunchy and very vanilla-y. And uh, I mean, it kind of reminded me of another one that you guys probably never remembered, which was Twix. Not Twix, Twix, that's a candy bar. Quisp.

Quisp, I remember that.

Yep. Yeah, well, I hope you guys aren't picking that one. But that had the had the guy with the uh little propeller on him. But I mean, again, cereal. It was a complete breakfast as long as you had juice, toast, and milk with it. Every single time. Yeah, and I would be sitting there eating my cereal just in such a great mood and looking at the side of the box. And of course, you always want to get to that uh prize at the bottom.

Naturally.

I was gonna say, is that why you stopped eating cereal now these days? Because the prizes aren't any good anymore? Is that uh Yeah.

Yeah, exactly. Um I don't remember why I did.

I mean, well, that's funny to me. That's funny for a reason, but I'll wait for my turn.

Well, yeah, you're next, and that was my number one pick.

So awesome. What say it one more time though? Captain Vanilla?

What it was it's it's a Captain Crunch, but it was called vanilla crunch.

Vanilla Crunch. Vanilla Crunch.

Not vanilla. I thought it was vanilla crunch, but it's vanilla crunch, as in Milly Vanilli.

That is one thing I've never I've never seen that one. That's awesome.

Well, yes, because again, I'm 60 and you guys are in your early to mid-50s. Yeah, yeah.

That's it was probably it was probably not real vanilla. It was an industrial chemical, so that's why they had to call it vanilla crunch.

Right, right. Yeah, probably it differently.

Uh but you children at home, make sure you have your tooth toothed. Oh god.

Marky Bunker, folks.

Please don't draw me no diaphragms, huh?

Yes.

Juice, toast, and milk.

Yeah. Which I do have a Marky Bunker Marky Bunker button in the works, which is why I always do that question earlier, Kevin.

Wait, I have a question. Uh I said I kept saying versatility. Is it versatility or versatility?

Well, it's Marky Bunker. We'll find out.

I think it's versatility, but I kind of like versatility. I think that might be a new word, right?

At least here on pastimes at 80side.

Well, my favorite uncle, uh, Uncle Ted, you know?

So is it sexual harassment or sexual harassment?

All right.

Depends on if you're Vaservase, right? It will not be tolerated, but it will be graded.

All right. So to me, and why I was saying it was funny, Mark, is the fact that I had two bowls of two different cereals in the night last night. I love yes, I have cereal quite often as I am off of keto at the moment, but I live on cereal at the moment. I love it, love it to death. So just to go back real quick, just before I take my pick, these are things that don't necessarily have to be extinct because many, many of mine are not. Right. So it just had to exist then and you had to love it. That's all. That's all. So, anyway, I I have so many on my list, I just popped a bunch of them in, and but for me, I have to go with Booberry. And Boo Berry. They still make that? I think they do. I'm not sure. I don't think so. I don't think so. But here's the kicker.

Maybe on Halloween.

They do, I believe, still make Count Chocula. But Booberry was always my favorite. I always wanted to hit people that liked Frankenberry. And I don't, but it was just fun, the commercials, you know. It was Boo Berry, and then Count Chocula was the Count. Frank and Berry, Frankenstein, of course, but we had great little commercials. I would sit with a trough like Jethro, you know, in front of the TV Saturday morning cut team and rifle it in with a tablespoon. I would use like the whole effing box of cereal for breakfast, watching the super friends. What a joy and a memory. I can still see the yellow cookie bowl. It was like a mixing bowl that I would eat it out of.

Yeah.

And just sit there, Indian style, and of course, right in front of it. Don't anybody say crisscross apples. We don't say that anymore, Adrian. Yeah, I do, because that's what it was called.

Exactly. Yes. But boo berry.

Just loved it. Loved it. So do you, Dongo?

Yeah.

It is available. Sorry, Dongo. It is available on Amazon and a limited edition for $6.99 for a box of boo berry.

Yes. And it expired in 87.

Hence limited edition. Right.

Awesome. Go ahead, Don. All right. So I'm going to go with fruity pebbles. Yes, that was my second one. Donnie. Oh, I love them. They're awesome. Um, there's a short window that you have to enjoy them before they turn into like a mash of some kind. But so you have to eat them fast, which is easy enough to do, but they're just massively sweet, but loved it as a kid because I couldn't get it much. You were the Cheerios house. Yep. Yep. Shredded wheat. Cheerios. Which we'd put sugar on the Cheerios. So I mean it was, you know, natural sugar. But yeah.

You had to put sugar on the fruity pebbles.

Red food color number five or whatever it is, you know, that is shortly to be banned. But awesome.

Yeah. I always liked them better than the cocoa. Yeah, cocoa pebbles, not good. No. And now they have like the marshmallow pebbles. And as a matter of fact, I did have a box of them very recently. And that's a great pick, Don, because that was the second one on my list. And I still have another one on there. But Kevin, let's go to you.

And then that would have been mine. The fruity pebbles is like, and and we were definitely not a like sugar cereal household at all. It was a special treat if you had something that wasn't grape nuts because I wanted to rip my gums apart.

Mouth ripped to shreds. Right.

You remember the do you remember the what was this something? Oh, I can't remember. The guy was some naturalist or something. He did ads for grape nuts. You can eat a pine cone. I'm like, yeah, but there's food.

I'm Ewell Gibbons. I've spent years learning about natural foods. Ever eat a pine tree? Many parts are edible. Natural ingredients are important to me. That's why post-grape nuts is part of my breakfast. I don't get it. Right.

So so my pick, and I'm glad that it made it this far because I don't know. It was just one of my favorites. I don't know what it is, but golden grams.

Oh, yeah.

Little brown sugar honey mixture came back in and came in 76, and it's still going strong today. Probably again, no, no actual food product in it anymore. But you know, it's uh it's it's just an interesting flavor, honey and brown sugar. But yeah, they had a very distinct flavor to them, and it was kind of sweet, but not sickening sweet, I don't think, like some of the other ones. So that was golden grams. That was that was my jive.

Still one of my favorites, still buy them quite often. Um, since nobody picked it, I just did want to get this one out there because it was the third one on my list, and that is Dig 'em. Sugar Smacks? Honey Smacks, yeah. Honey smacks, yeah. But they used to be called sugar smacks, I think. I think they might have had two different ones. Same brand, same frog. But I think they made both of them. We could go forever on cereals, so that'll be another category that will come up more and more, I'm sure. But anyway, all right. So we're going to you mark for number two here, which is favorite or one of our favorite cheap beers.

Yes, that's a good way to put it. Um, I'm not sure if this is considered a cheap beer or not, but this is the one I wanted to talk about, and I'm not I'm digging my feet in. I'm going with two board gold. Yeah. Drinking it out of a bottle. Um, it was it was definitely reasonably priced. It wasn't a higher end beer, but oh my god, it was so refreshing. And I don't know if you remember me drinking this in Hinsdale. That's when I was drinking it, AJ. I don't you know, back then I it was before I started drinking uh really lot, but I would go in and drink a six-pack or so of two Burke Gold watching uh the Patriots, that great year they had until Super Bowl twenty, but um and it was just refreshing as hell. Absolutely refreshing. One thing I definitely want to say about cheap beers back in the day, there are so few options in the 21st century. I mean, with all the craft beers coming in. But I remember a moment at Corey's Market, or I don't know if it was Simon's at that point, but John Simon was working there and was like, people buy that stuff? He says, Well, yeah, more bang for your buck. It's like, oh, okay. I didn't really register with me until I started drinking. But uh, but there were so many cheap beers.

