Gummy Shape Problem

I've always believed that you can make a gummy into any shape or size. I've never before thought about whether or not you should. Today's new review features a gummy in a shape that felt really weird to eat, mentally. The problem is they pulled it off very well. Eating a soft animal paw in gummy form is weird, not hating it is even weirder.

Check out the full review of this cute little paw treat.

Creepy Cat Lady

 This Kit Kat commercial is so many levels of creepy.

The Stories I Don't Understand

 One of the interesting things about how candy is marketed involves stories. Candy is a little different than many food items in that one of the big selling points to candy is often the story that goes with it. That story could centre around a popular slogan like "bet you can't eat just one", "take a break" or "sometimes you feel like a nut". Sometimes that story can be based on mascots, for example the M&M's guys, the Sour Patch Kids or the Tootsie Rolls Owl. While many of these brands may not have started with the mascots or slogans we now know, in many ways these marketing ideas have become part of the treat itself now. There is one thing about marketing like this that can become problematic, and that's international shoppers.

It's very possible or I would even say likely that there are several people who have read the slogans or list of candy mascots I've just listed above and have no idea what I'm talking about. While these slogans and characters are well known where I grew up, in the time I grew up, there are many people who fall outside of that circle. One of the things about having a website where you taste test candies from all over the world is that you're often given treats that have slogans or mascots that just don't make any sense, that have cultural touchpoints that fall out of my circle.

I'm sure if you grew up with these slogans or mascots you would have the cultural and historical context to make sense of them, but for someone who's outside of your bubble, it's confusing. Don't get me wrong, I now know that many of my candy and snack mascots and slogans are weird, but at one point I didn't. If this is a little confusing to you, let me suggest an example, or actually two Percy Pig and Colin the Caterpillar. 

When I wrote those two names, there were a group of mostly British people who don't really understand where this is going. That is because these two characters are British mascots for the sweet treats sold at Marks and Spencer stores in the UK. There are a few Marks and Spencer stores outside of the UK too that sell these character themed snacks, but let's assume that people who buy them outside of the UK either don't know who they are or maybe lived in the UK for a while and have grown to love them.

While they're not offensive mascots by any means, objectively they're a little weird. From what I can tell Percy Pig came from some gummy pigs that Marks and Spencer have been selling for many years now. Why they're pigs and not other farm animals doesn't make any sense to me. Colin the Caterpillar makes even less sense to me as I can't really figure out where his origins come from. My only guess, since most of the products featuring him are baked, is that he was once features in a cake form. I'm not really sure why you'd want to eat a giant caterpillar cake in the first place, but who am I to judge.

Objectively these two characters really shouldn't be as popular as they are in England. I imagine that most British kids and many adults of a certain age would know exactly what you where talking about if you said Percy Pig or Colin the Caterpillar. The strange thing is that unlike characters from television shows or books, these characters seem to be based on sweet treats. As an outsider I can't for the life of me figure out how their origin story (either fictional or real) might have come up.

Every time I walk into a Marks and Spencer food section I'm slightly baffled by all of the different candy and treat choices featuring these characters. Why did they become so popular, how good are those gummies (review coming soon) or that cake. It's really a confusing thing that while I accept on the surface, it confuses me when I think about it.

The thing is, I realize that I too have characters and slogans embedded in my cultural history that British kids just don't understand. I can't see them because they're just part of who I am. One of the great things about the candy world is that even if you don't understand what's going on, you can still try and enjoy it. If you enjoy it enough you can do the research and maybe become a fan. I can tell you that becoming a fan of another cultures treats or snacks can be hugely rewarding.

A Halloween Treat... Sort Of

 In this episode of Chris, Why Would You Eat That I eat another Halloween Kiss, for the fourth time. It's part 4 of a 14 year series where I'll eat a Molasses Kiss candy from the same bag till they get stale or until I finish them all.

Get Ready For Some Blue Orchid

 Have you picked up your copy of Blue Orchid, my awesome comic about a girl who fights monsters?

If not, you can pick up all things Blue Orchid at bewarethecheese.com/blueorchid/ or on Amazon.

A New Candy?

