Key Points
On the podcast SNACKS!, celebrity chefs and food personalities share the nostalgic childhood snacks they still remember and love.Kristen Kish, Tom Colicchio, Gail Simmons, Prue Leith, and Melissa Ben-Ishay all have very specific snack memories.Their favorites include microwaved chewy Chips Ahoy, Doritos, licorice allsorts, Peppermint Crisp, and Ellio’s pizza.
Even chefs with serious culinary resumes have childhood snacks they still remember clearly. On SNACKS!, Delish’s podcast about the food obsessions of your favorite stars, chefs and food personalities share the foods that take them right back to childhood.
Some of those snacks are familiar supermarket staples. Others are tied to family, travel, or the very specific way you learn to eat something when you’re a kid and never fully let go. From microwaved cookies to Canadian chips, here are the childhood snacks celebrity chefs still think about today.
Kristen Kish
Dia Dipasupil//Getty Images
Kristen Kish’s favorite childhood snacks were nothing quite as simple as a bag of chips or a candy bar. The Top Chef host says she didn’t grow up with many sugary snacks in the house, so some of her favorite after-school bites were more akin to small meals. One of them was a sourdough bread bowl filled with broccoli cheddar soup, which she would eat with chicken fingers, dipping them directly into the soup. Genius.
Kish also shared a very specific cookie routine. She would stack four chewy Chips Ahoy cookies on a paper towel and microwave them for 30 seconds. The paper towel detail is important because, according to Kish, using a plate does not give you the same result. Noted.
Tom Colicchio
Alexander Tamargo//Getty Images
Tom Colicchio’s nostalgic snacks are much more classic than Kish’s. When asked what snack brought him back to childhood, the chef remembered always having chips around the house, along with candy and licorice. He also mentioned Doritos as one of the after-school snacks that would disappear quickly, especially in a house with siblings.
Gail Simmons
Jeff Schear//Getty Images
For Gail Simmons, one of her clearest childhood snack memories comes from her grandfather. The Top Chef judge says he used to bring her licorice allsorts, the colorful layered candies made with pink, yellow, black, and white licorice. It’s a very specific candy, and the kind of thing that feels as connected to a person as a flavor.
Simmons also discusses her love for Canadian chips, including ketchup, pickle, and all-dressed chips. All-dressed chips are especially beloved in Canada, and Simmons made it clear that they deserve more attention.
Prue Leith
Antony Jones//Getty Images
Prue Leith’s nostalgic snack of choice is Peppermint Crisp, a South African chocolate bar she grew up eating. The Great British Bake Off judge describes it as dark chocolate filled with minty, crispy caramel shards. Leith says she grew up on them and loved them so much that she would bring boxes back from South Africa whenever she could.
Melissa Ben-Ishay
Dominik Bindl//Getty Images
Melissa Ben-Ishay’s childhood snacks make a lot of sense for someone who later went on to build Baked by Melissa.
She remembers classic after-school foods like Oreos, Chips Ahoy, and Ellio’s Pizza. But one of the most telling details was the way she handled boxed chocolates as a kid. Ben-Ishay said she would take a bite of every chocolate in the box just to see what was inside. It’s a very kid-specific move, but it also tracks. Long before she was known for bite-sized cupcakes, she was already interested in what was happening inside every dessert.