Good lardy cake is food of the gods, though not generally of nutrionists. It is a yeast cake, with raisins or sultanas or currants, and sugar and lard, which should create a sort of crispy base. It doesn't taste of lard at all, or shouldn't, but bad lardy cake is all greasy and horrid. I grew up with it quite often at home, but it turns out it's regional. There is a baker near here, at the ends of its range, which makes it, do I can treat myself once every few years.
Good Turkish delight is fab. The version in chocolate and a purple wrapper is not. It should come in a wooden box and becdusted in icing sugar, rose and lemon. I have also had orange and pistachio TD, which were good, too.
Good ginger beer is also good, as is proper homemade lemonade. I don't mind root beer once in a while, but I need to be in the right mood for it. Same with sarsparilla, but that's not easy to find these days.
My mother was fond of sardines on toast, which K think of as Saturday teatime Good, but fortunately, I was eventually allowed to stop trying to eat fish in any form. Dad would have had kippers for breakfast most days if allowed, but he didn't do the cooking, do it was an occasional holiday treat. Kedgeree where you have chicken instead of fish is good. (It's probably fine eith fish, if you like fish.)
Pobs I think should be made with proper homemade farmhouse white bread and full fat milk, unhomogenized, so it's got real cream.
I think many children's classics were written at times of want. In the Little House books, they are often not far from starvation, which would mean food we'd probably turn our noses up at would have been gratefully received. Likewise, all the mid-century children's books were written with rationing in full flow (sugar rationing didn't end till 1953) and other things were luxuries - we can have all sorts of exotic foods flown in from any part of the world, but even out of wartime, it was only in more recent decades that happened - they'd have been reliant on foods coming in on ships, so less variety, less freshness, more tinned foods - most people would have eaten food which was more local and seasonal. Sweets really were a treat, and lots of mid-century children would only have had oranges at Christmas, may never have pineapple, not even tinned pine-apple (as Blyton usually wrote it.) It's difficult to picture how things have changed with modern freight and supermarkets.
Roast chestnuts are fab, as are marrons glaces. I agree that American snack foods were disappointments, though. Tootsie rolls Twinkies, Oreos, Hershey's kisses... all sounded so good in the American books I read. And then I got to try them... such disappointment! Reese's are good, though.
Porridge is good,but it can also be bad. Many food cultures have dishes that are some sort of porridge - grain or other starchy food which is filling and bland but cheap, and can be made more exciting by adding herbs, spices, sugar or salt, fruits, meat, whatever is to hand. Food which you can just keep in a sack and it doesn't spoil quickly is useful when you have no fridges or freezers.
Although Hardy's frumity tent (wheat based porridge with fruits) was at Weydon Priors/Weyhill, in Hampshire, so no need to tar Dorset with the wife-selling stuff, even if he did end up in Casterbridge/Dorchester. 