This was me! I loved the 2-pk of chocolate chip cookies that I’d buy with chocolate milk. Sometimes an ice cream sandwich, and sometimes yogurt, also.
Oddly enough, I don’t remember snacks growing up. I think they were discouraged. Of course by the time I could buy them by myself, I was all about the junk food. LOL I do remember one snack in the car on the way to activities as being Pop Tarts. About a month ago I bought a box of unfrosted brown sugar cinnamon ones for a munch down memory lane.
My husband and I have had this conversation about snacks and drinks. In the 80s, we used to go on long family road trips without snacks or bottled water. We’d go for hours and hours driving without eating or drinking. Imagine that! LOL But the thing I remember most from car trips are Goldfish, which I absolutely detest.
Lol, I don’t even drive to the grocery store 10 mins away without a bottle of water!
This thread is also interesting in health/nutrition trends. Snacks pretty regular in some households, some it seems forbidden. Like eating between meals was not ok. Or the concept of 3 square meals a day was followed to the tee.
@abasket I’m sure we ate between meals when I was growing up, but it wasn’t like we had regular snack type foods in my house. More like, if you were hungry, maybe a piece of fruit or some Saltines with peanut butter. We ate dinner very early in my house - 5pm every night. My father worked for the federal government and was home by 4:30. By the time I got home from school, dinner wasn’t long off. We ate early so we could all sit and watch the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite together.
As far as car trips, since we lived 6 hrs from one side of family and 8 hours from the other, we took road trips to visit them several times a year. My mom, being frugal, always packed lunches for the trip. We never stopped at restaurants. The one treat I do remember was that she’d get us the snack size 6-pack of sugar cereal (which we never had at home) that included Sugar Smacks, Cocoa Krispies, Fruit Loops, etc. We’d eat them dry which we didn’t mind.
My mom would buy those individual boxes too for traveling - must have been good marketing on them! They were perforated on one side so you could fold back and pour milk in the box for your “bowl” of cereal!
When we traveled mom packed a HUGE steel cooler with all food and drinks needed for the trip. We drove a lot since we were in Michigan and had family in Florida, Montreal and California. All food stops happened at rest areas where there would be picnic tables. My most vivid memories of those summer trips would be mom pulling out huge Big Boy tomatoes my Dad grew in his garden, slicing them in half and giving us each one to sprinkle salt on and eat. That’s the flavor I wait for ALL year even now!
My father forbade ANYone from eating or drinking in our pristine car, ever, no matter how long the trip. Growing up that was unthinkable. Once I had a car of my own, I understood. To this day, no food or drinks in the car.
Off topic: I’ve never gotten the fascination with bottled water, but I’ve never lived anywhere the tap water wasn’t good. I live in the desert and don’t like water. I have to force myself to drink some once in a while, but never in the car.
Same here and I didn’t actually mean bottled water, rather tap or filtered water in a reusable container. But the 80s did represent the beginning of the bottled water market. Evian, anyone?
I also grew up in Michigan and was subjected to seemingly interminable three-week car trips around the country each summer. Breakfast was the aforementioned mini cereal boxes with milk poured right into the box. Lunch was eaten at highway rest stops and came from the huge steel cooler; it usually consisted of a bologna rollup (a slice of bologna wrapped around a Vlasic sweet gherkin pickle) and a can of Vernors Ginger Ale. Every hour on the hour, my mom would dole out one piece of LifeSavers candy to each of us. If we were super lucky, Dad would stop at Stuckey’s, where we would buy a Pecan Log Roll.
We didn’t travel, except for country drives. When we’d stop at a country store, that’s when I’d get to have a chocolate soldier drink which I mentioned as one of my fav snacks. It was like a Yoo-hoo in a soda bottle. They must have not been available in the stores in town. The only snacky drink I remember having on a regular basis was Coke. My parents would buy one six pack for the whole family for the week.
We didn’t have bottled water, but we didn’t die of thirst in the summer! We had the hose to drink from outside! Every now and then, my mother would give us each a dime and we’d walk down the alley to the Tastee Freeze. I usually got a cherry ice - crushed ice with cherry syrup drizzled on it.
Yodels were a favorite in my house. Also ice cream (we’d make sundaes). My sister was seven years older but we were really close. She created all these rituals around these snacks and I followed them of course.
By junior high or high school, I would come home starving. A favorite afternoon snack was a bag (large) of potato chips and a soda. Sometimes I made that dip with sour cream and powdered onion soup. I can’t believe I ate like that. I also can’t believe I could eat like that and not get fat. Ah, teenage metabolism.
We probably ate side by side with our steel coolers!
I also meant a reusable bottle of water. 
Just fill it up and go! I don’t object to eating or drinking in the car - that’s what a vacuum and windex are for!!
With a scoop of vanilla ice cream, just the best. When we moved to Boston, I made everyone who visited from Michigan bring us a six-pack or two. I was dismayed to find that Boston Coolers weren’t native to Boston (instead, named after Detroit’s Boston Blvd), and no one knew what Vernors was. We were thrilled when we moved to AZ to find that Fry’s is a Kroger chain and we could once again enjoy Vernors anytime.
I don’t know how kids survive upset stomachs without Vernors!
Drinking from a hose was pretty common when I was a kid. Now the idea makes me shudder, even when I see a hose labeled for use with potable water.
As an adult I’ve always taken water in the car and made sure my kids did, too.
Yet we are alive to talk about it! Hose water did not kill is! Nor the Hostess treats or Charlie Chips!
I just asked my husband and he said his favorite snack as a kid was jello - he loved it
Both of my boys drank almost exclusively from neighborhood hoses during the summer, well into their teens.
I love this thread. I thought my family’s ‘bologna sandwich with ketsup on Wonder bread’ was unique! We also had very few prepackaged snacks (limited funds), but I remember a big metal can of Hawaiian Punch as a summer treat.
Dragonmom and rockymtnhigh2 - I was also a kid huddled around the heating vent in a blanket! (we are selling my parents house and as we finish up rehab and it’s cold in the morning, I find myself sitting there again… )
Oh, yes! I joined a FB group about foods we grew up with, and it’s very interesting. Despite not getting snacks to eat, those big metal cans of Hawaiian Punch and Hi-C were very common in my house. We had them but not Kool-Aid.
Yes! I remember coming home from school every day and sprinkling sugar, and sometimes maple syrup, over a bowl of vanilla ice cream. I was a total sugar addict but never gained weight until I hit my 30s. I would love that metabolism now!
Some of my other favorites:
Toaster Strudel
Dunkin’ Sticks (someone else mentioned upthread)
Fluffernutter sandwiches (marshmallow fluff and peanut butter on white bread)
Soho cream soda in glass bottles