15 Nostalgic Massachusetts Snacks That Every Bay Stater Misses
Growing up in Massachusetts meant more than just wicked accents and championship parades. It meant unwrapping candies that tasted like history, biting into chips that smelled like the Cape, and pulling taffy that stuck to your molars for days.
These snacks defined lunch boxes, movie nights, and trips to the corner store. Some disappeared for a while before staging heroic comebacks. Others never left but feel like old friends you took for granted.
Either way, they remind us that the best flavors are the ones tied to memory, and Massachusetts has always known how to make food that sticks around long after the wrapper hits the trash.
1. NECCO Wafers
Paper-wrapped discs that taste like field trips and corner stores. Born near Boston in the 1800s, these chalky rounds became a Massachusetts institution before NECCO folded in 2018, leaving a candy-shaped hole in our hearts.
Spangler swooped in two years later and brought them back to life, proving that a century-old sweet can find its way home again. The flavors are polarizing – some love the clove, others hoard the chocolate – but that debate is part of the charm.
I used to trade the licorice ones for extra wintergreen at recess. Now I buy a roll just to feel ten again.
2. Sweethearts Conversation Hearts
From Valentine’s shoeboxes to dorm windowsills, these pastel hearts began at NECCO in Massachusetts and are now produced by Spangler. The sayings change with the times – emojis, slang, even pandemic jokes – but the ritual endures.
Every February, they reappear in drugstore aisles and classroom parties, tasting faintly of sugar and nostalgia. You eat a few, leave the rest in a bowl, and somehow they vanish by March.
The best part is reading the messages before you crunch them. The worst part is getting one that says something awkward right before you hand it to your crush.
3. Sky Bar
Four filled sections, one wrapper, and a comeback story that could make you cry into your caramel. After NECCO’s closure left Sky Bar orphaned, a Sudbury shop called Skybar Confections acquired the rights and brought it back.
Now it is made next door to the tiny market where the resurrection began. Each quadrant delivers a different filling – caramel, vanilla, peanut, fudge – so you get variety without commitment.
My dad used to break them into squares and ration them through road trips. I do the same now, except I eat all four at once because adulting means no one can stop me.
4. Hoodsie Cups
Chocolate-and-vanilla swirl in a small paper cup, best eaten with that little wooden paddle you can still sometimes find tucked under the lid. New England summers and birthday parties would feel half-dressed without them.
HP Hood started churning them out decades ago, and they became shorthand for simple joy. The paddle tastes like nothing, splinters occasionally, and somehow makes the whole experience better.
You always tried to get equal bites of chocolate and vanilla, but someone always hogged one side. That injustice shaped us.
5. Marshmallow Fluff and the Fluffernutter
A Lynn-made jar that spreads like childhood. Durkee-Mower still whips Fluff in Massachusetts, Somerville still throws the What the Fluff festival every September, and the peanut-butter-and-Fluff sandwich remains a Commonwealth classic.
It has been proposed as the official state sandwich multiple times but never quite made law, probably because legislators were too busy eating it to vote.
My elementary school banned it for being too messy, which only made us want it more. Rebellion never tasted so sticky and sweet.
6. Cape Cod Potato Chips
Kettle-cooked crunch that smells like sea salt and bridge traffic. Founded on the Fourth of July, 1980, in Hyannis, the chips grew from a tiny storefront into a Cape calling card you can find in airports and gas stations nationwide.
The original flavor is still the best – thick, salty, impossible to eat just one. Every bag sounds like a marching band when you open it, which is both a blessing and a curse during quiet moments.
I once ate an entire family-size bag on the drive home from Provincetown. No regrets, just crumbs.
7. Table Talk Pies
Orange boxes stacked in Worcester bodegas and school cafeterias, with fillings from apple to chocolate eclair. The company has been baking since 1924, and those four-inch pies still ride home on car seats and lunch trays.
They are not fancy, not artisan, not farm-to-table. They are reliable, portable, and exactly what you need when you need pie right now.
