April 4, 2006
That Horrible Food You Loved as a Child Posted by Frederick E. Allen at 01:35 PM EST When I was a little boy in the 1950s my favorite dessert was Junket Rennet Custard. I liked it so much I would sometimes sneak into the kitchen at dawn on a Saturday to pour a box of the mix down my throat. I had a children’s book from my parents’ day called Junket Is Nice, about a strange man with a red beard who sat eating Junket as everyone for miles around wondered what he was thinking. He was thinking, it turned out at the end, that Junket was nice. I fully agreed. I have long presumed that Junket went the way of the Packard and the Automat. But to my surprise you can buy it today, at Hometown Favorites, a Web site devoted to the many humble American equivalents of that madeleine that’s so important to literature. Another one that Hometown Favorites resurrects is Moxie, the old New England cola-like beverage, which I now consider the ivory-billed woodpecker of soft drinks. But should I actually order Junket and Moxie, and learn what they taste like to an adult palate? Or shall I preserve memory undefiled? Visit Hometown Favorites and confront that crisis for yourself.
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