12 Snacks From The 80s No One Remembers Anymore

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It was the decade of big hair, jazzercise, scrunchies, and MTV — that's right, we're talking about the totally tubular '80s. Everything was neon colored, loud, and vibrant, so much so that now — looking back — we can't help but cringe. And the same goes for the food of this rad decade. Thankfully, the Jell-O obsession of the 1970s was starting to die down, but the country still hadn't shaken its fascination with weird flavor combinations. This was also the era when grab-and-go food options surged in popularity to keep up with an increasingly fast-paced world. Convenience and weird flavors were the name of the game when it came to snack foods in the '80s, leading to some delicious discoveries and other, let's say, more regrettable creations.

In this list, we'll warp back in time to take a peek at some of the 1980s' most easily forgotten snacks — those that have been barren from store shelves and our minds for decades. Some of these were commercial, kid-friendly treats that would scratch the ultimate nostalgic snack itch if they came back, while others were totally rank recipes that we're glad have been left to die along with lawn darts and shoulder pads. So let's dive into these '80s eats — we'll let you decide if any of them should come back or if they all deserve to go the way of Betamax.

Unfortunately, the answer is no — there isn't another product called Velveeta that would taste a lot more delicious as fudge. This dastardly '80s recipe combines the iconic creamy meltiness of Velveeta cheese (although it isn't actually cheese) with decadent chocolate for a — let's leave it at "memorable" — candy experience. But before you shout "gag me with a spoon," you should know that the cheese product's flavor is intended to be disguised in this dish. The recipe aims to put just Velveeta's famous (some might say infamous) texture to use in a classic candy, but don't worry — we're not defending it.

Using Velveeta in a fudge recipe was a food hack before food hacks were a thing. Normally, making homemade fudge is a process that requires a lot of practice and skill lest mistakes occur, which they often do, especially when you're still learning the technique. So, Velveeta is like a shortcut for instantly creamy, luscious fudge. Was the salty, cheddar-inspired flavor always completely masked when mom was whipping up this treat for a potluck back in 1983? We think probably not.

The humble apple pie is McDonald's landmark sweet treat. It all started way back in 1968, when the pie was the first and only dessert on McDonald's menu, and it was a huge sensation. Not just because it was filled with tender apple chunks and oodles of cinnamon sugar, but also because it was deep fried — and we all know that deep frying a food is the only way to take it from "decent" to "dynamite delish" instantly. Those of us old enough to remember the oily, fried version of this fast food pie will likely remember its tender, flaky crust, with the perfect balance of chewiness and crunch. We knew going in that we wouldn't be able to wait for the scorching apple compote within to cool, so we wore our burnt tongues with pride.

McDonald's quit frying the pies in 1992 in response to the nation's newfound avoidance of anything deep-fried (what were we thinking?), but otherwise, the pie is mostly the same as it was during the last full decade of its deep-fried glory. Now, the pies are baked (boring), but there's some good news: One McDonald's location — made to look like a blast from the past — still harbors fried apple pies within its hallowed walls. Travel to Downey, California, to get your hands on the last McDonald's deep-fried pies known to man — we think it's a worthwhile trip.

Although the '80s were big on commercial sweets, it was also a decade rife with homemade candy — using commercial products for convenience, of course. The Ritz-peanut butter-chocolate trifecta was a popular treat come Christmastime for many American households, and we honestly aren't sure why it faded away so soon. Sure, it's a classic '80s Frankenstein treat, but it's strangely more elegant and seemingly much more delicious — in a humble sort of way — than most holiday concoctions of the decade.

These chocolate-covered crackers were easy to whip up, especially when a last-minute dish was needed for a holiday potluck. They just required making a Ritz cracker-peanut butter sandwich and drowning it in melted chocolate before setting it on wax paper to cool. If you want to give these quick-and-easy treats a go, try topping them with some sea salt flakes to up the sweet-and-salty factor. Or, introduce mint into the mix (a little weird, but stay with us here) by getting festive with some crushed candy cane. Your guests might be a little taken aback when they take their first bite and uncover the secret cracker sandwich that lies within, but we guarantee it'll grow on them.

Nowadays, you can just pick up a bag of Chex Mix from the store, but back in the day, they did it the old-fashioned way. Homemade Chex mix — also called party mix, TV mix, or nuts and bolts — was a staple at every sleepover, casual get-together, or family movie night. It started in the 50s, when Chex cereal printed a recipe for the mix on all its boxes, and it continued in popularity throughout the '80s. Recipes eventually transformed to be specific to a family's particular tastes, but it was typically savory and cranked out in extra-large batches, ideal for use as a pre-dinner snack for hungry teens or something to munch on when watching those classic prime-time soaps of the era.