I mean, which we're gonna get to, don't say any.

Well, I mean, the main ones were Bud Schlitz and Miller.

Okay, so you're gonna say them anyway. Go over there.

They're not cheap beers from back. All right, whatever. But I'm just saying, I mean, if I would have had to pick an actual cheap beer, it would have been Schaefer, which you hate. So I know Okay.

Edit it then. If you're gonna how can you possibly say Schaefer? You hate it.

Cause that's my pick. Howy fuck. That is a right.

I hated Schaefer. I told me you hate it.

May I can I finish?

We're just gonna skip over you, AJ. There's no point. We'll go right to Donnie.

All right, fine. Just if I had to pick a cheap beer, it would be Schaefer. AJ's choice.

Okay.

All right.

Sorry, stop, stop. It was just funny that you'd pick mine. I did, I uh awesome pick. Mark, can you spell that one for me? Two Tuburg? What is it? Tuborg.

T-U-B-O-R-G gold. I don't remember it. No, I mean it's it was around briefly. I used to buy it in uh Brattleboro, bring it back, and just enjoy the hell out of it.

Oh, yeah, that's right. Because you could drive over the border and purchase there.

I know I I was old enough. I mean, I was actually 21 when we lived in Kennsty. But no, but we could David could go to the bars with me over there. It was a lot of fun.

That was awesome.

So, yeah, two board gold is my favorite quote, cheap beer.

Awesome. All right, so to me then, and that would be Schaefer. I'll get to the points here, and that is the fact that you could buy a six-pack of pounders, the 16-ounce tall boys, at the Guilford Mobile Station where where we lived at the time, for a dollar ninety-nine. All right, so two bucks for a six-pack of pounders. Now for your buck. Yes, bang for your buck. And I absolutely loved this beer. However, my point being, I loved the first 12 ounces because by time you got to the last four ounces, it was so farging terrible that you couldn't even stomach it. You'd have to plug your nose and rifle those last four ounces because it was so bad. But just the fact that it was a buck ninety nine, you know, we're getting quarters out of our car at this point. Yeah, you know, and this is when uh mostly Donnie Todd and I at this point hanging out with Ben, and Ben would have to buy it for us, so he'd go in and grab a case and we'd each get a six-back of it. Loved it. Schaefer. And I don't know, do they still make it?

I haven't seen it. I'm I'm not sure if they still make it or not. But one thing I want to say to you, AJ, the biggest problem that you had is you weren't drinking fast enough. That's not Schaefer's problem. If you have if it's warm, by the time you get down there, it is all on you.

Yes, you are correct, sir. I had to kind of I only had six of them. I had to make them less than nine. Uh but anyway, that's my pick. So do you, Donald. Cool.

Yeah, uh it's hard because when we were kids, like I didn't like the cheap beer. Like, I didn't like and I won't name some because I don't want to ruin anybody's picks, but they were disgusting, yeah. Right. I like the high quality stuff, and now some of the what I would call cheap beer is is normal stuff, and right, you know, I like the high test uh IPAs. It's we're in the golden age of beer right now, it's it's magnificent. Um, but yeah, you can get a four-pack of IPAs for the price you would get, you know, a 30-pack of some of these cheap exactly. It's horseshoe. Yeah, you know, but um, so that being said, this one was popular when I was in college, and we used to get it by the keg for our fraternity, and it was Head to the Mountains bush. Yes.

Oh, yeah.

Or to Hell With Your Mountains, show us your bush.

Which you kept there along with a half barrel for I think it was $45 in 1990-ish, 91, I think it was. And uh, yeah, half barrel for $45. Now I can't get two four packs for $45.

No, it's ridiculous. Bush, Bush had the best commercial ever. Yeah, yeah.

Great commercial. The beer was water. Basically, now I consider that water. Like I could drink a bush and you know, register a.0001. Oh, I know, I know.

That was one of the beers I could tolerate when I was uh satin to drink before I got developed a taste for beer. But that commercial.

This calls for a celebration, Barney boy. Right, Fritz? When you do for a beer, Bush does it. You can't say beer better than Bush.

Great commercials. And that's back there in the flip tops or whatever. What do you call it? Peel tops. The peel tops.

I wonder how many people lost fingers or you know, from those things. Yeah, we got some cuts.

Bush. Oh, bush. Love that peel top, the psh. Oh yeah.

So don't just reach for a beer. Head for the mountains of Bush.

Yeah.

But you're right. Lots of uh stitches for people, right? Right. Uh great pick though, Don.

All right, Kev. All right, just to catch a few things up, um, Schaefer apparently, like most of them, has been bought by Pabst. Paps somehow has kind of absorbed all those little brands that we used to get back in the day. Bush Latte or Bush Light is actually an extremely popular beer these days. So it's it's not the old Bush, it's the light, but lovingly referred to as Bush Latte. Latte. All right, so now that we're caught up, I kind of went a little different here because when we were on a budget, we went the other way. When? Because back in those days when, yeah, exactly. When we couldn't afford a case of Budweiser, because that's what you drank in 1984, period. When we couldn't get that, we would get a six-pack of private stock heffenreffers.

Oh, yeah.

Or pea stock green death, or as we called them, heffen wreckers.

Yeah.

Because they were, I believe, 5.9% ABD balls.

For that day, that was the only high test. Yeah.

Absolutely. And they would mess you up for sure. A six-pack would get you the same place as a 30-pack of Budweiser, basically. Um, I don't think it helped any that they had the Rebus and the cap there. You know, it was like the picture of the eyeball and the heart and the sheep. It was I love you or whatever. And some of them, some I still don't know. I mean, we sat for weeks, we'd we'd put them up at the bar, and people would like try to figure no fucking like it was hieroglyphics.

Exactly.

Sanskrit. Um, but Egyptian. I don't know. I tried to verify it. I don't know if it's true. The story I was told a million years ago, and parts of the story I know are true. Heffenreffer brewery started back in the 1800s. A German fellow came over, started in Boston, actually had a free-flowing tap on the outside of the building. So you can just walk down the street and like haul off the tap of Heffenreffer.

Anyone spring.

Yeah, exactly. Like a like a spring.

Um, they ended up selling a mil empty gallon of milk with you.

Yeah, right.

Uh, they ended up selling out after prohibition kind of damaged them, but selling out to Narragansett. And the story I heard was that Heffenrefer kept the deal that the bottom 20% of every barrel of Narragansett would be Heffenrefer's private stock. Hence, that's why all the sediment was in there, hence why your head throbbed like you wanted to die the next morning, but also the fact that you could, you know, drink six of them and be pretty much done for the night. Right.

I see five percent now, and I'm like, oh, that's weak.

That's Budweiser.

Right? I know.

Budweiser's five percent. Yeah.

Exactly. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. I actually called my Bud guy because I thought I for some reason I must have been thinking of something else. I thought Budweiser was three point five, three point back in the day. He says no, but I don't know, and I trust him. But I felt like everything was like five point nine felt like it was way beyond everything else.

Oh it wasn't that time it seems like I dodged the numbers a little bit too, you know. Like back then when you saw five point nine, it was probably a legit five point nine. Whereas now you see some of these eights out there, they're really not eights. They're probably in the five uh six range, you know what I mean?