Whenever I travel, I always have a hard time knowing if some candies are new, or if they're just new to me. Take my latest candy review, Hitschies. I've never tried these before, or even seen them before, however I've learned that they come in multiple flavours and have likely been around for a while. When I first saw them on the shelf, I had no idea that they weren't brand new. Hitschies have never crossed my path before, but now I truly wish they had, since they're pretty good. This happens a lot with exploring new candies from all over the world, and it's pretty awesome.

Check out the full review of this unknown (to me) classic.

Still Creepiest

 Every year I post this commercial around Halloween, and I'll continue to do so until someone makes a commercial that's even creepier.

The Treats and The Beasts

 

Do you know someone who loves animals and sweet treats, and maybe they could use a brushing up on their alphabet too. Why not get them my awesome alphabet book called Treats and Beasts.

Pick it up right now on Amazon or at bewarethecheese.com/treatsnbeasts/.

Butter, Is It Better

Butter is an odd ingredient. I feel like most cookie, cake or general baked treat needs butter to work well. However I imagine that most baked treats don't actually use any real butter at all. From what I know, butter is not really shelf stable, meaning anything made with butter runs the risk of going rancid or mouldy. Yet, when it comes to baked goods, a buttery flavour is something many people really enjoy, myself included. I'll often talk a lot about how buttery a particular cookie or cake is, when trying to decide if I like it or not (the more buttery the better). Having said that, rancid butter is awful, so I probably wouldn't actually want to eat real butter in most of the treats I review. It's a bit of a conundrum really.

Check out my latest cookie review that happens to be butter themed.

Simple Is Scary

 I love the simplicity of this Reese's Peanut Butter Cup commercial so much.

Icelandic Adventure

Recently Allison and I went on a pretty epic Icelandic adventure with a couple of friends of ours. Unlike many of the adventures I write about on this site, the focus of this trip had nothing to do with food. The focus was instead exploring the natural beauty of this awesome country. What this basically means is that all of the food we tasted on this trip was focused on road tripping around the amazing island, and not about stopping at every restaurant or candy store.

In fact, stopping at restaurants wasn't that important to us at all, since we were all riding in a camper. Most of our meals were being cooked on a tiny range inside our camper. The meal of choice for this adventure for me and Allison were hamburgers. It's because the local grocery store (called bonus) sold pre-made hamburgers in packages of two. As a side note, Bonus has one of the greatest grocery store logos/mascots ever (pictured above). One thing that was available at Bonus, as well as other grocery stores was a huge selection of pre-made salads and dips. Often a meal for me was a hamburger with a side of one or two salads, and the burger would be covered in some kind of flavoured cream cheese or spread.

Mornings for me consisted of skyr, which is kind of like yogurt. I'm not sure where skyr was invented (maybe Iceland) but it was so abundant on this trip. Most grocery stores had several brands of skyr to choose from, but only a few varieties of yogurt. 

Coffee was also an important part of this trip, for everyone except me because I don't drink coffee. We were traveling with two friends from Finland, so I'm not sure if the excessive amount of coffee came from them, or if Iceland is also really coffee crazy too. It could also be the fact that we were driving a lot, and some nights sleeping very little, so coffee was just important.

While we stopped at many amazing sites, we also stopped at many truck stops as well. The selection of snacks at the truck stops was superb. Always a good collection of chocolate and wafer themed bars, and always an exceptional collection of licorice and gummy treats. Each truck stop had at least one giant wall filled with a huge selection of sweet treats.

Truck stops often had bakeries in them as well, and cinnamon buns seemed to be the treat of choice. Some bakeries/truck stops had more than one variety of cinnamon bun to choose from.

The one thing I found challenging on this trip, snack wise, was trying to find treats that were exclusively Icelandic. While in Reykjavík and even at some truck stops there were advertised Icelandic chocolate bars available, candy wise it was hard to figure out which treats were brought in from other countries and which were local. There seems to be quite an affinity for Northern European treats, in particular treats from Sweden and Denmark.

