Junk Food from my childhood: Ampao and Pop Rice

I was at the KCC Mall of GenSan supermarket yesterday, doing my grocery when I came upon some familiar chichiria or what people now call as “junk food”.

These are the home made pinoy snacks, AMPAO and POP RICE, two of my favorite snack foods during my youth which I could easily buy at the neighborhood sari-sari store.

Presenting the cebuano delicacy, AMPAO, which look like these:

and these:

I remember an ampao costing 2 pieces for P0.10 before.  When I checked the price at KCC, 10 pieces now cost P15++.

Biting into a a crunchy caramelized piece made me recall that it used to be one of my comfort foods.  I used to eat so much of it that I usually had no appetite for lunch or dinner afterwards.

Now, the multi-colored POP RICE.

Actually called PUFFED RICE in English, It looks like these, packed inside small thin plastic wrappers, each one with a rubber band tied to its end…

..and upon closer look, they look like these:

Now costing P1.20 per bundle, I tried putting a handful of these pinoy version of Rice Crispies into my mouth and again, pleasant memories came rushing back to those days when we kids eat anything offered by the friendly vendor, not worrying if they have melamine, or MSG or if they have too much salt, too much fat, too much oil, too much cholesterol, too much sugar, or no nutritional value whatsoever, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

Back then food was food for kids like us, and there was no such thing as junk.  🙂

How about you?

What were the comfort food during much of your childhood?