London Swall'wing: Part IV -- The Flap About Flapjacks

This is an RJ Foods White Chocolate Flapjack.

At first glance, I'm stumped. This is not a flapjack. A flapjack is a pancake. Oh, sorry. I'm thinking with my US-American-raised food brain. The internet tells me a British flapjack is a traditional, dense, oat-based bar cookie.

Secondly, raisins?! I'm sorry -- sultanas?! In my white chocolate pancake bar? Oookay... but I'm really not that into raisins...

Tasting it reminds me of something (I'm typing as I eat it), but I don't know what. It's sort of a raisin-y power bar. Takes a fair amount of chewing. It has a very "Fig Newtony" flavor, if the outside and inside of the Fig Newton were blended together.

Yeah! A thick, raisin-y Fig Newton thing.  I liked the bites without raisins best.

And that was a snack review typed in real time. Pow!

• London Swall'wing: Part III
• London Swall'wing: Part II
• London Swall'wing: Part I

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London Swall'wing: Part III (Poetry Tuesday Edition)

Walkers

Too many cars too close
along the road to Trotsky's house
in Coyoacán.
It's hot. I wanted to go to London.
Sweaty-wet baby on me, we stop
at a gas station for water
and antiperspirant. No omnibus in sight.
I'm hungry, too,
and afraid to eat street meat. I
speak too much English; I feel rude.
No biscuits, no shortbread.
AeroMexico doesn't serve cookies.
And now, at the coyote fountain
We've walked too far
to see the bullet holes that were Trotsky's.
The baby won't even try our
helado de arroz con leche.
Blisters pulse. My bandaid slips.
I long for rain or fog.

• London Swall'wing: Part II
• London Swall'wing: Part I

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London Swall'wing: Part II

 

I heartily approve of the Toffee Crisp. I don't really taste toffee, but whatever. There's plenty of chocolate, caramel, and crisp rice cereal. The baby happens to be toddling over to bang on the keyboard, or I'd say more. It would all be positive, but would I compose an epic poem in its honor? Nah. It's no Jaffa Cake.

 

 Mr. Tom is peanut brittle, but easy on the glaze. The peanut flavor is allowed to come through without being drowned in sugar. Nor does it feel like it wants to break your teeth. I appreciate that in a brittle. Thank you, Germany  (Mr. Tom happened to come to London via Germany).

Hurry! Eat the candy!

(London Swall'wing: Part I)

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London Swall'wing: Part I

How bad is the title of this post? It's pretty bad. Bad enough that I think I like it after all. And I thought about it for all of 2 seconds, which is, I'm sure, clear. Sorry. You deserve more.

It's also clear that eating foreign chocolate doesn't make me better at puns. Because if it did, this entry would feature some actually clever verbiage. You see, I've dug into the bag of snacks Dan brought back from his recent trip to London. And I started with the chocolate.



So, are Cadbury Eggs not an Easter thing abroad? Because I would like to eat them all year. These Minis, too.



A Galaxy Bubbles egg is like a Cadbury egg, but filled with aerated Galaxy chocolate. Galaxy is an international name for Dove chocolates.  "Bubbles" is a funny name for a candy bar, if you ask me, but the texture was quite nice, and its rich flavor almost suggests hazelnut.

So many of their snacks are lovely. Why is "The Only Way is Essex" so boring?
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Giant Movie Night -- Accidentally Awesome

 

 GMN Week six Film: Boogie Nights, starring Luis Guzmán, as far as I'm concerned. With Thomas "Mr. Patricia Arquette" Jane of Hung, interestingly enough. 

Snack: Spotted Dick (a gift from Rusty), ice cream. 

Guests: Dan. 

Outcome: It was another quiet Giant Movie Night. I appreciated the film on this re-viewing. Like Casino, it's the sort of stylish epic (with just enough humor) that I don't get tired of.

 

Canned Spotted Dick was a frightening and exciting treat. I may have mentioned I'm not too big on raisins, and this is basically a stiff sponge cake with raisins (if only it had been currants, as described on the Wikipedia page). However, once steamed in the microwave it wasn't half bad. It was a little like slightly dry pumpkin bread (with raisins). I didn't even need to cover it with ice cream to make it palatable. Perhaps the non-canned version is grosser? I thought it would be grosser. In short: this snack was not terrible at all. Thanks, Rusty! It was only due to your thoughtfulness that I had the chance and encouragement to try it. Still, the cake does manage to look unappealing. You could work on that, Brits. But don't let me tell you your business.

