She So Funny

By Lisa Harmon

My brother and I were just babies when the 70’s were getting underway.  I was three, he was a newborn.  We were raised in a time when “parent” was a noun – not a verb, like it is now.

As two kids being raised in the 70’s, there was a lot of television and junk food involved.  Both my brother and I had incredible sweet-tooths, gulping and chomping down as much sugar as we possibly could.  I was a chocoholic.  My brother preferred sugary candies, like gummy worms and sweet-tarts.  He would go so far as to eat actual sugar cubes, or tear open the sugar packets at the diner and swallow the contents.

In elementary school, sometimes my Grandmother would give me a dollar for lunch.  A slice and a soda were seventy-five cents, so that left a quarter to buy a candy bar.  Back then we had only a few candy bars (compared to now).  My favorite was called $100,000 Bar (now known as a Hundred Grand Bar in its current, less tasty configuration).  There were also Hershey Bars, Snickers Bars, Charleston Chews, oh and those delicious Ice Cubes – melty little chunks of chocolate that were unlike anything else!  As Dana Carvey’s old man character might say, “That’s the way it was, and we liked it!”

My brother and I chomped our way through cereal and Saturday morning cartoons.  We ate cookies, cakes, ice cream and candy.  Lots and lots of candy.

And then, in 1978, the greatest thing that ever happened, happened.  It was announced that a new candy bar was coming out.  We were beside ourselves!  The candy bar gods had decided that we were finally ready for a new configuration of chocolate, caramel, and peanuts.  This was HUGE.

You must understand, times were different!  First of all, new candies NEVER came out!  It never even occurred to us that there could be new candies!  I don’t think it occurred to anybody till the guy that had the idea for this one.  That’s how huge this was!  There were no new candy bars!  Also, back then, candy bars didn’t come in varieties!  A Snickers bar was a Snickers bar and that was it!  Now there’s Snickers, Snickers Dark, Snickers Caramel, Snickers Peanut Butter, Snickers Almond.  Back in 1978 we had like four candy bars all together!

Well of course we lost our minds!  We ran down to Phil’s Hot Corner to buy the new Reggie Bar – named after some guy from the Yankees named Reggie Jackson.  It was a big hit with us, and apparently with everyone.  It was a hugely successful candy bar launch.

It was around this time that the seeds of the Emergency Candy Release Program were planted.

After that, more candy bars started to come out.  Every time I saw something new, I had to get two of them.  One for me and one for my brother.  He did the same.  We tried Hershey’s Cookies & Cream, Whatchamacallit, Toffifay, Skor and more recently Pretzel and Coconut M&Ms, just to name a few.  It went on this way for years.  Finally, when the group had grown to include his girlfriend and my boyfriend, my brother named it The Emergency Candy Release Program.

Now, so many new candies come out all the time it is no longer exciting, and the sheer volume of new candy makes the Emergency Candy Release Program untenable.

But I’ll never forget, and neither will my brother, or probably anybody that was a kid in 1978, the greatest event of all time – the introduction of the Reggie Bar!

Remember the 70’s? Putting on your fanciest bell-bottoms and feathering your hair to spend all night at the disco? Coming home, dropping acid, and staring at the lava lamp for 9 hours straight? Burning your bra on the front lawn? Hoping Carol Brady would do the same? Well, the 70’s weren’t just responsible for an amazing era of music, theater, and trendy styles. They were also responsible for an elite group of gourmet eats known as “70’s vegetables”! Named not only for the time they were around, but the age of the people that actually enjoyed them! Yes, the decade of incredibly poor choices spread all the way to the dinner table! These tasty treats were the (s)hit of the nation, albeit the short time they were around. Some slipped away quickly, while some lingered on, trying to reinvent themselves. All had the same fate: Where are they now?

Cream Corn

All of us at one point in our childhood had the fun of sitting down to the dinner table and wondering, “Hey, what’s that smell? Has the cat thrown up again?” Well, we weren’t too far off on that one! Yes, the beloved “cream corn” came into play in the decade of decadence. As if corn weren’t questionable enough when taken off the cob. Those masters of cuisine got together and said, “Let’s step it up a notch! How about we add some creamy goodness that may be hard to identify but will most certainly make it groovier?” It was actually as if someone had already eaten the corn and then decided, “Wait, I still have to feed the family! Let’s just bring it back- mama bird style!” The short lived side spent the better part of the 70’s being set out in front of repulsed youngsters, only to be found later, hidden in mom’s eyeglass case or dad’s collection of corncob pipes -ah, the irony! But where is cream corn now?


Sad to say, cream corn did not survive the kitchen evolution as well as its counterparts. Fresher vegetables prevailed, and people decided they weren’t ready to give up using their teeth yet when eating. Of course, there are still some cans out there, and by some twist of fate, some ridiculous recipes still floating around the food network on the backwoods bayou edition. But sadly and as the name implies, while fighting to keep on top, it eventually got creamed.

Lima Beans



To many tots they were like kryptonite, the bane of their existence. Nothing could ruin a meal more than a heaping pile of lima beans. They just sat there, steaming and waiting to tarnish the fine supper of fish sticks and crinkle-cut french fries. Or they could be an all-encompassing mess in a casserole dish full of mom’s famous succotash. For the most part, only dad seemed to actually eat them. But who else in the world would dare eat something that looked like a bloated tick? Lima beans enjoyed the “limelight” at the dinner table for many years as the centerpiece of a true love-hate relationship. They were the “Kardashians” of the kitchen, the “Snooki” of the 70’s. We’d set them out there each night and keep tuning in to see what they’d do next. So, where are they now?


Unfortunately (or fortunately), lima beans aren’t the staple of the family meal they used to be either. Even with an emergence of vegetarianism, no one seems that desperate. Whether it’s their incomprehensible consistency, their similarity to a gremlin’s ear, or the fact that their main nutritional value revolves around molybdenum, a nutrient most people can’t even pronounce, much less understand its nutritional value. Lima beans for the most part have moved on in our minds to their final resting place- Paula Dean’s kitchen.


And so, as we have said goodbye to the 70’s (despite the fact that we’ve pretty much brought it all back in one way or another in the past 10 years), we have said goodbye to its vegetables. Those diehard dishes that just screamed “Why?!?” as we placed them at the center of our tables and our hearts. They will be remembered for their ability to bring us closer together, all the while setting us apart from any distinguishing palate that dare ask, “What’s for dinner?”