We finished our trip in the capital Reykjavík, and the food choices seemed very plentiful. We ate some excellent local dishes, and even tried some great Indian food. Outside of the cities it seems like Iceland is really a great place to eat simply as you explore the beautiful countryside. Inside the cities it feels very European, with options from many parts of the world, but also some traditional local foods that are very comfortable for most western pallets.

Did I mention, I also tasted some glacier water from a newly broken iceberg. It was really tasty, but also just a little bit salty.

Quick List - The Best Candies For Each Letter of the Alphabet - A-F

 A quick list of the best candies from each letter of the alphabet. This time we're going to be checking out A through F.

Those Facts About Snacks

 

If you want to educate yourself about all the fun treats you love to munch, then pick up my fun comic called Snack Facts.

You can get your very own copy of Snack Facts in many different forms at http://candycritic.org/snackfacts/buy.htm

The End of the Review-A-Thon

The end of this month means it's the end of this crazy idea I've had to try and review a new treat every single day for an entire month. It was both a chore and a joy, and that often depended on how I felt about the particular treat I was reviewing. I'm not sure if I'll make this an annual event, but maybe once in a while it's worth doing. More importantly, I managed to get through my candy backlog a bit, and that means more room to get more treats.

Check out one of the last treats in this month's review-a-thon.

Super Hero Candy

 There was a time, before regulations, that candy companies could claim that their treats would actually make you stronger.

So, What Flavour is a Rainbow (or a Unicorn)?

 Today I look at the super trendy flavour (actually two flavours) that has kind of confused me for the last little while, Rainbow.

The Blue Orchid is Pretty Amazing!

Make sure to check out Blue Orchid, a fun comic about a girl from South East Asia who has to fight all kinds of crazy monsters.

Pick up the latest Blue Orchid comics or merchandise right now at www.bewarethecheese.com/blueorchid/.

When In England, Buy Milk Chocolate

I feel a little sorry for candy makers in the UK, unless you make a milk chocolate treat. My problem is that every time I visit the UK, I tend to gravitate towards any of their treats that contain milk chocolate. The reason is simple, some of (if not the) best mass produced milk chocolate comes from the UK. On just about every visit to the UK I tend to load up on milk chocolate treats, and that means that I might miss or pass up something that doesn't have any milk chocolate in it. If you know a great non-milk chocolate treat that I should try, let me know, I'll add it to my list and really try hard to get it.

Check out my latest UK, milk chocolate treat review.

You're Not Fat Enough Yet

 According to this candy advertisement from South Africa, you have to be heavy in order to eat a giant chocolate bar.

Attempting To Solve A Popcorn Problem

 The popcorn problem is a mathematical problem that takes place mostly at theatres, but can also happen at just about any place that entertains you and offers popcorn. I've never bought popcorn at a concert or professional sporting event, but I have seen it for sale at those events and can imagine that the problem happens there as well. For the sake of explaining this problem, I'll use the theatre as my example. The problem is that all too often you run out of popcorn before the entertainment has even begun. On some occasions you might manage to limit you popcorn intake during the time you're waiting for the event or movie to start, and maybe you'll have popcorn available during the first 15 minutes of so. 

This is a strange situation because I always associate popcorn with watching movies, but maybe I'm actually associating popcorn with waiting for movies to start. Maybe once the movie starts I might actually have no interest in popcorn at all. I wouldn't really know because I've always finished my popcorn before the movie has started.

Popcorn is an odd snack. You might be thinking to yourself, "those buckets of popcorn at theatres are huge, that's more than enough". The fact that they call the container for popcorn a bucket supports that theory. The thing is, most popcorn buckets don't actually contain much solid food mass. I don't think I've ever heard anyone complain about having to carry a bucket of popcorn before because it's too heavy. It's a bit of an illusion, as most of what you're buying is actually air, and these air filled popped kernels have lots of air between them as they don't really nestle together very well.

I should also point out that I tend to order the medium, or maybe large if I'm sharing popcorn when I go to the movies. I pretty much just go along with whatever "combo" or deal the theatre is trying to sell that seems appropriate for my party size (a single if I'm alone and a two person combo if I'm with Allison). I am aware that many theatres also offer insanely large buckets of popcorn as well. I'd just always assumed that these buckets were meant for families and since I don't have kids, I've never bought one... That is until now.

