Let’s try a thought experiment. Take a deep breath and imagine something you looked forward to eating when you were seven. Perhaps it was a plastic-wrapped snack you nibbled at before lunch or a homemade delicacy atop a platter waiting for you to come home from school. Or maybe it was the certain way your grandma cut up vegetables to coerce you into trying them. 

Food is inextricably connected to our most intimate memories. When we eat, we link the aromas and textures to feelings and the people we were with. Like written and oral traditions, food is another path taken to spread culture. Many students at AHS come from families with diverse cultural backgrounds. The foods you cherished as a child may be drastically different from what your friend grew up eating. So, as an homage to the various flavors of nostalgia, here are some snacks AHS students described as definitive of their childhoods.

Bakarwadi

To freshman Avani Athavale, her memories of visiting family in India are all tied to Bakarwadi, a casual yet flavorsome snack. 

Unlike the monotonous flavors of most foods, Bakarwadi is a crisp, golden swirl of herbs and seasonings. To classify it as either sweet or salty would not do it justice.

“It’s super delicious with a slightly sweet but mostly savory flavor,” she said. “[Bakarwadi] is fried and looks like a spiral with the outside made of dough and the inside being a flavorful mixture.” 

Since Bakarwadi is difficult to find in the US, Athavale recalls buying the packages in bulk after each visit to India, to keep the memories of family and friends fresh on their tongues.

 “A lot of feelings I associate with [Bakarwadi] are of home and family since we usually used to only get it from India when we visited,” said Athavale. She remembers being “very jet-lagged and going to the kitchen to eat a bunch of Bakarwadi on many (very early) mornings.”

Though there are recipes to make Bakarwadi at home, Athavale said her family buys them instead.

“We get it from a very popular Indian snack company called Chitale Bandhu,” said Athavale. “There’s a lot of other food available from them, but Bakarwadi has always been my absolute favorite!”

Dried Fish

Anchovies: salty, silver, and crunchy. These umami-bursting snacks seem foreign to many, but junior Sandra Aw wants to assure you they are not as unusual as they seem.

Aw first discovered this crunchy treasure in fifth grade when she saw a popular classmate eating them. She likened their popularity to the 2015 Rainbow Loom frenzy.

 Back then, “Snacks and those silly bands were the huge craze,” she said. 

Her initial reaction to the unusual snack was apprehension; after all, eating animals whole is quite uncommon in the US. 

Appearance-wise, they were a bit “disgusting, because the eyes were staring into your soul as you went in for a bite,” described Aw. But she “gave it a shot because [she] wanted to fit in.”

Aw’s first bite tasted…unpleasant, just as she’d expected. Determined not to let first impressions dissuade her from popularity, she convinced herself to try them again, and this time, she was hooked. 

“It tastes super salty but with a small fish tint,” she said, trying to contextualize the pleasure of eating dried seafood. “It’s kinda like eating chips except it’s a fish.”

After trying various flavors of the snack, including BBQ, Aw and her friends eventually grew out of their dried “fish frenzy.” It was only recently that she remembered them when she saw them at a local Asian market. 

To all the people intimidated by this savory snack, Aw has a message. “You’ll never know if you’ll like it until you’ve tried it.”

Golden Sweet Corn

You may be familiar with the airy crunch of cheese puffs, savory, addicting, and sure to coat your fingers with a fine orange powder. It’s definitely an American staple, but sometimes, it may seem like something is missing…

Golden Sweet Corn is a beloved Filipino corn puff, which junior Angelica Roa says, are “like cheese balls, except they are yellow and have a perfect balance of sweet and salty.”

“When I was little, my dad and I usually picked my mom up from work in the morning and drove to a mall called Eagle Rock Plaza,” she said. “Whenever I had the chance, I would sneakily try to place the snack in the shopping cart without them noticing.”

Like Roa, freshman Rianna Marquez is also familiar with Regent’s Sweet Corn, introduced to her by her mother.

“The snack melts in your mouth, but that does not stop the satisfaction of the crush of each puff,” said Marquez.”When I first tasted the snack, I had a sense of joy; I was reminded of when I visited my family in the Philippines several years before.”

Although Golden Sweet Corn is starting to make an impact in stores here (Walmart has started selling them!), one is almost certain to find them in Filipino grocery stores.

“You can find this snack in Filipino grocery stores called Seafood City in Glendale or West Covina,” said Roa.

While unassuming in appearance, both students stand by their claim that Regent’s Golden Sweet Corn puffs are a definite must-try!

White Rabbit Candy

When polling several students on their favorite childhood snacks, White Rabbit Candy showed up several times. These Chinese sweets are popular in Asia and amongst children of immigrants. The candy makers have had their share of controversies; White Rabbit Candy was briefly taken out of the market in 2008 after possible melamine contamination but has since been brought back to its millions of fans.

Senior Krystal Dang described the sugary snack as a “milky, creamy hard candy wrapped in thin rice paper. It has quite a chewy texture to its rectangular-cylindrical body.”

But this treat wouldn’t be what it is without its signature White Rabbit wax paper which depicts a snowy rabbit in front of a painter’s palette.

Perhaps another lure of the candies are the edible wrappings. Beneath the printed wax paper is a layer of rice paper, a semi-translucent byproduct of cooking rice that is often used to wrap East Asian sweets. 

At first, the “rice paper makes it taste really dry,” said sophomore Casey Kim. “But as the paper becomes soft, you start to taste the true candy, the sweetness, and the flavor.”

Perhaps some of the candy’s glamor comes from the pure anticipation of seeking what is within; to find the satisfaction, one must resist the temptation to chew and instead be overcome with patience. Or, more likely, Whtie Rabbit Candy is just an enjoyable experience.

“Some of my earliest memories come from eating this candy in elementary school!” said Dang. “I’d pack one or two for recess. I remember finding joy in peeling off the rice paper to eat alone or letting it melt in my mouth.”

To get ahold of this milky candy, Dang recommends checking out local Asian stores, which are sure to have some in stock. 

From hearing others’ experiences, I have learned that while many snacks are modest in appearance, everyone’s childhood was, at one point, defined by mini bites of pleasure. No matter who we are, or where we come from, the flavors of nostalgia know how to find their way home.

Photo courtesy of COMMONS.WIKIMEDIA