What’s so wonderful about Wonder Bread?

The plastic bread bag brings back so many memories...

Growing up, we seldom could afford to buy name brand Wonder Bread, and we often ate three day old bread. Wonder Bread was $.49 and three day old bread was $.19, and when frozen and then thawed out in the toaster, and then slathered with butter and cinnamon and sugar, tasted the very same. It was a wonder we had any bread many of those days, and my brothers and I enjoyed the occasional fluffy white goodness of actual Wonder Bread. 

I remember clearly my grandmother having a drawer stuffed full of empty plastic bread bags. Grandma made those bags into something magical. Some days, she’d put them over a bowl to keep the food fresh. Sometimes she’d wash the bags and hang them on the kitchen curtain rods to try to be used another time. And sometimes in the winter time, she’d put them over my socks and between my moon boots before sending me outside to play while she cooked in the kitchen. Those magical Wonder Bread bags would keep my little toes dry from the melting snow on cold and gray Wisconsin winter days. 

Amazingly, the other week at our local Publix grocery store, they had Wonder Bread on sale. It was no longer the $.49 I remembered per loaf, but it was within my food budget. I bought two loaves for our daily breakfast meal of eggs and toast. The bread was good, and about a week later, we had finished both loaves - enough for both of my seven year old’s growing feet.

But thanks to living in Central Florida, there’s no need to put Wonder Bread bags in my kiddo’s winter boots. He wears sandals instead of the moon boots I wore as a kid. I am thankful and a little sad that he will never experience the joy of putting a plastic bag over his feet to keep his little feet dry after a wet winter snowfall.