There's twelve they just sell it as a double eight, and it's really not probably, but I don't I don't agree with that, Don, because I know that I if if I buy like a Imperial IPA, I get into a lot more trouble than I do when I drink EBR.

Well, there's some of them you're hallucinating after like three of them.

Well, the highest production I ever saw was that wasn't barley wine, was Founders out of Michigan, has a beer called DKML, and it's a 14%. Oh, yeah. And I had it on tap for like a month before I realized that DKML stood for Dick Kickin' Malt Liquor. Oh my god. But it drank really smooth at 14% malt liquor. So you drink one.

Yeah, you drink one and you get a D wee.

It's brutal. Yeah. I had some guy arguing with me that I wouldn't serve it to him in a pint glass. I'm like, you're a fucking moron.

It's just yeah, those are sippers. No, and they taste more like a liquor than they do a beer.

Oh, absolutely. Yeah, they're not very imperials are not very smooth.

I bought a four-packet case and keg about three years ago. It was called high res. And it was 12. I drank the four-pack, and as Mark once said, when I woke up the next morning, I wish I could make a replica of myself to beat the hell out of him.

That's what I was when I drank MD2020.

Oh, yeah. That's that's where that line came from.

Yes, yeah. The next day I wanted to beat the crap out of my misery. I didn't want to literally do it, but it if I had a replica.

Depression. That high rest was actually really good. That was uh five points out of New York, was a brewer. Good stuff. Oh as long as you don't have anything to do the next day.

Mean and evil, like breathing. All right. Moving on to number three to you, Mark. And this is gonna be our favorite soda. Yes.

Yes. All of them. All of them. I mean, I'm gonna come up with my pick, but I was legendary in my soda drinking as a child. It was bad.

As long as you don't name out brands, we'll be okay.

Oh no, everything, everything. Uh nope. No, I'm I'm gonna go with Coke in a 16-ounce glass bottle. No, a glass bottle. They did not come in this plastic bullshit in the 70s. Okay, everything came in glass bottles.

So much better.

And I but I would drink any soda and I just love the feeling of it going down my my throat and just heavenly. And unfortunately, yes, yeah. And in fact, when I worked at the state, I was drinking five cans of Coke a day. But I would end up, you know, I guess you could call them quarterlies. It was pretty much quarterly. I would wake up on the weekend with the most incredibly painful stomach aches from all the soda I drank.

Yes.

And of course, did it teach me to stop drinking soda? Not for a half a second.

Awesome pick and a very good, obvious one. But the glass bottles is the importance. And before I move on to me, I want to tell a Mark story real quick. These glass bottles were so sought after that Mark would drive around the state and other states to find glass bottles of Coke because they were not as easily as uh accessible as they are now.

AJ, I'm no, no, no, no, it was natural light that I did that with. It was natural light beer. And I I I did that with Coke too, though. Are you right?

I know I'm right. I know I'm like, I remember because I remember um Cracker Barrel would sell them in like their little gift shop, and I remember finding them there, and you were pretty excited about it. But anyway, I'm gonna move on to me now that you shot my story down.

Anyway, but you're right, I did both of those.

But you also went to Providence, Rhode Island, so you could find duck pin bowling. Yes, I did. Yep, and I did find it. Yes, you did. There you go. Persistence. And and uh another big one is chocolate vanilla twist. Mark would drive around the state and country to find different flavors of soft serve, and not those 24 things, 24 flavor things.

You need it to come right out of the dispenser.

Yeah, pistachio at the Littleton Dairy Bar. I used to love that. Oh, yeah. All right, all right. And now I'm going on a tangent. I'm just gonna get to my favorite soda from back in the day, and this was also 70s, brother. And that would be RC Cola, also known alias, aka Aka, Royal Crown, and this also had to be in a glass bottle. I just remember the caps, as you were saying with the beer, Kevin. This had prizes under the under the cap. You know, you'd get a nickel or you'd get a free soda.

Usually 10 cents.

Yeah, I just I Royal Crown, RC Cola in a glass bottle, and you still can find it here and there. Yeah, but and it's nowhere near as good as it was.

Now probably some, I mean, bought off my conglomerate somewhere. Right. Formulas changed.

Oh, absolutely. It's nowhere near as good. RC Cola, I can still see the machine out in front of Corey's Market. Oh, what a joy. We lived right next door to our family store. We'll get there later, too, so I'm not gonna say any more. And I would go to you, Don.

So a good bottle story was from The Gods Must Be Crazy. Yeah. The Coke bottle fell and hit him in the head, and they thought it was the gods that were angry at him. But at the very end of the movie, he went to the edge of the earth and found it. So my my pick is also Coke. Um, I love Coke, uh, Coca-Cola, that is, yes, um, which did have cocaine in it at one point, which must have been phenomenal. But um, I like it uh in a fountain soda, and oh yeah. I just read somewhere somewhere that uh McDonald's actually has the best because they get their syrup in a stainless steel container and it and it makes their coke fountain sodas a little better.

I don't know if it's more carbonated, I'll tell you that.

Yeah, yeah. So I love a fountain soda, but I just I wanted to bring up because we had the 1984 decades series. Well, in 1985, the geniuses of Coca-Cola wanted to change the formulation. So it was in April 23rd of 1985, they changed the formula. They had so many complaints that uh 79 days later, then they had to come up on July 11th, 1985, with the Coke classic. Coca-Cola classic. You idiots! Why did you change? You know, so they turned it into Pepsi. People were like, yeah, people were hoarding it in in their basements and you know, all that kind of stuff. Uh because it was like a taste test. They did uh 200,000 people that did a taste test and they like the new Coke or whatever. Idiots, but it just shows you that it there's more to than just the taste, it's the brand, it's the bottle, it's the fountain, etc. You know, yeah, and it it it makes a difference. So they learn that very valuable lesson that if it ain't broken, that might taste better. People are buying Coca-Cola for a reason, and it's more than just the flavor. But I mean, that was a kind of an interesting, interesting event that happened in the summer of 1985 that I remember very clearly. Same, same here. Yeah. I do like the glass bottle. That is a great way to enjoy a soda cooler.

I have a story, but I'm gonna let Kevin go first, just in case.

Thanks. Um, so I'm I'm I'm right in line. I'm gonna follow off right where Donnie left because I have had a Coca-Cola addiction most of my life. Um, I had a paper route, and the street I lived on was like nine miles long. At the end of it, there was a convenience store called Handy Dan's that later turned to Handy Ron's. Didn't quite rhyme as well, but whatever. I'd have some tips and I'd get down there. Wasn't allowed to have Coca-Cola at home. So on that walk back, I could have my ice cold bottle of Coca-Cola. Like Donnie said in '85, I was definitely hoarding it in my basement by that time. Um, there is a somewhat legitimate theory that they did it on purpose because there was a secret ingredient and the FDA was coming down on them. And somebody said once, I read that they thought it might have been paragoric, which was a dental um numb numbing agent or something like that. That they might have been that what they replaced the coca leaves with and whatever else. So they might have had to have changed that formula because of that, or that it was a marketing, the whole thing was a marketing idea to get people, okay. You you we're not selling as much Coke, Pepsi's grabbing some of the market share, so we'll do this little thing, and then really make force everybody to redefine their love for Coca-Cola, which is ultimately what it did. Now, whether they were that forward thinking or they just really fucked up, right? Yeah, you would have had to been in the room. Um but interesting because um, so back in 1988, Mr. Pemberton was a morphine addict from his uh he was a colonel in the a um Revolutionary War, I'm sorry, the Civil War, and had injuries and got addicted to morphine and was looking for a cessation drug, and that's where he invented, allegedly invented Coca-Cola. Um, but you get a little deeper, and there was a a French Corsican coca wine that he kind of copied. And there was also a Spanish drink called Cola Coca that had both the cola nut for the caffeine and the coca leaf for the stimulant, and he just kind of switched it around. And 60, 70 years later, the Coca-Cola company just went to Spain and bought that name and was like, go away.

