Last week, Design Observer posted about Bodega Down Bronx, a video created by Brooklyn-based Center for Urban Pedagogy (CUP) in collaboration with high school students at New Settlement’s Bronx Helpers, a civic engagement and leadership oriented learning organization.

In the video, the students give a tour of their local bodegas, investigating why corner stores in poor neighborhoods, like the South Bronx, stock potato chips and Twinkies while corner stores in affluent areas like Carroll Gardens are stocked with fresh fruits and vegetables. They met with people at all levels along the bodega food chain, from shopkeepers and customers, to distributors and drivers. They also met with nutrition professors and even a U.S. congresswoman.

While it’s easy to say Bodegas in poor neighborhoods stock bad food because customers in those neighborhoods only buy bad food, the issues are a bit more complex – it’s a matter of education and possibly even legislation. The video explores the question in further detail and touches on key issues such as the incidence of diabetes in the South Bronx and how it relates to the food market supply chain. I highly recommend you watch it.

But first!

I can never resist a trip down memory lane, especially when it relates to food, so in the spirit of Bodega Down, I’ve decided to create a Top 13 list of Bodega Foods ca. 1990-1997. I have chosen this time period because it was when my Bodega index was at its highest. I went to Stop-1 on the corner of South Burnett Street in East Orange NJ every morning before elementary school, and when I got to school, I also went to the Bodega just across from the playground.

I know, two trips to the bodega before school seems excessive, but one store had the potato chip game on lock-down and the other store had the largest bulletproof candy case I have ever seen, even to this day. Plus, with a $20 per week allowance and virtually no expenses (aside from comic books and video games) I was practically swimming in expendable income.

I now present to you, The Top 13 Bodega Foods (of East Orange, NJ) ca. 1990-1997.

13. Pickle In A Bag

Truthfully, these didn’t sell very well in my neighborhood but they were so weird they had to make the list. I remember seeing them at the corner store and thinking they looked really gross. However, I was an adventurous child so I bought one once. It wasn’t bad but I definitely never bought one again.

12. Charleston Chew

Charleston chews are the Mazda Miata of chocolate bars. They’re tiny, yet flashy enough to get your attention. They’re delicious but deep down inside you know you’d much prefer a bigger more robust candy bar. The only reason you got a Charleston Chew was because its small size allowed for virtually undetectable mid-class snacking. If you were caught, you could chew and swallow the bar in its entirety before the teacher even got to your desk.

11. Winterfresh Gum

When Winterfresh dropped in 1994, it changed the gum game forever. I don’t know if it was the packaging, or just that it was a new flavor, but it quickly became understood that chewing Winterfresh was considered cool. I, personally, think it tastes like doo-doo mint but for some reason, kids in my neighborhood couldn’t get enough.

10. Pineapple Soda

Orange Soda hasn’t always been the drink of choice for the developing urban child. Before Keenan and Kel came along and made Sunkist popular, there was Pineappple Soda. At 50 cents a bottle, it was certainly cheap, but don’t let the price fool you. The flavor was somewhere between Kool-Aid and candy — only carbonated.

9. Wise Cheez Doodles

These came in two flavors, puffed and crunchy. Though very different, both were equally delicious. I recall crunchy being more popular than puffed. However, both flavors turn your hands Oompah Loompah orange.

8. Slim Jim

When Macho Man Randy Savage started interrupting the 7am-before-school-while-eating-a-bowl-of-cereal cartoon line-up, covered head-to-toe in melted garbage bags and piñata scraps, and wailing on and on about Slim Jims, it was a little unnerving, but the sheer absurdity of it was intriguing. After all, Macho Man was a WWF superstar, and even though he was basically Hulk Hogan on PCP, his endorsement of a product meant something to us kids. Within weeks of those commercials, kids all over my neighborhood were walking around with greasy little beef jerky stained fingers, trying to recreate the elusive SNAP from the commercials.

7. Rap Snacks

These ridiculous potato chips were huge! “Can you rap and snack at the same time?” What does that even mean?! Is that DJ a potato person, or does he just have a terrible combination of psoriasis and jaundice? I always hated these chips. Always! Even as a kid, I felt like something about them seemed dubious. These chips were like when the Ninja Turtles joined Vanilla Ice on stage in TMNT 2: Secret of The Ooze. You hated it for what it was but it was just so goddamned delicious.

6. Sunflower Seeds

Sunflower Seeds didn’t really catch on until about 5th grade. Like smoking, the act of eating sunflower seeds and not the actual enjoyment of the flavor was the source of their mystique. At first, only the cool kids bought sunflower seeds. Soon, however, regular kids caught on, and Sunflower Seeds quickly became a scourge of classrooms and playgrounds everywhere. Kids used to empty the bags into their pockets and eat them all day long. Piles of empty shells lined the insides of desks. It became so much of a problem that my school actually banned Sunflower Seeds. Those were dark dark days.

5. Honey Buns

I cannot stress how important Honey Buns were to the growing urban child’s diet ca. 1990-1997. They were cheap, delicious, and made your hands smell like the inside of a Dunkin Donuts. There was period in my life in which I ate a honey bun every day. Those days are gone now, thankfully, but I look back on them fondly.

4. Sour Powers

These bad boys hit our neighborhood the way Crack hit NYC in the 80s. Kids just couldn’t get enough of them. They were so popular that every corner store, no matter what part of town you were in, carried some variation of sour straws. Sour Power was the most popular in my area. I still buy them every once in awhile.

3. Now and Laters and Blow Pops

These two go together because they’re both staples of the playground. Your first nickel was probably spent on either a 5 pack of Now and Laters (pronounced Noulaters) or a Blow Pop. Now and Laters were great because they became soft when left in your pocket, and if you were particularly industrious, you could roll them up into perfect spheres before popping them in your mouth. Despite being notorious for cutting the roof of your mouth, blow pops represented the best in lollipop technology at the time. Gum on the inside, a hard candy shell – Who would want for anything more?

2. 25 Cent Juices and Freezie Pops

Found in any bodega worth its weight in cigarettes, the 25 cent juice and the Freezie pop have stood the test of time. I group them together because they’re essentially the same thing. To paraphrase comedian Dave Chappelle, the ingredients of both are nothing more than sugar, water, and color. The difference in taste among the flavors is practically indecipherable. However, the sheer affordability of these drinks and ice pops made them wildly popular among kids and parents alike. I always loved that you could kind of taste the foil as you sipped through the thumb-sized hole you punched in the cap.

1. The Turkey Sub/Hero

A quality bodega knows how to make a good sub, period. Go to any bodega and ask what the best selling sandwhich is, I guarantee the answer will be turkey subs. I don’t know what it is but these guys have mastered the art of making them. My best friend and I would get turkey subs at least once a week. Whenever there was a class trip, at least half the kids who brought lunches would have turkey subs. If you were lucky and your bodega had a hot plate, you could get the turkey heated up and the cheese melted. Seriously, I’m salivating all over my keyboard as I type this. Go to your local bodega and order a turkey sub, you’ll see what I’m talking about.

links:
watch Bodega Down Bronx on Design Observer