My grandma kept a stash in her pantry for emergencies, which apparently included every Tuesday. I inherited that tradition and the pie-induced sugar crashes that follow.
8. Friendly’s Wattamelon Roll
A slice of summer you can keep in the freezer: watermelon sherbet dotted with chocolate chip seeds, wrapped in lemon sherbet for the rind. Friendly’s started in Springfield in 1935, and this seasonal roll remains a backyard-party legend.
It shows up around Memorial Day and vanishes by Labor Day, which makes it feel even more special. The lemon rind is tangy, the watermelon is sweet, and the chocolate chips add just enough texture to keep things interesting.
Nothing says Massachusetts summer like hunting down the last Wattamelon Roll in August.
9. Junior Mints
Cool peppermint fondant under a chocolate shell, still manufactured in Cambridge by a Tootsie subsidiary. That means a movie-night staple also happens to be a hometown product, which feels like a small victory every time you tear open a box.
They are perfect for sneaking into theaters, sharing in the dark, and pretending you are being healthy because mint equals fresh, right.
I once dropped an entire box down the bleachers at a high school basketball game. The sound echoed for days, and I am still apologizing to the janitor in my mind.
10. Fig Newtons
The cookie that borrowed its name from the town of Newton was first produced at Cambridge’s F.A. Kennedy Steam Bakery in 1891. One bite and you are back at grandma’s house, negotiating who gets the last sleeve from the pantry.
They are chewy, faintly healthy, and somehow taste better when someone else buys them. The fig paste is polarizing – kids tolerate it, adults crave it – but everyone agrees the edges are the best part.
I used to peel them apart and eat the filling first. Now I eat them whole like a functional adult.
11. Teddie Peanut Butter
A pantry constant since 1925, made by a fourth-generation Massachusetts family business. Spread on crackers, paired with Fluff, or eaten straight off the spoon, it tastes like home in a way that no other brand quite manages.
The all-natural version separates, which means you get an arm workout stirring it back together. That oil slick on top is proof of purity, not laziness.
My college roommate used to eat it by the forkful while studying. I judged her until I tried it. Now I keep a jar in my desk drawer.
12. Cabot’s Candy Salt Water Taffy
Hand-pulled since 1927 on Commercial Street in Provincetown, the kind of seaside taffy you bring back in crinkly bags for neighbors who watered your plants. The flavors and the storefront are Cape Cod through and through.
Watching them pull it in the window is half the experience. The other half is trying not to lose a filling while chewing it on the drive home.
I once bought a pound and ate it all before leaving P-town. My jaw hurt for two days, but the cranberry flavor was worth every ache.
13. Dunkin’ Munchkins
Quincy-born brand, 1972-born donut holes. Whether in a pink-and-orange box for the office or handed out on soccer sidelines, Munchkins are Massachusetts shorthand for we thought of you.
The glazed ones disappear first, the powdered ones leave evidence on your shirt, and the jelly-filled ones are a gamble. But together, they are a perfect bite-sized democracy.
I used to count them obsessively to make sure my sister did not get more. Now I just buy two boxes and avoid the conflict altogether.
14. Mary Jane Candy
Peanut-butter-and-molasses chews first made by a Boston candymaker in 1914. After NECCO’s chapter closed, Atkinson licensed the brand and brought those yellow-wrapped bites back to shelves, much to the relief of dentists and nostalgic snackers everywhere.
They are chewy, sticky, and take about five minutes to finish one piece. That is not a complaint, just a fact you should know before opening one in public.
My grandpa always had a bowl of them on his coffee table. I hated them as a kid but crave them now.
15. Charleston Chew
Created by Boston’s Fox-Cross Candy Company a century ago and now made by Tootsie, this nougat-and-chocolate bar is as nostalgically New England as freezing one to crack into pieces. That trick turns it from chewy to crunchy and makes you feel like a genius.
The original vanilla is classic, but strawberry and chocolate versions exist for those who like variety. All three taste better when shared, though no one ever does.
I froze one once and forgot about it for a month. Best accidental discovery of my teenage years.