Ri-chee, Peewee, Curly Tops, Chiz Curls, and more. We round out 15 junk food snacks from childhood that we still snack on today.
Snacking is one habit very few grow out of. We go from sharing bags of chips during recess to bringing bags filled with snacks on long weekend trips. Convenience stores near offices enjoy the most customer traffic from employees buying junk food during their breaks.
When it comes to choosing quick snacks, old habits are hard to break. Recess is no longer part of our schedule, but it’s a moment we can all come back to in a supermarket or convenience store snack aisle. Plus this time, we can buy it with our own money and not worry about it being too expensive.
In this list, we round up some of our favorite childhood junk food snacks that are still around in stores today.
Our love for Tomi Sweet Corn Chips is no secret. It's why we think Sweet Corn is Potato Corner's best flavor! Tomi Sweet Corn Chips delivers a sweetness a homegrown Pinoy will never get sick of.
Haw Haw Milk Powder Candy is one snack worth chewing till your teeth hurt. That sweet creaminess in each tiny pack just demands that you reach out for more.
Whenever the house had enough stock of Peter’s Butter Ball, half a bag would be gone as soon as I was left alone. How can any kid or adult complain about a ball made of sugar-laden butter flavor?
I have never and may never grow to like eating corn: it’s just too much work for the teeth, tasteless without butter or salt, but then becomes way too salty and messy when you flavor the plant. It may not count, but I will only ever eat it in its Sweet Corn form, with its salty-sweet seasoning, and garlicky twist.
Before supermarket freezers were bursting with Magnum, Selecta, Korean fish ice cream, and various local and foreign brands, there were only orange and chocolate-flavored Twin Popsies. The limitation of choices only made each flavor find better. And let’s not forget the fact you can share one pack with a friend, or eat both pops when you’re feeling selfish!
Filipinos usually prefer a biscuit or cracker with spread, but butter coconut biscuits are the exemption to this rule. One bite from the biscuit that combines two Filipino favorites, and we all find ourselves halfway through the box minutes later.
Looks don’t deceive when it comes to Potchi. The Strawberry Cream variant promises pillows of sugar that are tender in your mouth. The mini burger version layers sugar upon sugar: every kid’s dream fulfilled and an adult’s diabetic indulgence.
Even as kids, we knew this junk food snack wasn’t even made of vegetables. At the same time, it didn’t matter either as we enjoyed the MSG-laden sticks. One stick held enough of its dangerously delicious components, but eating two at a time made snacking even better.
Milk was something we all loved as children, but didn’t we all wish we could have it with more sugar? Ri-chee fulfills this dream for all of us and still brings us back to the simpler, sweeter days.
Eating Chiz Curls is enjoyable from start to finish: from reaching in for the first bite, coming back for more, to licking those cheese bits off your fingers. Those tiny bags always left us wanting more, which is why the larger ones always felt like a treat.
The best thing about Knick Knacks is how each flavor never gets old. It’s easy to switch between milk, chocolate, and strawberry, or have that go-to choice for days. As a kid, these snacks were perfect with milk, but now we can all enjoy them with a cup of coffee or hot chocolate.
This is one snack that was rarely shared during recess. Once a Yan Yan was passed around, not even one smudge of the chocolate or strawberry cream would be left. The sticks were fine on their own but lost their purpose once the cream was finished before getting to the last stick. Now we can all enjoy an entire serving in the privacy of our cubicles.
This chocolate treat not only wins for its consistent flavor but also for its well-sealed and classically designed packaging. They may be a little waxy in the mouth, but that doesn’t mean these fake processed chocolates weren’t any good—they were an addictive favorite.
These chocolate sticks were a bit harder to eat in the humid tropical heat, but that didn’t really matter to us as children. Having those chocolate stains on our hands, school uniforms, and all over our faces was worth all the trouble and sermons.
Pee Wee’s barbecue flavor was probably every child’s introduction to chips, even before Chippy and Tortillas replaced this as a staple. This classic snack also has a Pizza Supreme version.
This article was originally published in 2014, then republished with new illustrations in 2021.