Making homemade Chex Mix wasn't just as simple as mixing some Chex cereal and pretzels together and calling it a day. Technically, you could make any old snack mix with whatever packaged chips and crisps you had lying around, but it wouldn't be a true, bona fide Chex party mix. Traditionally, the mix consisted of corn, rice, and wheat Chex, various nuts, mini pretzels, and bagel chips. The concoction was tossed with melted butter and Worcestershire sauce for a much-needed umami-boost, and then baked in the oven for roughly an hour, putting the modern commercial mix to shame.

Of all the forgotten foods from the '80s, dirt cups — also known as "worms in dirt" or simply "dirt pudding" — may be the treats that unlock the most childhood nostalgia. Back in the day, kids' snacks were all about grossing out parents or looking like something inedible, so dirt cups were the perfect twofer. They were made to resemble rich, rain-soaked mud with worms curiously poking their heads out, as they often do after a storm. The effect was achieved using chocolate pudding — probably Jell-O brand — mixed with Cool Whip (or a similar whipped cream-like product), crushed Oreos, and gummy worms. Some parents who really wanted to go all-out would add green food coloring to shredded coconut to create a textured, grassy effect in dirt pudding.

The history of dirt cups is a little convoluted, but it seems that they first popped up in the Midwest in the 1980s, although it's impossible to tell who, exactly, was the culinary trailblazer who first mixed chocolate pudding with gummy worms. They continued in popularity throughout the 90s and 2000s, and then seemed to suddenly die off, for one reason or another. Perhaps it was because we were lying to ourselves about chocolate pudding, Oreos, and gummy worms being a tasty combination — but you can't deny that dirt cups were the pinnacle of '80s food fun.

In the '80s, when the craving for cheese plus a little crunch hit, folks would reach for one thing and one thing only: Nabisco's Swiss Cheese crackers. They were simple and much less fun and flashy than other foods during this decade, but their modesty was part of the appeal. They had just the right amount of deliciously salty, cheesy dust and a melt-in-your-mouth texture that made them stand out from other crackers of the decade. They begged to be topped with a thin slice of deli meat and mustard or an apple sliver and a dollop of honey for a little sweet and salty mix. Not only did they taste unmistakably like genuine Swiss — complex and a little tangy — but they were even made to look like the classic hole-riddled cheese.

Generation X rejoiced when Nabisco brought back the beloved crackers in the 2000s, but their celebration wouldn't last. They didn't stick around for long and were pulled from store shelves once again, like a cruel joke. However, our friends up North still revel in Swiss cheese glory. A similar version of Nabisco's crackers, made by Christie Collection, lines store shelves in Canada and can be imported to the U.S.

The mid-to-late century had a strange obsession with calling any mixture of wet ingredients a salad, but ambrosia salad wasn't any more a salad than an ice cream sundae is a pizza. Ambrosia salad gets its name from Greek mythology, where ambrosia was the fruit that sustained the gods, although there isn't anything holy about this uniquely Southern creation. In its heyday, ambrosia salad typically consisted of pineapple chunks and mandarin oranges from a can, shredded coconut, mini marshmallows, whipped topping or sour cream (or a combination of the two), and maraschino cherries.

Once canned goods and citrus became a more prevalent commodity in the U.S. (around the late 19th century), ambrosia salad started appearing in cookbooks and on picnic tables, specifically in the Southeast. It was a staple at potlucks and parties for nearly the entirety of the 20th century, but by the 1990s, ambrosia salad was experiencing the finality of its glory days, making the 1980s the last full decade of ambrosia dominance. You can sometimes still find it at old-fashioned buffets, or maybe you have an eccentric great-aunt who still brings it along to family get-togethers. But it's mostly disappeared from the American culinary lexicon — and maybe that's for the best.

Choco'Lite only graced us with its presence for a couple of years in the '80s, but it made a noteworthy impact nonetheless. It was introduced by Nestlé in 1971 and disappeared for unknown reasons after only a little over a decade. Unlike just about every other candy bar at the time, Choco'Lite was aerated — so, essentially, it looked like there was a lot more chocolate than there actually was. The idea was to provide a hearty bite of candy while reducing actual candy intake, meaning less sugar and calories with all the satisfaction.

There were other aerated candies, but Choco'Lite was the fan favorite for both dieters and kids who couldn't care less about their excessive sugar intake. What made Choco'Lite different was the addition of "crispy chips," not unlike Hershey's Krackle or Nestlé's Crunch bar. The latter two candies incorporated puffed rice to give the chocolate a nice crispy texture, but no one knows for sure what Nestlé added to Choco'Lite to give it that signature crunch.

Nowadays, Nestlé's Aero Bar is the closest aerated-chocolate alternative to Choco'Lite, although it lacks the iconic crunch factor. It's relatively ubiquitous in Canada (why do they get all the good candy?), but it's a challenge to track down in the U.S. — not that it would satisfy your Choco'Lite craving anyway.