On a recent trip to see the movie Inside Out 2, Allison and I jokingly suggested that we pick up the largest bucket of popcorn available at this theatre. As you might be able to see from the picture, it's about 10 inches tall with a diameter of about 12 inches. I feel like this sudden urge to get a giant bucket of popcorn came about because of our last theatre going experience where we bought the "large" box of popcorn at another theatre and it contained maybe 50 kernels of popcorn, and that's it. Maybe we were over compensating, but the price wasn't too bad and we figured it might be an interesting experiment.

We got this behemoth and couldn't stop laughing the whole time. We were actually watching this movie in Thailand, and I couldn't help but imagine how the locals would see the "westerners" with their giant bucket of popcorn since there's a generalization that westerners eat large portions (spoilers, we do). We waited for the theatre to be cleaned out, and once it was, we wandered inside to our seats. In this theatre they offer special seating for couples that consist of two large, comfy chairs squished together like a couch. We generally opt for this and it worked out well as our popcorn needed a large place to sit and between us on this couch worked perfectly.

We also decided that we would eat the popcorn as usual. So no holding back and waiting for the movie to start. We sat down and watched a good 20 to 30 minutes of trailers happily munching away on our popcorn. I would occasionally feel around the bucket to see how far we'd gotten. By the time the movie started it felt like we'd eaten about 1 and a half inches into the bucket. After about the first 45 minutes of the movie I assumed that we must have been near the end, but we weren't even halfway through.

By about the 1 hour mark I started to not want to eat popcorn anymore, and only continued to eat out of habit or some drive to finish this bucket. About 20 minutes after that I was pretty much tapped out. I nibbled here and there, but I just couldn't eat any more popcorn. I felt like Allison was in the same boat as me.

The photo above is how far we managed to get into the bucket. By this point I could touch the bottom with my finger, but just barely. I would say we had a good 2 or 3 inches left. I took away a few lessons from doing this. First and foremost, as much as you think you'd like to eat popcorn throughout an entire movie (or concert or sporting event), I don't think that's true. Secondly, if you get a giant bucket of popcorn, make sure to get the giant drink to go with it. I noticed my consumption went way down once my drink was done.

We tried to eat more popcorn when we got back to our hotel, but frankly the idea made us a little sick. There's a great expression is show business "leave them wanting more". The expression suggests that it's better for your audience to not get enough entertainment rather than over doing it. I feel like this works with popcorn too. It's better to not get enough popcorn than have too much. When I don't have enough popcorn I just look forward to the next time I'm planning to go to a movie. If I get too much I just leave with a tummy ache and sore, dry lips.

There's Something Wrong With These M&M's

Keep in mind that I'm not a legal expert, but I feel like a line or two might have been crossed.

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Learn about Beasts and the Treats They Love

 If you haven't already picked up my awesome alphabet book called Treats and Beasts, then you're missing out on a fun day of learning all about beasts and the treats they love.

Pick up your very own copy of this book (and even some merch) at bewarethecheese.com/treatsnbeasts/ or on Amazon.

A Review Every Day

 

If you haven't noticed yet, this month (September 2024) I've decided to post a new candy review every single day of the week. I'd planned to do this several months ago, assuming that I wouldn't be traveling or anything this month, and would be able to update the site every morning. So far it's worked, and I'll be honest, it hasn't been that hard on me either. Not that I should ever complain about having to eat candy. The thought has gone through my head about the idea of keeping this up for a whole year, but I feel like that might be too much on me both mentally and physically (you can have too much of a good thing). The good news is that I don't plan on stopping the review-a-thon this month, and I'll have plenty new reviews after.

Check out on of the latest entries in this review-a-thon, a bar from Iceland.

Simpson's Candy Facts?

 I just learned that this Butterfinger commercial is actually the first appearance of Milhouse. Apparently he was created for this commercial specifically.

Deep Fried Snacks Rule On Street Food

 Watching these expert street food artist make a crunchy deep fried peanut treat at a street market in Bangkok, Thailand is what makes me happy all the time.