So I'd like to try the original.

Yeah, might have to go to Columbia for that, right?

Awesome, awesome pick. Well, just to finish this out, Coke is also my favorite, and I wanted to bring up the Pepsi challenge throughout the 80s. Anyone that picked Pepsi, I would also like to punch them in the chin, but anyway, we will move on.

So, yeah, that was funny in the SNL where it was the um the blind taste tests or whatever. Kevin, you referred to that with the Farley when he was like, Hey, we gave you one decaffeinated coffee is like, you know, I wonder if they have uh blind footage of those taste tests and and how many they had to go through for people to pick Pepsi.

Oh, I know, I'm sure. Number 73 took Pepsi. But how many times have you walked into a restaurant and can I have a Coke? And they say, Is Pepsi okay? Have you ever walked into a place or heard anybody walk into a restaurant and say, Hey, could I have a Pepsi? and have the waitress go, is Coke okay?

Right, right, right. It does happen. Yep. Idiots. All right, so we are moving on to number four to you, Mark, and that is gonna be the one you're gonna steal from me, and that's okay. As everyone out there knows, Mark and I are family. So this is gonna be our favorite homemade meal. Wait, you guys are related?

Yeah. No idea. Uh well, so anyway, my favorite homemade meal is kibbah, also known as kibi. Everyone knows it as kibi. We called it kibba for whatever reason. And I'm talking kiba nai, which is raw hamburger. Um, my Lebanese family that immigrated legally to the United States. We were kind of the poorer people in uh Lebanon. That's why we didn't do lamb. So you can do it with ground lamb as well. But mom used to make it and Aunt Sil. Um, they would make a a sauce with it that was so good on it, or sometimes you would put just uh olive oil, whatever that was, and and we'd have it with Syrian bread and butter. And was it a rice peel-off AJ that we would have with that?

Oh god. Um it was hushwa.

No, that's the chicken one.

No, that's the chicken one.

Yeah, that that when she did roasted chicken, but uh oh my god, I crave this stuff. Yes, most people would be very squeamish about it. Oh my well Donnie.

Donnie is a fan. Donnie is a fan.

Oh, once you eat it. Ben's a fan. Valerie eats it. Anyway, uh, I mean, usually it would come with other Lebanese dishes. I mean, it was never just a simple I mean in in our kitchen and on the other side of the duplex, it was probably just kiba and rice and and the the Syrian bread and yeah. But oh my god. I I crave it. I crave it. I wish I knew how to make it.

Well, that's very easy to figure out. Mark is our sister has the recipe.

However, well I have I have the recipe, but it just seems I I use a okay to you. No, I just I make I have a uh kibba spice mix that I can send you guys the recipe. And I just when I do uh saute hamburger, a pound of hamburger meat, I'll take a teaspoon of it and it tastes very much like kibba. Yeah, but unbelievably good. Damn it. I understand cooked. No, it you gotta have it raw. You gotta have it raw. I like all everything raw.

So then to me, um, just to finish up on what Mark said, because that's my obvious choice, but I'm gonna go with something different just to mix it up. But mom always had that kibby spice in a container in the freezer because it's literally like 50 different things, including bulgar wheat, and it's not an easy thing to make, but they do sell it in a restaurant in Salem that makes it quite lovely. So they make it. Whenever I drive by, I you know, I just try to bring a bag of ice with me to keep it cold for the ride home. Kevin, you tried it at Donnie's house one night. I did bring some.

Yes, uh, yes, I did. I mean, I I like the general concept of it, the fact that it sat in a car on the way up, kind of oh yeah.

I know you like that.

That's one of those things where fresh is kind of important. Bunch of pussies.

It was on ice. All right, but what I'm gonna go with for mine, um, once again, big Lebanese family. Um, get together for huge meals with 20, 30 of us sometimes.

God rest most of their souls, unfortunately.

I know. Anyway, I'm gonna go with grape leaves, rolled grape leaves. Uh, my brother David always called them cigars. Uh he'd put it in his mouth, pretend to light it, and do the whole thing. But you can still buy them from like Joseph's or Cedars at Walmart. I mean, they're uh market basket, and they're just you know, the Joseph's ones are okay, but it's just not the same. Not even close. I mean, I remember seeing these things layered in a pan. I think mom would put a little lemon juice over the top of them and just God, just incredible Lebanese food, and always the Syrian bread was so important. It's still amazing, and I still grab it, yes, fresh, unbelievable. But um, the sauce you were talking about, real quick before I move on to Donnie was Humsel, like a red sauce that you would put on the kibby or kibba in our world, but society. Society, but anyway, to you, Donald, for your homemade meal. Cool.

My my parents weren't very good cooks. Um, and most of the time. I always enjoyed eating over there was over your house, and I was I had pondered using the kibba as uh as one of my favorites. Right. But what my mom did make, she she was good at making uh soups and stuff, so corn chowder was probably the the uh favorite homemade meal that that uh she would make. So that it's kind of a New England staple. Yes, make yourself a good corn chowder.

Oh and you want to know a great trick I learned with corn chowder, Donald, that Ricky's father used to do, and it's gonna sound insane, but I dare anyone out there to try this. And if you don't like it, so be it. But Ricky's dad used to eat it with peanut butter toast, and he would dip it into the corn chowder. And for me, I need about 18 pounds of salt pork in mine, but other than I love corn chowder and butter, you gotta have like good yeah, yeah.

Butter is cool on salt and yeah, everything on anything.

What's up?

KJ and Kevin, I you're both uh workers in the restaurant industry, or you were not anymore. I know, but my question when when you butter a clam chowder, are we talking homemade stuff usually, or are we talking in out of the can and just jacking the price up?

It depends where you are. Most places make it fresh. Um, every once in a while you'll get a bagged one.

But I think unfortunately a lot of them are doing the bagged ones now, which never made sense to me because that's an added cost. We used to make soups based on what we had left over and what was left for cut off from vegetables. It's like you prep up your celery and your carrots for the day, and then some of it goes into a soup. You do this with you know, you roast a chicken just like you do at home. You roast a chicken, and then you, you know, pick the carcass and you make chicken soup. Right.

So you can immediately taste the difference, dude.

And that's what my mom used to do. She used to call it like the fridge cleaner soup or garbage soup or something. Yeah, like Malcolm in the middle. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

My milk is lumpy.

You would never know what the Friday night meal was. It was just everything left over thrown into a pot. Yep.

