Why Junk Food Is So Nostalgic

When properly prepared, the pasta becomes thick and warm. Its texture and flavour have no flaws; it is perfect entirely. Such is Kraft Dinner, or KD for short. It is, for Emily Baron Cadloff, the junk food that gets her nostalgic.

I enjoy everything about it: the simplicity of mixing together butter, milk, and a packet of nearly fluorescent cheese powder; the tantalizing neon orange of the resulting mess; the gloopy noises it makes when I put my fork in the bowl…

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Of the collection of foods I ate as a child, KD is one that I haven’t yet abandoned. Years later, there’s something about the particular taste that no other food can touch. And I know I’m not the only one. For some, the lure of Cheez Whiz is unmatched. For others, it’s fried bologna sandwiches. Some may fondly remember Pixy Stix or Pop Rocks, delicious, too-sweet candy that would be inhaled after Halloween. The most recent season of Stranger Things featured boxes of Mr. T cereal and touted the virtues of “new” Coke. Some of these products no longer exist. But many of us keep reaching for those that do, even if we don’t exactly like them, even if they don’t taste as good to our adult palates or fulfill our nutritional needs or even justify their own costs. The question is: Why?

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