These are odd.

Paul showed me these videos the other day.  That candy sushi looks pretty fabulous!  My instinct is that these must taste gross, but  I haven't tried them for myself, so that's not a fair assessment. 

I do like miniature things...and assembly...




The pizza freaks me out a little.  What's with all the liquid?

Have any of you ever tried this sort of homemade gummy candy? 

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Oh, yeah -- I ate these, too.

Sour, gummy mushrooms, anyone?!

Not bad.

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If they can build a better gummy bear...

Surf Sweet Gummy Bears are tops!  I bought them on a whim to eat on the train one Saturday morning, but they ended up being so much better than I expected.  Organically sweetened and "[f]ree of artificial colors and sweeteners," there's a real, bright, sweet, fruity lightness to them. 

I'll never again hesitate with my hand on a bag of these babies.

Nobody loves me; everybody hates me. Guess I'll go eat...

I did not anticipate finding any fault with the infamous "dirt and worms" dessert that Brock and August made tonight.

However, I discovered that although I enjoy the components on their own (pudding, whipped cream, Oreos, gummy worms), they don't actually work well together. It's a cute idea, and cuter still with a sprig of "grass" (a clipping of chive) as garnish [nice one, guys], but the Oreo dirt, made muddy with a cold chocolate pudding, chills the worm and makes it extra tough and chewy. Additionally, the flavor of the gummy (or, at the very least, the red worm I found at the bottom of my plastic cup) seems medicinal and unpleasant when paired with the chocolate.

I'd happily eat another cupful of dirt, but I'd like future worms served on the side, please.

What snacks would YOU choose for YOUR birthday bus trip?

My Birthday Bus Snacks, 2010
Haribo Happy Cola
Japanese snack mix (wasabi flavor)
Anna's Chocolate Mint Cookies**


**I did not eat these yet. Report coming soon.

Happy Cola makes me happy

Haribo Happy Colas are the bee's knees. They have a peculiar sweetly spicy flavor that suggests cola without actually tasting like cola. The density of gummy-ness is just about perfect, too - never sticky, never wimpy. And I love the ombré effect of the coloring. They're my gummi of choice.

Burning through the Pastilles

Only three other people got to try these Fruit Pastilles from Anastasia's UK Snack Sampler because all four of us enjoyed them (especially me) enough that they were soon gone.



Containing real fruit juice, these are chewy, sugar crusted gumdrop+haribo gummi fruit+lifesaver hybrids. Never bad, they only get better as they're chewed, finishing in a sweetly fruity way.

Okashi Morning (Parts 1-4)

Part 1

Arriving at work yesterday, I was greeted by this cheery, colorful pile. It's a Japanese snack sampler from N., just back from a months-long gig in that country! I'm familiar with Pocky, but the rest of the items were new to me. Good thing I got in just as she was putting everything out on the table. You wouldn't have enjoyed a picture of what it looked like after we started ripping into and eating everything. My pick from the pile?



I chose to consume this beverage-themed gummy straw for two reasons. The first is that I love Haribo gummy colas (currently my favorite gummy of all time). The second is that I couldn't resist the drama occurring on the back of the package (see photo below). The two colors of cola/beverage (is the blue drink a cola? Dish soap?) are fighting over the straw! Clearly, this is why the product is colored both blue and brown.



The odor of blue and brown in a battle turned out to be overwhelmingly sweet and strange. I opened the package to discover that the scent came from this gummy wad:



Inside the pouch, a long gummy string lies coiled, appealing to me in the same sort of way that the gum that came in long rolls once was (Oh, I just remembered the name: Bubble Tape! Remember Bubble Tape?). I say I imagine this is meant to represent a straw, though it is much thinner than a straw would be. It is blue on two ends and brown in the middle. I expected it to be blue on one end and brown on the other, as if the two soda straws had merged. Curious.

Now, to my mind, Brown, though under-represented on this candy, is winning the fight. The blue ends were sweet, feisty, fruity, peppery and soapy. It stung my tongue a bit and lingered on the palate longer than necessary. The brown portion in the middle tasted like a gummily artificial version of soda pop, still sweet but smoother and less alarming.

If you look closer at that illustration again, you'll notice that the brown guy (and I don't use "guy" here to label this soda as male) looks angry and the blue guy looks scared. Now this makes sense to me. Blue is clearly a usurper. Long live Brown!!

Or does it take the blues in our lives to fully appreciate the browns?

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Part 2

The second Okashi offering I tried was Pucca. Again, this was because of the curious illustration on the back of the package.