Awesome. All right, Kev. All right. So my favorite meal is a transmogrified meat sauce. It's uh it was actually a real big word alert. Big word alert. I don't even think I used it right. So um it it's it's it's transitioned, is what I didn't want to say. My grandparents, my father's parents actually got the original recipe from a chef on their honeymoon when they were up in Canada, Italian chef that was working in Canada. Um, my grandmother then did her alterations to it. Uh, my father did his alterations to it and then taught it to me. And then I, of course, have perfected it. No, I I've I've I've added to it. It's more of a it's a kind of a mix between a Sunday sauce and a bowl of A's. So there are chunks of meat in there, but there's much more of a rich base than a standard Bowl in A's. I really I spend like three days making it. The first day is just simmering down like a pound of garlic and onions and peppers, and then just simmering it down to the point where it's a mega thick sauce, and then of course, there's hot Italian sausage and ground beef and the veal and all that stuff in there, and it's just like it's it's a meal, and I just I love it, and nothing makes me happier. As a matter of fact, I have some in the freezer, maybe that's what I'll have for dinner today.

It better be a meal because it must cost a fortune.

Yeah, I don't think you could sell this and and make yeah, I don't think so. It's it's pretty pretty cost intensive to sell it.

Awesome. But these family meals are just so important to us, man. Just oh yeah, it's amazing.

I miss them, AJ. Big time.

Oh god, the gatherings, me too, me. Oh my god. Me too. Here we go, Mark. We're going to you for number five, which is gonna be our favorite candy.

All right, well, I don't know if you guys ever heard of this one, but it's called the Willy Wonka Super Scrunch Bar. Of course, you guys do remember that. All right. Well, I mean, we remember the movie. All right. Well, Willie Wonka came out with a bunch of stuff back in the 70s, and this is my favorite uh chocolate bar at the time. And um it was discontinued in the early 80s, but it was crispy rice with peanut butter coated in chocolate, and it was goody, good, good. It was delicious. The texture was absolutely perfect. I I for some reason I think Corey's market didn't have it. I had to go down to um LaFlam's market there and I bought it there. I never got the golden ticket or whatever that was called. I mean, I was so pissed off, you know. I wanted to swim in the river of chocolate, but I mean it it's it's just one of those nostalgic bars that was so yummy. And did you guys ever try it? You guys are awfully quiet with one.

No, I haven't tried it. I just remember it.

So I I don't I don't recall. I don't remember it. I mean, I remember some Willie Wonker chocolate bars, but I don't remember the super scrunch bar.

Oh, it was so good.

Gotta remember Snozzleberries tasted like Snozzleberries.

I used to go to the LaFlam's Market, Mark is talking about, and was her name Josie LaFlam?

Josie LaFlam.

She would invite me in every day as I'd be walking down the street, and she'd always give me candy, and that's probably why I remember it.

Because she's on a vacation far away.

Like I said, though, our our family owned a store right beside us, which did not sell said candy bar, so I must remember it from La Flamme's market. Yes. Oh, what a memory, man. Littleton memories. Love it. I know. It was Stevie's restaurant, you know, for a while.

Yes.

Stevie Simon, our cousin. All right, so to me. And this was very difficult for me, but I just wanted to go to something that really brought me back in time. There's a two parts to mine. There are two parts to mine. And that is fun dip.

Oh no! Seriously?

Shut up and listen. Because the powder, I liked it. I would lick the stick. This is gonna sound rotten.

He loves to lick the stick.

What?

Oh my god. Now shut up again.

Just the three packages. I can still see the the like funny face on the front of it. Yeah. But that candy stick at the end was the best part of this, man. I mean, you would just dip into that stupid powder. It was literally like fucking three packets of Kool-Aid, okay? Pure sugar hell. And everyone wonders why I was high strung as a kid. But just brain lining sugar. Right. The you know, the paddle, I will say, they gave you to dip into the fun dip. And then just but that piece of candy, just candy will never leave me. Oh, it was amazing. And you had to lick it because you licking it was what made the sugar. The powder stick to it, exactly. That's and that's why I was trying to not be like phallic or anything.

But I don't remember the flavor of the stick. Was it like a vanilla thing? Or if you were playing now, you would say it sucked.

But it was still my favorite part.

Slightly more flavorful than the uh wooden spoon that came on the top of the little sundaes. Yeah, still makes me go. Yeah. Um, AJ, what were the flavors of Five? Honestly, I think I remember grape and cherry, but I can't remember.

They did come along with different packs. Oh, okay. So there's so you could get different packs, but I think the original was like grape, strawberry, and blueberry or something like that. But grape? Maybe not blue blueberry, but God, I just loved it because it was like, I don't know, it was like a foot wide, you know what I mean? And you had three packages, it lasted for a long time. Yeah, you know, it wasn't like my second favorite, which I shall not blow here. Oh boy, I'm really on the fallacy here. I know, but anyway, the uh it was awesome. That's my pick.

I just did a search at some point. Oh, that was a good one. One had crossed my mind. It said fun dip ingredients. I'm like, I don't even have to look. Kool-aid, chemicals, sugar, and poison.

Exactly.

I don't like this one.

I'm dumb.

All right, dongo. All right. So mine, I I don't know if I have the right name because there's probably multiple names for them. And I went very simple because during the Halloween cast, I kind of picked my favorite bar of some kind, but this is my favorite candy. So I went with just the simple smarty, I think they're called smarty double lollipops. So it's just like a chalk, another thing you can call is like a chalk lollipop. Where it's just it's like round, it looks like a UFO would look like, and it's got the little white plastic straw, and it's just it's a chalky substance. It's probably like the fungicide solidify. Are you sure this is not tall and red? But those are good, they were good lollipops. I mean, they destroy the inner of your mouth because it would they were rugged, so that like the roof of your mouth would be all choked chewed up. Yeah.

Is that that and Donald? That photo?

Yes, those are them. Yeah, that's the speak of. Yeah.

So it's basically like Smarty candies.

Smarty lollipops. Yeah.

Remember those smarties, the little roll you got? Oh, yes. Yeah, yeah. And they'd put two different flavors on one pop. So you have one color on the bottom, one on another on the top.

And it was cool because the straw or whatever the pop thing was like plastic, so you could chew on it for the time after.

Yes, right. Exactly. Which brought something else to my attention. But once again, Kevin, I shall let you go first so I don't destroy anything. So kind. I know so kind.

Hey, you're in the number four spot, Kevin. It's a tough place to be. I get better next week.

I'm in the hole. So I'm gonna go with I used to again, this was a end of my paper root, handy dance slash handy ronds. They were available there. It wasn't a lot of bang for your buck, but it was just kind of cool because it wasn't a regular candy bar-shaped candy bar. It was the chunky.

So it was square, right?

So it was like three, four times as tall as a candy bar, but only quarter of the length of a candy bar square. And it was it was chocolate with cashews, Brazil nuts, and raisins. So refined for my eight-year-old palate. But I still like it's I haven't had one in a million years. And it just kind of stuck in my head. And I think the next time I see one, I will buy one and probably be massively disappointed. No, you won't.

You won't, because I had one not that long ago and I was not disappointed. Ah, excellent.

Well, they're not as thick as they used to be, or as big and really.

Well, that's okay because I'm way thicker than I used to be.

Here we go again, you ice souls.

In the head. And speaking of which, I'm just gonna, because AJ, you do this all the time, so I'm just gonna double down on mine. Also, remember the little ice cubes? Yes, the little chocolate. I don't know what they're doing. They were on the counter most of the time.

Oh, they were incredible melting in your mouth.