The '80s can be defined by their quick, easy, and often unconventional treat creations, and few foods illustrate this concept better than haystacks. These strange-but-wonderful "cookies" (for lack of a better term) come together by mixing melted chocolate chips, peanut butter, butterscotch chips, or any combination thereof with chow mein noodles and nuts. That's all it takes — no baking, rolling, or sifting required. The ingredients are mixed together, formed into balls, and then left to harden. This was a popular recipe to get the kids involved in, since it didn't call for any heat or potentially dangerous and complicated cooking equipment.

Haystacks were often associated with holidays — typically Christmas — but it wasn't unusual to witness them serving as an after-school snack. Like a lot of odd concoctions from this period, families often had their own signature haystack recipe, whether it was peanut butter and chocolate haystacks, butterscotch, or just straight peanut butter, maybe with a little something extra thrown in, like raisins.

Other no-bake cookies made with oats — known as preacher cookies, mud balls, poodies, or simply no-bakes — often get lumped in with haystacks. Haystacks, however, are unique in their use of chow mein noodles, combining America's late-century love of convenience, sugar, and Chinese food into one quintessentially '80s and aptly-named cookie.

Popping candy is still thriving on the candy market, but Space Dust has been banished to the snack cemetery to make room for those that could more easily stand the test of time — basically, Space Dust walked so Pop Rocks could run. The candy hit the market in 1976 and enjoyed a brief stint in our hearts and minds. Unlike Pop Rocks, Space Dust was more about flavor and less about the thrill of the popping sensation. It was also more powder-like than chunky Pop-Rocks, in groovy, space-themed flavors like Galactic Grape, Cosmic Cherry, and Orbiting Orange.

It didn't take long for parents to become concerned about their kids consuming Space Dust candy due to its name, which was a little too close for comfort to the street name of PCP — Angel Dust. Another concern arose, unrelated to street drugs, that popping candy caused serious injury, especially when consumed simultaneously with soda. It was just an effect of the candy rumor mill, but it was enough to tarnish Space Dust's reputation and become the likely cause of its swift demise in the '80s. Before it was discontinued, General Mills even changed the name of the product to Cosmic Candy in an attempt to squash the unfortunate association, but the damage was already done, and the stage was set for Pop Rocks to reign supreme.

Jell-O brand pudding is a classic snack that has stood the test of time — Jell-O Pudding Pops, however, didn't last. And before you ask, "What's so special about frozen chocolate pudding? Isn't it the same thing as a fudgesicle?" No. No, it isn't. Jell-O's frozen pudding creation was unparalleled in both flavor and texture, and nothing has ever existed to truly fill the void since.

The summertime treat launched in 1981 and immediately took America by storm, kicking Rocketpops and other much lesser popsicles to the curb. Jell-O's frozen pudding masterpiece had a uniquely creamy texture, thanks to the addition of whatever emulsifying agent makes Cool Whip light as air and simultaneously decadently creamy. The chocolate flavor was rich and coated your mouth, just like the brand's iconic pudding. Jell-O's Pudding Pops came in three flavors — chocolate, vanilla, and a chocolate-vanilla swirl — with chocolate being the most decadent and vanilla more refreshingly creamy — meanwhile, the swirled flavor provided the best of both worlds.

The country's favorite frozen treat was pulled from the shelves in 2004 — or, more specifically, rebranded under the Popsicle brand name. Frozen snacks became too pricey for Jell-O to produce, so it sold off the rights. But Popscile put a cap on its version of pudding pops in 2010 in response to minimal demand. We suppose folks were ready to move on to bigger and better treats, although we can't imagine what can be better than frozen pudding.

We all know the potato skin appetizer: the one full of sour cream and bacon bits that's synonymous with TGI Fridays. But those youngins among us are likely unaware that, back in the day, Keebler made its version of potato skin snacks as a bagged chip, uncreatively called Tato Skins. Launched in 1985, Keebler proudly boasted in ads galore that Tato Skins were made from genuine potatoes and, therefore, had "baked potato a-peel." Adorable. The chips came in various flavors, including cheddar cheese and bacon, sour cream and chives, and barbeque.

Fans of Tato Skins still fawn over their crunch, which was said to be heartier than that of regular potato chips. Plus, the flavor dusting that coated each extra-crunchy chip is unmatched to this day. In 2000, Keebler sold off the rights to Tato Skins to another food manufacturer, which later partnered with TGI Fridays to create their own version, simply called Potato Skins — even more uncreative. Unfortunately for lovers of 80s-era Keebler potato snacks, this modern version is said to be objectively worse, with less flavor dusting and a weaker crunch.