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Do You Know Snack Facts?

You can learn some really fun facts about the snacks you love in a really fun way, and all you have to do is pick up my comic Snack Facts.

Check out Snack Facts right now at candycritic.org/snackfacts/buy.htm or on Amazon.

A Little Offensive But...

 I get the feeling that this commercial isn't trying to be offensive, but there are a lot of elements that probably wouldn't sit well with today's audience.

McDonalds Anime Update

 Ronald McDonald is probable one of the most famous food mascots ever created. I say this because I’ve seen depictions of Ronald all over the world, and I’m pretty sure that kids and adults all over the place associate this brightly coloured clown with burgers, nuggets and fun fast food. Thailand even has some very unique Ronald statues to greet people outside of every single restaurant.

The thing is, Ronald seems to be disappearing a bit. While there are still hints of him everywhere, he’s not commonly found at every restaurant anymore. I’ve seen many documentaries about the rise and fall of Ronald and the entire McDonald Land cast, and there are many theories about why these characters seem to be falling out of favour at the restaurants. Oddly however I am finding that these characters are starting to become more popular outside the restaurants, being used in clothes, shoes, and even some fine art and collectible toys.

It seems like the licensing of Ronald and the McDonald’s Land characters is going strong, but for marketing in restaurants they seem to be completely disappearing. Again I’m not sure why this is happening for sure, but I am noticing in Asia that these classic characters are starting to be replaced by new Anime style characters.

While there are some food related characters in the mix, the main theme seems to be characters based on the people working at McDonald’s. Maybe this is not only a way to sell food, but also a way to try and get people to apply for jobs.

What I wonder is how deep this goes. While I’ve seen a few posters, cut outs and window decorations of these characters, I haven’t seen any of the obvious marketing pieces that would make sense for Anime style characters, like comics and animation. I think it might be fun to see the adventures of some characters that work at a McDonald’s that’s regular attacked by various fast food related robots and monsters.

Longest Lasting Gum

 A quick list of the longest lasting gums that I've ever reviewed on candycritic.org. If you want to check out all the gum I've reviewed check out candycritic.org/reviewgum.htm.

That Blue Orchid is Awesome!

If you haven't yet picked up issue 1 of Blue Orchid, make sure you get it soon, because issue 2 is almost done.

Check out all things Blue Orchid at www.bewarethecheese.com/blueorchid/ and pick up issue 1 on Amazon .

It's A Review-a-Thon Marathon

Starting this week, and going until the end of the month, I'm going to post a new snack/candy review every single day. Normally I post one or two reviews a week, with the occasional small one week review-a-thons, but lately I've had a huge backlog of reviews that I need to post. I've decided to thin out this backlog a bit and post like crazy. My goal is to have them all posted overnight with a notice on my social media every morning, but please be kind if I'm running a little late.

Check out the first entry in my mega review-a-thon and don't forget to complain about the fact that it's not really a candy.

A Little Strange I Guess

 Even if you look beyond the general strangness of this commercial, I find it really odd at how happy the kids are that the M&Ms don't melt in their hands.

Is Red Licorice, Licorice?

 Today I debate the age old question, is red licorice actually licorice?

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Beast Up Those Treats

If you haven't picked up my fun alphabet book all about beasts and the treats they love, then you're really missing out.

Pick up your very own copy right now on Amazon or at bewarethecheese.com/treatsnbeasts/

Marshmallow Redemption?

While writing this new candy review I got to thinking. I was wondering if I could acquire a taste for mass produced marshmallows the same way I (sort of) acquired a taste for black licorice. The way I attempted to acquire a taste for black licorice was to buy a big bag of the stuff (the extreme black licorice from Holland) and eat a piece every single day. I'm not sure that this will work for mass produced marshmallows as the thing I dislike most about them is the lack of flavour and the texture. Black licorice was a flavour issue, where is this is a texture issue. Maybe I'll give it a try in the future, but for now I'm happy to remain very picky about the marshmallows that I eat.

Check out my latest marshmallow review right now.