Cool. It didn't matter if it was summertime. You put it in your mouth. I have no idea what they put in it. Free on? I don't know. You put a little piece of chocolate in your mouth, and it was like instantly cooling with that. And it was it was a very smooth and delicious chocolate. Yes, headache, yeah. What's that? With the was the wrapper gold on the one G. I believe it was with ice written in red. Yeah, they were amazing. So it had some coolant in it or something, maybe some anti-freeze.

Exactly.

Hey, let's make a chocolate called ice. Well, how are we gonna make it cold? I don't know. Refrigerant? Glycol?

Glycol unit involved, right?

I just found the advantage to being number four in a show like this. If we're doing like a decade series, not so much, but in a show like this, you can expand. Yeah. You already know what everyone picks.

So exactly.

Which I'm about to do.

Shall be last and the last shelving first.

Kevin was picking on me about it, but I still have to go more. And that would be remember the the taffy sticks, like the they were huge. Hated them. And dots. Remember, I hated the dots, too. Dots stuck to the paper that you had to fucking nibble off. It was fucking terrible. But raise your net, put in plenty.

Movie theater movies.

A little bit of sugar, and here's some paper in your mouth. Yeah, exactly.

Lots of movie. Movie theater can candy. We should probably lay off because that could be a category.

Yes, right. Exactly. Also, the dots could be um acid.

Uh right, yeah. They look like drugs.

I'm foreign, I'm tripping balls.

Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. All right. So we're back to you, Mark, for the poor man's meal. And we all grew up here in New Hampshire, or most of us. Donnie came here a little later on, but I don't believe any of us were rich growing up, so we should be able to nail one of these.

Not only that, I'm not rich now. So consistent. Exactly.

Right back at you. All right. So one my pick for this is uh, I mean, you want to talk about budget, it's basically all you needed was some worms. You'd go out and dig some worms. Okay, I'm talking about brook trout this is before I even fished. This we're talking early, very early 70s, because I fished constantly and caught so many trout. But dad used to go fishing up in Jefferson or whatever. He'd come home with these beautiful brook trout. And I've been trying to replicate this my entire life, AJ. And I'm telling you, I can't do it. She would wrap the trout in flour and then just deep fry them in a pan. Well, not deep fry them, but deep fry them in all. And uh perfect every time. Absolutely delectable.

And uh I have nailed it and I will help you because I got it pretty much down now.

Okay.

Nope.

And she I don't what does she serve with that? I mean, we're talking 50 years ago.

No, usually just a bowl of melted butter, but sometimes she'd do fries with it.

Oh, fries, that's what I had on my list. And that's one thing I have perfected, AJ, is her uh homemade french fries. I would not choose anybody's French fries over mom's french fries. Not one place, never, not even fair fries.

Brook trout, though, boys, if you haven't had it so so unique and delightful with crispy skin and exactly. That was the best best. No one had it there, Kevin. This is a real fish.

That's right.

I always rag on Kevin's.

And back then they were they probably were names.

I like all fish. My question to Mark is so you use the worm to catch the fish. Worm eats the fish. So well, the fish eats the worm.

That's yes, that yes, I bizarre.

So now you got a meal.

Do you eat the worm when you cook the fish? Or do you No, we got them. So the tummy comes out, you ice all. I know you know.

Yeah, regular riot, Kevin, huh?

Although I have fried worms. Easy mark.

Oh, remember that how to eat fried worms? Wasn't that a book?

It was a book. All right, you tandy.

Nobody likes us. Everybody hates us again.

Go into the garden worms.

Go into the garden and eat some worms.

How about fish heads, since we're on this subject? Rolly poly fish heads? Yes. Eat them up, yum.

Fish, hub, fish, hug, roly, poly, fish, hubs, fuss, hubs, fish, hugs, eat them up, yum.

They don't play baseball, they don't wear sweaters.

But yeah, it's early for Mother's Day, but I have to say she was a great cook on most things and the sweetest woman you could ever meet.

Of course. Good old Margmolia. She was awesome for sure. All right. Now I gotta go to me, and I'm gonna go with another mummy meal here. And this is kind of ironic because I looked at it the other day at the grocery store, and it's no longer really a cheap meal. It's dried beef gravy. All it is is dried beef in a thick cream sauce, and my favorite was over buttered toast.

Oh, you liked it over toast. I like it over the potatoes.

Yeah, no, it's like the shit on the shingle kind of thing. Thank you very much.

That's right.

Where I was going next. Shit on a shingle. Some people call the sausage gravy that. Chipped beef on toast. Chipped beef on toast. I always hated people that had it over potatoes, Mark. Dad used to like it over the potatoes, too. Idiots. Such, so much better on the buttered toast because you had that. I mean, of course, you could butter the potatoes too, but they never had it over the mashed potatoes. They just put it over like mashed boiled potatoes.

Yeah, yeah, you mash it with a fork and put a little butter on it.

If if it was like creamy, pre-made mashed potatoes with butter, I might have liked it that way. But buttered toast, dried beef gravy. I really want to talk about another one, but I'll wait till everyone's done, and that's to you, Dungo. Cool.

Um, so I hope I don't steal Kevs because I think I heard you say this a while back. Steal away. But it's not the it's not the fancy one. This is the out-of-the-package Oscar Meyer bologna. I loved fried bologna. Yes. Like my mom would make fried bologna. Um, just the single slice, throw it on a pan where it bubbles up, makes a little bubble, curve, pop the bubble. And the trick was to get it just so you could get it crunchy, you know, but not blackened totally, and then put some ketchup on it with a fried egg.

It was a big you lost me on that one.

Donnie, I am with you, buddy. Two against two here. Take your ketchup and go home. I knew Kevin was gonna flinch there.

Mom used to make it with like canned potatoes. Canned potatoes are underrated, they go really good.

But you want to talk about a cheap meal, fried bologna. That was also on my list, Donnie. Amazing pick and the poor man's meal of the poor man's meal. Right. Not to be confused with the baloney steak, which is very different. Right.

Yeah.

What do you consider a bologna steak? You get like a half-inch thick colour.

Oh, you get the butcher to cut it. Right, right.

Very different. Because then the middle wasn't crisp. Right, right. Like you want that crispiness. All right, Kev, we'll go to you before I.

So I'm gonna I'm going, I'm going right there. I'm not changing. Um, mine, of course, my family had a much more racist name for it, but it's not a group that gets a little, you know, hot under the collar. Being French and hearing French jokes, it was okay that we called fried bologna Irish steak. And first and foremost, I gotta get this out that you guys are fucking wrong. You put ketchup on that, you're like fucking two years. What do you do? Mustard? Of course. Get out of my room. Get out of my room.

Absolutely right.

But the great part of fried baloney was like you were talking about you put it in the fry pan, there was no way to stop it from shrinking up and turning it into a bell and then curving out on the bottom. So you had that that that that crispy ring around the bottom. But the great part, too, is that as the oils and the heat built up underneath that dome, it would literally start farting in the fry pan. Yeah. Which is how you knew it was time to flip it over and try to get the other side a little bit. I remember stuff.

The top button part brown. Oh, I'm sorry, K.

No, it's perfect. It's great. I mean, what are the odds from two different families, two different backgrounds? Right.

It was on Mark and I list two. So that's all four of them.

I don't think people do it. Irish steak is is undeniable. Fried bologna is undeniable. Matter of fact, I haven't had it in years. I need to go get some. I think that might be dinner tomorrow night.