Sunday, BBQ Sunday

Diana's BBQ featured spicy macaroni and cheese (the jalapeño in there was a nice idea) and potato salad (my favorite ingredient: capers), many meats and meat-substitutes (I went for the turkey dog Vincent offered to cook for me), and a bevy of chip-type snackfoods.



For one thing, someone had procured several small bags of British crisps. My favorite? These Tayto Pickled Onion, which mostly (but enjoyably) tasted of vinegar.



I brought a bag of Popcorn, Indiana (named after a real place, though the brand is a NYC creation) Smoked Cheddar Kettlecorn. The mixture of truly smokey cheese with the sweetness of kettle corn was pleasing, but I would have liked a little spice in the mix. I'd certainly eat this again, but I'll be looking for other flavors to try.

I am dodgy and so were these.

(photo by Dan)

I admit it. I've been a dodgy, barely-there, ghost of a blogger these past few weeks. As has been pointed out to me, I have a duty to my readers that has gone unfulfilled. So this weekend I'll be trying to catch up with many of the things I've been eating and taking photographs of since I last posted.



Let's start with these queer biscuits. Jammie Dodgers were a birthday gift from Dan -- and British to boot.

What does the package claim? "Delicious stretchy jam splodged [ed: !] at the heart of 2 yummy shortcake biscuits."

What would my description be? "Two shortbread cookies sandwich a red jam that is meant to be raspberry. The cookies are slightly dry. The jam is terribly hard and chewy. The result is unsettling."

My description is a little too long and not very lyrical. But at least it doesn't use the word "splodged."

Slamming and Jamming

To begin with:

Harvest Herb Teas' Zhena's Gypsy Tea Caffiene-Free Chocolate Chai is good -- less sweet than hot chocolate, but obviously more chocolatey than your basic chai mix. Angela sent this canister in a box of birthday snacks and goodies a few weeks ago. I made a mugful last night in order to facilitate a Slam-Off between Tim Tams (caramel) and Penguins, which are apparently the biscuit on which Tim Tams were based.


Now:

I've referenced the Tim Tam Slam several times on this site. I'd heard, too, that there were British cookies with which one could approximate the Tim Tam Slam experience -- that is, the experience of sucking a hot beverage through the graham layer of a chocolate-coated cookie, melting the cookie from the middle out before popping it quickly into one's mouth to chew, savor, and swallow.

I've also been told that Tim Tams' recent appearance at US Target Stores, cross-branded in this country with Pepperidge Farm, was the first time that Tim Tams have been widely available in the United States. As excited as I was to find and purchase some for myself, my supply is now running low and there is no Target nearby. As my stores dwindle, I have been in search of a reasonable substitution for future Slams. And if it turns out that the "reasonable substitution" is actually the original cookie (and that the Tim Tam is the lesser knock-off), I can certainly handle that.



So, enters the Penguin into my pantry:

When Dan shopped a British imports store in NYC for Tim-Tam-like birthday presents for little old me, neither of us had heard of the Penguin. But he was told by the shop-keep that McVities' Penguins were just what I'd been looking for -- a chocolate-covered graham cookie that would behave like a Tim Tam in a Slamming situation. So Dan purchased a pack of nine for us to try. That package delighted me on my birthday, as it boldly encouraged me to "P P P Pick Up a Penguin" right on the overwrap.

How could I say no?

Moreover, how could I not take this opportunity to Slam both the Penguin and the Tim Tam, so as to compare?


(Penguins are on the right; Tim Tams with caramel are on the left)

To be fair I really should have compared Penguins to original Tim Tams (without the caramel layer), but I have so far been unable to find original Tim Tams for purchase in NYC. I personally feel that the caramel Tim Tams had a superior flavor to the un-caramel Penguins, but Penguins are quite excellent in their own right. I would eat either one without distress. Penguins are thinner and crisper, while this variety of Tim Tam is fat and richer, but both are slammable.




What's this? A late entry into the battle?