Almond Joy and Almond Cluster

 I have two questions about this commercia. First of all, what happened to the Almond Cluster, and why can't I get one now. Secondly, why is the theme song sung with a French accent?

Googly Revolution

There’s a saying, or at the very least an idea that many people believe to be true, and that’s chocolate will improve any food. I will agree that chocolate can make many desserts, nuts and even some savoury foods pretty good, but I’m pretty sure it can’t improve everything. I’ve pointed out in the past that onions and chocolate seems to be a stumbling block that I’ve seen a few people attempt but never succeed. I’d also argue that there a few desserts that would not be better with chocolate, like strawberry shortcake, carrot cake and trifle. So that made me think, is there anything you can do to a dessert, snack or candy that will always improve it?

My next line of thinking was fruit or a fruit compote. Fruit is a great garnish on so many desserts so it seemed like it should work. I was mostly thinking of a berry coulis, maybe strawberry or raspberry. The problem with coolis is I’m not convinced it would improve any candies, and pretty sure it would wreck some savoury treats, I’m looking at you pretzels.

This basically lead me right back to the beginning, and had me once again sure that there was no unifying single thing one could add to snacks, desserts and candy that would always improve them. That was until I took a trip to my local bulk food store and came across some candy googly eyes.

You could easily argue that these candy googly eyes add nothing when it comes to taste and texture. I would argue back that they do add a little bit of crunch, but would kind of agree that flavour wise they’re just adding some sweet and nothing more. The thing they do add is endless entertainment, and maybe that’s just what desserts, snacks and candies could use. Even if your dessert is fancy or your candy is fun, these googly eyes just seem to add even more fun to them.

My plan is simple, I bought a handful of these googly eyes, and I’ve decided that over the next few weeks/months I’m going to take every opportunity to add them to many of my desserts, snacks and candies that I’m eating to see if it actually makes them better. I’m convinced that there will not be one failure for this experiment, and I challenge any treat to try and be less fun without some slightly wonky eyes attached to them.

A Look Back at a Dark Chocolate From Japan

 Today I tasted a dark chocolate that came from a place that didn't used to have a lot of dark chocolate. Now it's got much more dark chocolate, and this doesn't really cut it anymore.

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Facting on The Snacking

If you've wanted to learn all there is to know about the snacks you love, make sure to pick up Snack Facts, my fun comic featuring fun facts and history treats, candy and munchies.

Pick up your copy right now at candycritic.org/snackfacts/ or on Amazon.

For The Love of Cinnamon

I'm not sure if my tastes have changed, or if I'm just finally brave enough in my older age to admit this, but I really like cinnamon. I might even go so far as to say that there are times where I crave cinnamon over chocolate. This is particularly true when someone's talking about baked treats. Don't get me wrong, there has to be some sugar mixed with that cinnamon, and it shouldn't be very spicy either. I've never really understood the full appeal of spicy cinnamon treats to be honest.

Check out my latest cinnamon filled review.

Old PopRocks Slogan

 I feel like PopRocks could bring back their old slogan "the cracklin's what's happenin'" and people would love it.

A New Street Food 10 Second Kitchen

Watching them make fun and unique street foods at the night markets in Bangkok is always fun, particularly when you know that you're going to eat it a few minutes later.

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That Blue Orchid Is Pretty Amazing

You should stop what you're doing right now and check out my comic all about a girl who fights all kinds of monsters. 

Pick up Blue Orchid right now at www.bewarethecheese.com/blueorchid/ or on Amazon.

My Monthly Review-A-Thon

 

You may or may not have noticed but each month, during the second week of each month to be precise, I post a review-a-thon. What that means is that rather than posting two new candy reviews a week, I post a new review each day that week (from Monday to Friday). I started doing this when my backlog of reviews started to grow a little out of control, with the goal of thinning this backlog out a bit. It appears to not be doing a good enough job, as my backlog is once again way too big. So while this month is going to be the same as usual, next month I've decided to do a super review-a-thon and I'm going to post a new review every single day for the entire month of September.

Check out the first entry in week's review-a-thon, and stay tuned to our social media for a fairly hectic September.

Early TV

 One thing about older candy commercials is there was a time when you didn't really have to impress, you just had to be on television.