Um, talking to Karen about our cousin Karen yesterday, and she when I said budget meals was one of our category, she came right out with fried bologna.

It's like I just thought of something. Yeah, maybe we should open a fried bologna stand. Yes. Like a truck, a food truck. Fried bologna food. Poor man's food truck. We'll have to do it in a ghetto, but you know, you order from this window on the back of the truck for ketchup, and you order from this window if you're a human being and you want mustard on.

Like bologna is a hot dog, basically. Yeah. Right. What hot dogs? The argument is very simple. And you don't put ketchup on hot dogs either. In some part of this country, you do not put ketchup on a hot dog. Right. You put mustard.

Nobody puts ketchup on a hot dog.

And maybe sauerkraut.

But real quick, just to interrupt with the bubbling and all that, like, how come after, well, I'm 53, we never thought simply to put a plate on top of it to hold it flat.

I think, like Kevin says, it creates a dome where this kind of atmospheric thing inside that dome.

Ugh, too funny. Awesome pick though, boys. That is such an important meal. And once again, I've been throwing in honorables honorables after every every round here, but cheated essentially, is what you're saying. Well, yes, kind of. But just that the fact that none of us took tuna pea wiggle. Oh, that was good. Or shouldn't we?

Salt beans. Saltines.

So I see buttered toast for me, but saltines were not as bad as potatoes. I could eat it that way too.

And and again, I think I've mentioned this before that that my mother used to make tuna potato salad. And how poor do you have to be in 1972 to have to stretch out a can of tuna fish? We're not gonna make it till payday. Give me one of the potatoes.

I would say buttered noodles. I would love buttered macaroni. Oh, that's a delicacy, absolutely. Salt. Yeah.

That's what salt pepper, parm if you got it.

Was it the good doctor that loved butter noodles? Remember that show?

I don't.

It was he was autistic, but he was brilliant. But anyway, AJ Vizden Kufta was one of my favorites.

It's on my list, too. Which is and it's spelled K-A-F-T-T-A. Mum loaded it with gunions. What the hell is a gunyon? It's an onion.

Sounds like something on the G.

Onion with a G.

All right.

I can't believe nobody's talked about buttered sausage. What is it? Where does it come from? You guys obviously haven't seen um Gary Busey. Oh, he isn't. He's sitting there, he's like, let's talk about buttered sausage. What is it?

Let's talk about buttered sausage. Talk about buttered sausage, where it comes from, what it does, why is it doing what it's doing? Get it out of my face. Buttered sausage. It's not my gem. I don't buy gem, buy honey. And I kiss it on the lips.

Where does it come from? It's like, what is going on with this guy?

He's a fucking job. Remember that song? He's gone. So let's go to number seven, right, boys? All right. Number seven to you, Mark.

All right. This is favorite school lunches. And this wasn't even a half a second thought for me. This is in Lakeway Elementary School on Union Street in Littleton, New Hampshire. You never got there, AJ. We moved. I'm going with pizza burgers. Everyone was so happy. Wow.

You need to explain deeply on these.

Oh, AJ. And I made them a few weeks ago. They're basically hamburger rolls. You put sauce on it, you put cheese on it, and you put ground hamburger rolls. Hamburger on it. And you cook it crispy, and it is to friggin' die for.

And is there a top bun?

No, no. You cook it on one side of the bun. So it's pizza. Pizza burgers. It was so much better than pizza. I can't explain it. Everyone got seconds on this day. Everyone was excited about this day.

And if you can't get excited with me, I can't help you.

No, that sounds delightful to me. I just wasn't sure if there was a top bun on it.

Of course, everybody got seconds because it was a tenth of the price of another meal.

It was absolutely to die for. And if you guys don't believe me, I'll make them for you.

No, no, I do believe you, brother. We're all believing you and agreeing. I'm just curious, like it's whatever's pepperoni inspired. Yeah, like did they ever make pepperoni ones? Mark, we're agreeing with you.

I know I did. The last ones I made had pepperoni on them.

Yeah, that's what I'm asking. Did they switch it up at the school? Like one day sausage, one day pepperoni, or it was always berg hair.

I think it was always berg hair. And actually, when I made them with pepperoni, that was on sourdough bread. So no, yes, you have to have hamburger on it, or you're not eating a pizza burger, and you can just get the hell out of here and just listen to me because I make sense.

But did they use no? These questions are serious because they sound amazing to me. Did they use the top and bottom bun? And did you have to like did you only get one or did you get both?

You you when you got seconds? I mean, I don't remember if we had two pieces of one.

Because I would want the bottom bun without that crust on the outside of the top bun.

Well, I think it would be moister and and and more chewy with it with the top bun.

Agree to disagree.

You gotta remember though that the lunch lady was trying to feed the whole school for $29.07 a week. So I'm guessing she didn't throw out the top buns.

You talk to anyone in the class of 82 from the great Littleton, New Hampshire. I'm gonna call them agree 100 million percent with me. Call them up, call them.

There's probably some recipe book on a shelf somewhere up in Littleton High School or whatever Littleton School. Right? Pizza Burger Burger. That sounds dope.

I want to make one right now. I am starting to get upset with you people.

Mark, I think you're you're misreading all of us. We're all thinking how delightful. What was her name? What was her name?

We need to make a plaque. Guys, can you ever understand Mr. Gullibles where I'm just kind of pulling your leg a little bit? I mean, I'm just saying that it was the best lunch meal ever. It wasn't even close second.

It sounds delightful, but I'm really not angry with you.

I'm just getting excited and passionate because I love pizza burgers. I want one right now as a matter of time.

Okay, steak for dinner.

Take it. I'll throw that pizza burger on our fried bologna truck. We got a business going, guys.

We'll get some hamburger rolls, yeah. But pizza sauce, some whatever cheese, mozzarella, uh cheddar, whatever, probably a blend. A blend, an Italian blend. Um just a little um a little bit of uh ground hamburger, some oregano and whatever spice you might want to put on it.

Or regano.

I have a very important question, Mark. Okay. This is this is huge, really, when you think about it. Was Pizza Burger Day in lieu of Pizza Day? Or did you have it like it we we all had pizza on top of Pizza Day?

Not in Littleton. No, it was Pizza Burger Day.

There was no So you just took away Pizza Day Pizza Day on Wednesday and you had Pizza Burger Day. I'm not saying that I'm I'm not saying that not a good trade.

It's just mind-blowing to me that pizza could not hold a candle to Pizza Burger. Pizza candle. Well, that's what I was gonna say. I'm trying to keep this a little more family friendly.

All right.

Well, we're going to mean I name somebody else's pick by mistake. Let's move on.

Well, all right. I'm not gonna say what my original one was because I just said it. You just said it.

Jock straps? No.

Salt and pepper. I'm just gonna go with my original, damn it. Because my favorite day was pizza day.

And nobody would have mentioned that. Pizza burgers are different, they're different.

I understand that. We were just wondering if you had both a pizza day and a pizza burger day. But anyway, for me, they made a handful of the pepperoni. They never made as many as they did the cheese. And I would make sure that I raced to the cafeteria because if I didn't get pepperoni, I was gonna get pissed. And it was the big rectangle slices, it wasn't a big round pizza, it was obviously you know, in a big rectangle tray where they made it, it was peef nominal. Just kind of reminded you of a big Elio's slice, you know, but without all that quality, yeah. They were so no, I would take this cafeteria pizza way over the Elio's, it was amazing. I have several others that I'm not gonna bring up and be an asshole because you guys are picking on me for going with more at the end, so I shall go to you, Dungo.

