In our new series, Flashback Fridays, we take a look at our favorite blast-from-the-past foods—still living, some long dead. Cue the nostalgia.

In middle school, we had some sort of recurring Friday assembly for Peer Leaders meant to recap the week and amp us up for the next (I think. Or at least that's how I'm remembering it. Is there anyone out there reading this who also went to Millburn Middle School from 2003-2005 and can check me on this?). One thing I remember clearly about those assemblies, though, is that there was an entire chunk of them unfailingly dedicated to throwing Kudos bars at students.

More specifically, teachers involved in the Peer Leadership program would call out certain kids who were deserving of both a kudos and a Kudos and lob it across the auditorium at said student. It was always nice and fun. I never got one. (Again, can someone check me on that? Maybe I was much better of an eighth grader than I can remember and was at some point worthy of being a human candy target. In fact, I'm pretty sure I was. Lmk!)

This long and nostalgic prelude is merely my segue into this week's Flashback Friday: Kudos Bar edition. I wouldn't be waxing nostalgic so hard if teachers were throwing something disgusting at another kid's my head. Like, would they I be thrilled to go home and tell my mother "Mr. Cool Guidance Counselor was out there chucking black licorice at the collective seventh and eighth grades and one of the sticks was meant specifically for me!"

...Of course not! Kudos bars were delightful sugar-filled morsels, a "healthy" snack in the same early '00s realm of "healthy" enjoyment as Lunchables and Nutri-grain bars. They were delicious and went down easy in the way that only snacks that are pegged as healthy but really aren't can.

At the time of those seemingly important mid-pubescent ceremonies, there were only three flavors of the bar: chocolate chip, nutty fudge, and peanut butter. Peanut butter obviously reigned supreme, followed closely by chocolate chip. Nutty fudge was fine but it tasted closest to an actual healthy thing, so it was the least preferred of all the options. Still, a Kudos was a Kudos was a Kudos and you had to be one hell of a hormonal middle schooler to exercise restraint enough to refuse a milk chocolate granola cereal bar.

I'd come home resigned to other options: Chewy bars, straight peanut butter, chocolate chip cookies that tasted vaguely similar, everything. Nothing was quite as crunchy-sweet as a Kudos. Sometimes they'd be stocked in our pantry at home, again, as a "healthy" after school snack. Those were the best days. Besides the day I'm sure I really was awarded a Kudos bar at the Kudos ceremony. I'm sure it happened. It must've! I was great!

But alas. Nothing gold can stay. I'm no longer in middle school and Kudos bars are no longer on shelves. Not even the revamped even less healthy 2011 flavors (RIP the M&M flavor, omg)—they're gone, too! and I have no idea what it is they're throwing at middle schoolers' heads these days.

Those were better times, those Kudos-filled years. Bring 'em back. (The bars, not the middle school.) (Though clearly I was a great and well-adjusted kid.) (Clearly.)