Bite-sized indulgences

There's something magical about childhood snacks. They're time machines wrapped in crinkly packages, portals to simpler days when 20 cents could buy happiness and sticky fingers were badges of honour, rather than inconveniences to be sanitised away.

When I think about my own skittish excitement licking clean innumerable Milo tins, what remains etched in my memory, aside from my mother's chastising, is that decidedly green shade of the container, a colour that unmistakably spelled the comfort of childhood. Show me that exact shade today and I can taste the chalky sweetness on the tip of my tongue.

This visceral response to colour isn't unusual. It reveals something profound about how our earliest food memories are encoded: not just through taste, but through an entire sensory symphony of bright packages, satisfying sounds, and ritualised consumption. Yet if we look at today's food landscape, we’re noticing the bold hues of our childhood actively disappearing—a kind of chromophobia taking over.

Prompted by this, we asked our colleagues at Kontinentalist about their most cherished childhood snacks. What emerged was a kaleidoscope of memories that revealed not just personal nostalgia, but a collective story of our relationship with colour, ritual, and food.