Snarky! I like it. This reminded me of a certain (Quaker Oat?) cereal that was like a crunchy pillow hollowed out on the inside which you could bite into halves, but Pucca is fish-shaped and filled with fudgey chocolate. Nice crunch. Well done, fishies.





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Part 3

Finally, I sampled the purple disks in this tube.





Why? Because I cannot resist robot hippos. Looks like they eat grapes and then, I can only imagine, emit purple disks from some robotic orifice.

Yow! Grapey! A little chalky, but the strong fruity flavor made these novel. I don't think I'd eat a whole tube, but one was just fine.

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Part 4

I did not taste everything that was displayed on the tabletop. I restrained myself (though when I ran across some leftover Pocky and Pretz later in the day I may have had a nibble of 2 or 3 flavors). Ahem. When snacking with a group (especially in the workplace), it is important to not come off like a snack hog. But I did snap some quick pictures of a couple of other intriguing packages before they were trashed.



What is this? A flirty flan? A teasing cupcake? Am I receiving some sort of knowing wink from a small dulce de leche cheesecake?



A toucan, right? I liked this illustration. An exotic bird + treasure chests + chocolate candies with something inside = pretty good vacation idea. Intriguing.

All in all? I tip my hat to you, Japan. Don't stop the innovations and feel free to keep it up with the package design. But you might ease up on the blue cola products. Just saying.


p.s. Dave said CHOCO A~NPAN (the box can be seen in the first photo at the top of this post) were soft little treats that looked like hamburgers but were filled with chocolate. He raved about them. Anyone in NYC know where he can buy some more?

Business Snack Revisited

Trolli Sour Brite Crawlers beat the pants off of Trolli Squigglers. I ate five, I think, and didn't even care what flavor(s) they were supposed to be.



Tip: Water should be your beverage with these. Anything else fights with the worm.

Fruchtgummi

Haribo Saure Pommes (Extra Sauer)

Procured in Vienna, these are sour gummy Belgian fries with grainy sugar coating them. The five colors have different flavors, but they all taste reminiscent of gummy grapefruit pieces to me. My flavor guesses are:

Yellow: grapefruit/lemon flavor
Green: grapefruit/lime
White: grapefruit/ pineapple
Red: grapefruit/cherry
Orange: orange (tastes least like grapefruit)



The fries are shaped like trapezoids -- so different sides have different thicknesses, which adds to the illusion of their being hand-cut -- and they "give" easily upon being bitten into. They seem softer than some gummy products. I enjoyed them a lot, but would be more likely to call them "sour" than "extra sour." The sugar on the outside of the fries is not as rough as on other sour gummy items. And I like the novelty of the Belgian fry design. If only I were eating them out of a paper cone.

Eaten while listening to: Isobel Campbell's album Milkwhite Sheets. I wish she'd added a little more sour to her sweet.

D: "These taste fresher."
J: "Than what?"
D: "Than American gummis. Don't you think?"
J: "Mmm."

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Idea: salty gummis

Business Snack

Haribo makes a mean little bear, but what is the gold standard of the gummy worm? I'd like to have tested these Trolli Squiggles against some other varieties. How would a Trolli invertebrate compare to a Black Forest? A Publix (careful if you're kosher!)? E.frutti? Does Haribo make a worm? What's the difference between Gummi and Gummy? Don't even get me started on the sour ones.

I'd need to go on a brand hunt to have a showdown, obviously. This afternoon, my choice was Squiggles or no Squiggles. I ate three.

My notes are a little hard to read because I had chicken wings* for lunch and got Bangkok sauce on my notebook, but here's what it looks like I thought:
red and white - strawberry? sweet. a little too sweet?
yellow and green - lemony. lime? [this color combo has] a little more tang.
red and orange - redder tasting. cherry? tangy, too. [I like these] more than [the] red and white [ones].

To the eye and hand, the texture seemed appropriate. Chewing, somehow they seemed denser than what I was expecting. Less gummy? I struggle to describe the sensation. I don't know what I thought they were missing. My mouth wasn't angry. My mouth wasn't thrilled. But the smell was just right -- powdery, soothing, and sweet. I should have smelled them for longer. Because then they were gone. Well, there were more in the kitchen. But I'd had enough.

Regarding my color-coded notes, I suspect the different colors have different flavorings, but Jane put the idea in my head and I could have been trying to please her. I do have a pretty vivid imagination.

I didn't hate these Trollis but they didn't mark the end of my search. No. No, one has to keep searching.

* p.s. about those chicken wings:

Chicken Feature #1? Does this mark a new trend in less-than evocative names? Pretty sure they used to be called Bangkok wings.