Cool, and I was going to use the same one, but I was going to say that I don't recall any school lunch that I enjoyed. Like I never found any enjoyment in any of the school lunch. But the pizza day and the pepperoni was good, but the cheese pizza was like Elio's is not good, but neither was the school lunch pizza. The rectangle pizza was whoever invented the tray that school lunches were made on, right, right, right, was way too much. They patterned the size of the slice of pizza to fit that square, that rectangle, you know.

And engineers working around the clock, right?

But the crust, like it's not crust, it's like a white foam type of substance. It's like wonder bred like monsters of rock. Slightly, slightly solidified enough to hold cheese. Like the only this is the and Kev will cringe on this too. Like, I use ketchup, like this is the only time I ever put ketchup on pizza. Now that's a sick because you had to put ketchup on pizza to make it edible, it was terrible.

Oh, see, I loved it. The pepperoni greased up the top so lovely.

Yeah, that's the only thing that added any flavor to it. Um, was that oil from the pepperoni? But yeah, I don't have good good memories of that. And to just go on one other rant about how could anybody make a French fry that was just not in any way crunchy, you know, like it was like a fried crunch crinkle cut french fry that was white and just above freezing.

We're never crunchy.

I can help you with that, Donald. So, what happens is the French fries are in the bottom of the chest freezer. So they get all of the ice crystals on them. Then you take said french fry, crinkle cut fry. Imagine what they'd be if they weren't crinkle cut. Put that in the oven just long enough to melt the ice, the freezer cavings into the wet cold potato. And there you have the recipe for lunch lady French fry.

French fry cut fries. Melt ice done. Be sure there's ample freezer shavings upon said fry.

It's like they have a joker running joke going on. Like, let's make these just work.

They were never crunchy, Donnie. You're talking about the same school I am.

I'm not misery. No, we're just talking about how the lunch lady wants us all miserable.

So, you know what's amazing is as I'm looking around, I'm finding remember the sheets that they used to give you that had like the whole month or they'd posted on the wall.

Lunch, the menu.

Yes. So I saw those online from all over the country, and they were all the same. They didn't have pizza burgers. So, Mark, you really you had you had an exclusive lunch lunch lady. But I mean, it was there was like six meals, and that was it, and that's all you got. But universal, and I'm gonna guess that it wasn't just here in New Hampshire that everybody got soggy fries. I don't think there's a school where somebody was like, Oh, these things are so crunchy, these are delicious, nice and salty, and and the other thing is again, AJ, it's cost effective. We got $29 to feed 800 kids. We can only afford pepperoni on three slices of pizza, and that's gonna get everybody else quick. Everybody else is SOL.

Get there quick. All right, Kev, go to yours before I ruin anything else because I want to spoil the rest of that story.

So I had a hard time with this because, like Donald, there wasn't anything that was like being a foodie, and I love all food, and I will say pizza to me. No, I'm not gonna say that. Um I had to go with fish sticks because if you drown them in enough ketchup, but with the caveat that they did have good fish. Those are the one things were crunchy on. Somewhere along the line, I got a bad one. Oh no. And when you get a bad fish stick, you don't go back. You don't, you don't go back. So I did love the fish sticks with the proper amount of salt and ketchup. They were quite good until that fateful day. And uh and that ended that love affair for me. Ugh.

I must butt in here because as we have been picked on relentlessly for putting ketchup on baloney or anything else on the planet by Kevin, he is now putting ketchup on fish. So we you are we're even, Kevin. You're not allowed to say another yes, which would have tartar sauce on it.

Exactly, AJ. Exactly.

Right, but that's one thing they wouldn't have in the lunch exactly.

No, they wouldn't. Did they have relish and mayonnaise? What? No, that wasn't in the budget, right? Right.

We're gonna use some relish and a scoop of mayonnaise.

Where else are you gonna use relish in high school? Where else are you gonna use mayonnaise? Right.

So now that we've all picked, let's go through the the monthly menu or the weekly menu of tacos, taco Tuesday, pizza Wednesday. My other favorite on my list was hot ham and cheese, which was they did a good job on that one, AJ. It was a patty that you can still buy at Hannaford in a can of six patties. Oh, yep, the round patty with melted, Kevin. You'll appreciate this melted yellow American on a hamburger bun, wrapped in foil to melt it all precisely together. Right. Those were quite delightful, but yeah, and fish dick. So what do we got? One day left.

What else did they serve us? So it was Monday. Monday was no, we said tacos. I saw burritos, uh the sloppy joe.

Yeah, sloppy Joe.

They did a decent job on chicken up there, I thought. I mean, it wasn't great, but it was pretty good.

In Littleton or they like nuggets, it would be the chicken, it would be the round chicken sandwich.

Chicken patty. I just saw chicken patty.

Chicken patty on a bun.

Oh, yeah, the chicken patty.

Well, when I went there, they would serve chicken own in.

I mean burger, you eat burger, which again would be the zero flavor burger.

The worst like Bubba burger you ever.

When it's warm, then it's it's good, you know.

AJ, do you remember when uh we White Lightning played in the cafeteria for this like mixed musician thing from and uh and you sang lick it up with me? Um yeah, they served chicken that night out of the cafeteria, bone-in chicken, too. Yes, that's and it was not bad.

A rarity. That is a rarity.

I think Guilford had breakfast like waffles that were good.

When we grew up, Donnie. Well, in the high school, we had the hot lunch line, and then we had the break line. And the break line you could they had like more options, which you could always get the hot ham and cheese over there, which is why I ate that on a daily basis.

That little hallway going into the that little entryway going into the hallway, yes, and um, you know, and they uh what else?

They also they used to do goody good donuts, you know, yes, and bagels with blocks of cream cheese. I remember that because VJ got me into cream cheese and grape jelly on a farging bagel. Yes, exactly.

Yeah, that's where I got into it.

Awesome. Well, that was a lot of fun, I thought, man. That was something we were questioning, and it just really I think came out to be very enjoyable and like I said, a lot of fun. Mark, thank you so much.

Oh, you're welcome, AJ. That was awesome, and I love talking about food.

Yeah, and Dongo. Good times, man. Thanks, Mindeed and Kevin.

Hey, thanks, man. I had a great time.

Yeah, so much fun we're having with this, and we cannot thank you guys enough for the downloads. And please, like I said, uh, we just created that page on Facebook, which is past timers at 80shigh. And then, of course, visit our website, past times at 80shigh.com. That is the number 80 and then S. And then, of course, our email, pta 80H at gmail.com. And I must say this twice every time. PTA80H at gmail.com. Come on, reach out, get involved with us because we're starting to take those phone calls, like I said, and hoping to get some uh some more people involved with uh our stupid antics here. Audience participation. Let us know what you want to hear. Exactly, criticize everything. We want all types of input. But awesome boys, so much fun, love hanging out with you guys, and we are out.

Out, no student can escape the magic of launch lady land. Ohgies and grinders, oogies and grinders, oggies and grinders, baby beats, baby beats, baby beats, oogies and grinders, oggi and finders, baby beats, baby beats, we go stack with it, slap it all, slap it all, slap it all, slap it all, slap it all,