Kaya Revelation

 There are a few snacking trends that make their way from Asia to the west. Odd flavoured Kit Kat bars, Pocky, seaweed crackers just to name a few. There are however some Asian trends that never make their way to the west, and I can’t figure out why. Salted Egg, both on fish skins and as a flavour is a great example. It’s a flavour trend that’s just about everywhere in Asia, from Krispy Kreme donuts to every kind of salty snack and cookie you could imagine, yet most people in the west have no idea what it is. I can never really figure out why one particular snacking trend makes its way around the world while others don’t.

Kaya is the latest thing I’ve discovered that seems to fall into the category of treat that just about everyone should love, but for some reason it seems to stick to certain parts of Asia. I discovered it on a trip to Malaysia where I met a person who was so surprised that I had never tried it before. This isn’t that uncommon, for someone to introduce me to a treat that I’ve never tried before. After all there are hundreds of regional treats and snacks all over the world that are only available in very specific places. At first I assumed that this was just a Malaysian thing and while happy to try it, I didn’t think much of it.

Then, after my trip to Malaysia, we ventured to Singapore. I decided to poke around Singapore and see if they had any Kaya available as well. I was blown away by how much Kaya I found. There were snack shops and restaurants dedicated to the stuff. Dunkin’ had a doughnut flavoured with Kaya too. I also checked the grocery stores and there were shelves full of different varieties and different qualities of Kaya. After having one person in Malaysia point it out to me, I suddenly discovered that it’s actually all over the place. I’ve since travel ed to a few other Asian countries, and each and every one of them also offers Kaya.

For those of you that don’t know, Kaya is a coconut based spread. It often has pandam in it as well as various other ingredients like sugar and sometimes egg. There are apparently different versions of it too, depending on where you get it, but most are sweet, slightly gritty spreads. There is certainly a coconut flavour, but it’s not too overpowering. The traditional way to eat it is on toast with butter, but as I said before filling donuts or dipping things in it is also acceptable.

It’s a sweet spread that has some truly fun (and fairly familiar) Asian flavours, so why is no one in North America or Europe eating this stuff? I don’t really have an answer, but I can say that it’s not because it’s brand new. The people I’ve talked to about it have been eating it for years. According to some research I’ve done online, there are Kaya recipes that have been around since the early nineteen hundreds.

I’m not sure how long Dunkin’ has offered a Kaya donut, and I’m not sure how long Kaya toast shops have been open. Maybe Kaya is just hitting the mainstream in Asia. Maybe it’s been on the shelves for a while, but now it’s finally getting a bit more of the snacking spotlight. I can’t really say for sure because it just wasn’t on my radar until recently.

What I’m hoping is that this awesome spread picks up momentum, and we start to see more and more treats flavoured with it. A Kaya Kit Kat sounds good to me, maybe even some more Kaya cookies. I would also love to taste a Kaya ice cream, if Baskin Robbins is feeling adventurous.

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The Best Milk Chocolate Bars

 This is a list of the best milk chocolate bars I've ever reviewed on candycritic.org, so this doesn't include fine milk chocolates or milk chocolate that might be in other forms. It also only includes bars that have nothing but milk chocolate.

Those Beasts Love Treats

If you want to better your alphabet skills while still showing your love of snacks and treats, be sure to pick up my book called Treats and Beasts.

You can get your very own copy at bewarethecheese.com/treatsnbeasts/ or on Amazon.

Being Objective Is Hard

Probably the hardest part of doing a site dedicated to reviewing candy is staying objective. After all I have likes and dislikes, licorice and spicy foods is a prime dislike that I run across regularly. I also have childhood memories of eating certain candies. This is a hard one to put aside since it's not uncommon for me to taste these treats and instantly be flooded with great childhood memories. This week's featured review is just such a treat. It's been years since I've eaten a Zingy Zap, but the minute I bit into one I instantly had fond memories of being a kid and visiting my local corner store with my friends.

Check out my attempt at objectively reviewing this classic treat.

Retro Rolo

 To say they don't make commercials like they used to is an understatement in this case.