Popular Nostalgia

Popular Food & Drink from the past which gets our nostalgic juices flowing still today.

No, I’m not talking about the fruit and dairy products that posh people eat at Wimbledon. I’m talking about the Strawberries and Cream sweeties that you used to buy from the local sweet shop and which would go slightly soggy and stick to your pocket while you swung on your chair in double maths. A [...]

I was first introduced to Kop Kops by my friend who bought a quarter of Kop Kops one morning. At first, I thought they were cough sweets but there was enough sugar in there to keep the ten year old me perfectly happy and these things fast became a firm favourite of mine. They still [...]

Look at these old fashioned sweets online. Nipits were around after the war. Now their is an old classic. The choice of sweets is great and some great memories to be had. From kola cubes to buttered brazils. This post was submitted by Glen Neilson.

Tunnock\’s Teacakes have been around for goodness knows how long but both the TV adverts for them and actually eating one remind me strongly of childhood packed lunches and, as I ordinarily ate school dinner, school trips. Slightly melted Tunnock\’s Teacakes would be consumed readily on the bus to Beamish, where we went at least [...]

During my childhood, during the 1950′s and early 60′s, life was dominated by coal. The village had its own pit, where my dad worked. Pits were everywhere. Our house was very close to a farm, but this farm was different in that it specialised in market garden produce – vegetables mainly, but even flowers when [...]

I can push a Push Pop, can you push a Push Pop? I remember these Push Pops being advertised at us very cynically during children’s TV shows so much that my mates and I all rushed out to the shops to buy them. We soon learned that Push Pops tasted pretty horrible and also, probably [...]

The best quality Kinder Egg toys were only available in Germany, where the sweet originated. I was given these toys to photograph by an enthusiast, TC, who was brought up in Germany. The forklift truck has moving parts and the silver tray is for doll’s houses. These pieces are around 25 years old. Apparently Kinder [...]

Don’t you just love this classic? Girl (thinking): I wish, I wish I had a lovely surprise. Boy (thinking): Something to play with -and some chocolate. Voiceover: Kinder is everything a kid could wish for because, inside there’s a lovely surprise to play with, and lovely chocolate, with more milk and less cocoa. Mickey Mouse: [...]

Nobody really likes them and you get them every Christmas, but somehow Ferrero Rocher exude the aspirations of middle-class housewives everywhere with their gold wrappers and ability to be stacked into pyramids. I have a friend who once mentioned that she was enjoying a particular Ferrero Rocher only to be given an entire box every [...]

I never quite understood why we had satsumas in our stockings at Christmas and oranges at the Christingle service. It may well be something to do with them being expensive in “the olden days” and so reserved for special occassions like Christmas. However, I always much preferred the sweets, chocolate and other presents inside and [...]

“Holidays are coming, Holidays are coming” You know it’s Christmas when… Coca-Cola ramps up the advertising. This particular advert has become the signal for yuletide to begin. I heard somewhere that Coca-Cola invented the red coat for Santa Claus but that could just have been a self-aggrandising press release. I know the reindeers are German [...]

They always used to serve arctic roll for school dinners. I don’t know whether arctic roll was especially cheap for some reason, or whether someone just liked making it but I always enjoyed it and could never work out how it was made. Everyone always tried for seconds and thirds when arctic roll was involved. [...]

Featured on the start of “Could It be Magic?” by Take That in 1992, large plastic dummies were very cool in the early nineties. I had a one made out of sugar -a kind of boiled sweet. Originating in the clubbing scene of large yellow smily faces, the large plastic dummies were worn on string [...]

Everyone was jealous of those hallow’d few who had a Soda Stream maker. Make you own lemonade! Amazing. My next door neighbour had one with a pump action. They’ve come quite some way since then. Inordinately expensive when compared with the price of just buying a bottle of lemonade from the shop, but infinitely more [...]

In 1972 a crack commando unit was sent to prison by a military court for a crime they didn’t commit. These men promptly escaped from a maximum security stockade to the Los Angeles underground. Today, still wanted by the government, they survive as soldiers of fortune. If you have a problem, if no one else [...]