Dan also bought me a package of British Jacob's Club Orange biscuits for this Birthday round. These I Slammed with green tea, as I feared Chocolate Chai might not be the correct flavor to pair with the orangey Club cookies. My first Club Slam transmitted the tea better than the Penguin bar. In fact, its straw-like efficiency may have outpaced the Tim Tam, too. The conclusion of the Club Slam wasn't as tidy, though. Clubs are longer and thinner than either of the other two cookie varieties, so I had to ingest it in two bites (rather than shoving the whole thing in my mouth as it melted, as is traditionally done). However, it did not seem to sog into mush as quickly as the Penguins or T.T.s. The orange+chocolate flavor of the Clubs was another bonus, as I am quite fond of these two tastes together, but the Tim Tam with caramel remains a superior cookie.


In conclusion:

All three are tasty. All three suck (in the right way) when you Slam. All three are well-suited to be birthday gifts for your loved ones. Club Kids, Penguin Peoples, and Tim Tam Fans -- join hands and live as one.

Fruit Salad Upset

Fruit Salad does not win in a competition against Starburst Fruit Chews. Frankly, they win in no subcategory of the competition, either.

Mouthfeel: Starburst are chewier, while Fruit Salad are hard and scratchy for a long time before melting down.

Visual Presentation: Fruit Salads in this package were all the same color, a mottled yellow and pink. Starburst come in a variety of smooth, classy colors.

Flavor: Fruit Salads were all the same unidentifiable flavor. Starburst have variety, even if not all of the flavors are entirely distinct. Also, Fruit Salad bites have a slightly plastic taste to them.

HOWEVER, Fruit Salads were a birthday present and I am happy to have tried them and eaten them all. They weren't bad. They just paled in comparison.

My five senses

(another import from the luffly Anastasia, as found in her overseas Snack Sampler)

Smiths (by Walkers) Chipsticks Ready Salted Maize & Potato Snack smell kind of bland and sour, like white bread plus shoestring potatos with an unfortunate twist.

Chipsticks look like french fries (or "chips," for you Brits) if they were made by a honeycomb-creating alien life form of some sort. They look like they should be studied under a microscope by biologists.

Chipsticks feel kind of oily and rough, chew like cardboard and styrafoam were fused together, and leave a slick residue on the tongue and roof of the mouth.

Chipsticks taste very (very) salty with an undercurrent of corn and a soupçon of potato. One might say the salt wallops one's taste buds like a Brixton skinhead with a tire iron. The flavor, like the smell, is fairly bland outside of the salt. Frankly, they taste a bit old.

Chipsticks sound like nothing until one bites into them. Then, they sound crispy at first, all the air in them making quite a crunch. Eventually the sound is more muted as they are compressed into a smishy stick-to-the-tops-of-your-teeth paste.

p.s. I like the packaging. It's demurely festive. It's a clown at the beach. It's litter outside an abandoned state fair booth in a Ray Bradbury story.

Hey, Walkers! Yeah, you with the monster on the bag!

Hello, there. Hey, I have a question. How can you be so mouthwatering when you're not that good? Not that bad, granted, but not that good. Scientists must have located the chemical formula for mouthwatering.

Impressions: Sour, airy, light, corny. Strong vinegar punch. Shaped like monster paws? Definitely thirst-inducing. I don't get "onion" out of this unless I eat two at once. Not many in the bag. These taste like they'd burn the inside of your nose if you put them up your nose.



p.s. This is another British snack sent to me by Anastasia, my swap pal in the Ravelry International Scarf Exchange.

Good morning, crumpets.

I was under the mistaken impression crumpets would look like small eclairs or cream puffs, but the crumpet is apparently a cross between an English muffin and a pancake. These pictured above, which we watched being made, started out as batter poured into ring-shaped molds on a large griddle (this is the pancake-y part). Then, the griddle top was closed in with a sort of tent wall made of large metal sheets (about the size of large cookie sheets) leaned over to meet the top of the stove, making the cooking environment more oven-like. Once the crumpets had finished baking on the griddle, the crumpets in their molds were removed from the cooking surface and, after resting on a table for a few minutes, the metal rings were removed.

So, where were we? The Crumpet Shop is near Pike Place Market in Seattle. There, crumpets are served hot - with a wide variety of sweet and savory toppings. A number of teas may also be had. I chose Nutella and ricotta. Others in the party enjoyed pesto with tomato and one with marmalade and butter.

For what it's worth, ricotta doesn't have a lot of flavor, but it is so rich and thick that it is perfect between the crumpet and the chocolate hazelnut spread. The crumpet is crispy and soft and eggy and bready and quite nice!

More pics to come once I have a full-sized computer at hand. Thanks for your patience!