Children of 1990s were made of tough stuff. These hardy individuals survived some of the most awful things to happen to food in modern history.
Chips that you could microwave? Savoury pancakes filled with something that you might feed a pet snake? Cheese and tomato plasma on a frozen baguette? It was all regular fare for these poor, unsuspecting kids.
Findus Crispy Pancakes
Findus were responsible for many gastro-atrocities in the '80s and '90s. These evil little packages of breadcrumbs, dough and 'meat' would often explode while cooking, damaging your oven the same way oven baking a facehugger would.
No matter what flavour you purchased, they all tasted worryingly similar. Possibly because the first bite would incinerate your taste buds. Something Greggs has sucessfully replicated with their molten Steak Bake.
If you fed a Findus Crispy Pancake to a child now, a Mumsnet vigilante mob would kick down your door and beat you to death. And rightly so.
Twiglets
Brown knobbly sticks that smell like creosote and taste like something fired in a nuclear reactor.
They would appear in your house around Christmas time and be consumed by the aunts and uncles you liked the least. You would try a handful after you had hoovered up your selection boxes, but they were always just too weird tasting. Fortunately, they would then vanish back into whatever hellscape they were conceived in shortly after the new year.
There are some people who genuinely believe that drinking their own urine is fine. These are most likely the same folk who enjoy Twiglets.
Findus French Bread Pizza
Did you used to come home from school for lunch? If so, chances are this horror show of a meal was what awaited you.
The best pizzas have a thin, crispy base and are topped with tangy tomato sauce and generous chunks of mozerella. French Bread Pizzas, however, were a thick slab of bread which was somehow simultaneously brick hard and chewey. This was covered with a liquid cheese and tomato sauce lovingly shat out by a machine in a factory. Yum.
Wafer Thin Ham
If you look at the ingredients in wafer thin ham you will find only three things: salt, pink food colouring and pig gloop.
It is still eaten today, despite the fact it has the same texture as tenderised rubber.
The stuff of sandwich nightmares, chances are your parents slapped it between two slices of Mighty White bread then chucked it in your packed lunchbox. You should sue them.
Micro Chips
Chips are the backbone of the Great British diet. Whether it's chip shop chips or French fries, the average Brit eats close to a ton of chips every month.
But wait, there were chips that you could microwave? That shouldn't have worked! Well, it didn't.
However, the sheer novelty of Micro Chips was enough of a sell for little kids and adults too lazy to wait an extra 17 minutes for oven chips.
After three minutes in the microwave you were left with sorry, soggy strings of pre-fried potato that tasted like candle wicks. Mmm.
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