Is Handmade Better Than Factory Made

I've always wondered why the words "handmade" can make the price of a candy go up so much. One thing I want to get straight in this debate, let's assume that the fictional factory and the fictional candy maker are using exactly the same ingredients. Often handmade treats are associated with the use of fewer chemicals or less wholesome ingredients. I don't believe that to be true in all cases, so for this argument we're using the word "handmade" to only refer to the idea that the candy is made by human hands. So does that mean a machine will always make something of lesser quality than a person. I'll be honest, I'm not really sure. I guess it's a debate that's been going on for years, and the entire Terminator movie franchise is kind of looking at that very problem. In my life I've had some great handmade treats, but I've also had some machine made treats that are pretty good as well.

Check out my latest review that claims to be handmade, but I'm not entirely sure about that.

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The Caramilk Secret

 When I was a kid, the caramilk secret was such a big deal. Does anyone ever wonder how candies are made today? So much so that they could do an entire add campaign asking about it?

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Junk Fud and You in South Korea

 We traveled from the far south of South Korea right to the line with North Korea, and we ate a lot of candy coated almonds along the way.

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Beasts Love Treats, I Have Proof

 Pick up the fun alphabet book featuring beasts and the treats they love.

To get all the Treats and Beasts you need check out bewarethecheese.com/treatsnbeasts or Amazon.

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Is Maple The Official Flavour of Canada

As a Canadian I struggle to define the flavours of my own country. I've given several answers to the question about our national dish. I've told people it's poutine, baked potatoes, and even ketchup chips. The one thing however that most of the world associates with Canadian food is maple syrup. The problem is maple syrup isn't really a dish as much as it's an ingredient. I also get a lot of push back from Americans in Vermont. So what do you think is Canada's national dish, and does it even have maple syrup in it?

Check out my most recent maple flavoured Canadian treat review.

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The Big Chunk of Fudge!

 I have vivid memories of running around the school yard yelling, "it's the big chunk of... Fuuudge". I'm so weird and easy to influence.

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A Box Of Georgian Treats

 

It's not too often that I'm given treats that completely surprise and mystify me. I've been writing about snacks and treats for a very long time, and I've been lucky enough to travel to many places to try them, so finding something new is becoming more and more difficult for me. However, we were recently gifted a box of treats from Georgia (the country not the state for all of my American friends out there), and I was pleasantly delighted with everything, with one thing in particular really blowing me away.

The main contents of the box was a selection of dried fruit. There were dried apples, apricots, plums (I think) and what appeared to be some kind of rolled dried fruit mixture. All of these fruits were tasty and I'm still going through them now. I'm actually a big fruit eater, and dried fruit makes fruit even better because it's portable.

There were also a few chocolate disks in this box, nothing that surprising here, just nuts and dried fruit embedded in chocolate discs. This is a great delivery method for nuts and chocolate because you don't have any guess work when it comes to knowing what kind of nuts you might be eating. Chocolate bars for some reason are more popular, yet most of the time they hide the contents. I like a surprise now and then, but when it's all out on display you really know what you're getting into.

There were also several candied oranges, covered in chocolate with strawberries. These made me a little nervous as I've had candied oranges in the past that are a little too bitter for my liking. These on the other hand were pretty sweet, and the chocolate/orange combination was well balanced. The strawberry was kind of useless flavour wise, but at least it looked cool.

There were several of these round balls in the box. They seemed to be some kind of mashed fruit inside. Honestly they weren't my favorite thing in this box, but I still ate them all.

The true treasure in this collection was this strange, lumpy stick. My first instinct was that it might be either dried fruit covered in chocolate, or some kind of jelly treat covered in chocolate. I took a bite and was instantly surprised and very happy.

Each one of these lumps was in fact a hazelnut. A fresh and very crunchy hazelnut covered in tasty chocolate.

The really cool feature was that there was evidence left behind explaining how these were made. Each hazelnut had a hole drilled in it, and through that hole was a piece of string. The string obviously held it together while it was being dipped in chocolate. Sure I almost choked on the string after my first bite, but after I figured it out it was no problem pulling it out. I love that they left behind a clue about how these were made, and they tasted great.

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Looking Back at the Mac

 It's been such a long time since I've had Macintosh Toffee and I was wondering if anything other than the package had changed.

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Snack Facts For You To Check Out

 

Pick up the complete Snack Facts (or even single issues) right now and learn all about the snacks you love.

You can pick up Snack Facts at candycritic.org/snackfacts or on Amazon.

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It's Not Always Easy Finding A Trendy Candy

 

People assume that I have just about every single candy in the world at my fingertips, but that's just not the case. Right now I live in South East Asia, and while there are a bunch of fun exotic (for North Americans and Europeans at least) treats around me all the time, I find it pretty difficult to find the trendy treat from other parts of the world. I happened to luck out to get this latest trendy treat, but often I find myself missing out on some of the really neat treats I see online. 

See what I thought about one of the most trendy treats out there right now.

Creep Mr Big Commercial

 It's interesting how it's kind of scientific, but then it just gets a little creepy.

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Pick Up Some Blue Orchid

 

Buy some comics, or download some for free and follow the adventures of Blue Orchid.

You can check out bewarethecheese.com/blueorchid or check out Amazon.

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Turkish Taffy?

 

I've visited Türkiye several times and while their nougat and delight are amazing, I can't say that I've ever seen a Turkish taffy. I generally associate taffy with the United States, although I've never actually looked into the history of taffy before. I could be wrong since Türkiye is responsible for many of the world's amazing sweets. Maybe Turkish taffy is correct, I'd only hope that the taffy in Türkiye is much better than this stuff.

Check out my review for this (possibly) oddly named chocolate chewy bar.

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So Many Coffee Crisp Memories

 I don't understand why I love this commercial, it's only slightly clever, but it makes me feel all warm and nostalgic. I love being a Canadian.

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HBAF (the “h” is silent)

On our recent trip to Korea we came across a snacking trend that was so gigantic, yet so unique at the same time. This trend is completely about almonds, in particular, flavoured almonds by a company called HBAF. According to their advertising the “h” is silent, if that makes it easier for your to read. I first noticed these almonds on day one of our trip as we had a few hours to wait at the train station in Seoul to head down south to Busan. There was a grocery store in the train station, and we thought it would be a great place to get some snacks and also see what the shopping/food is like in Korea. At the front of the store was a huge display with a giant statue of a cartoon almond greeting everyone who walked in. In this are of the store were hundreds of colourful bags of almonds, with hundreds of strange flavours to choose from. There were also dozens of people loading up on this these nutty treats.

I decided that I should probably try a few flavours. I went for a few of the stranger flavours, as I’m known to do including carrot cake, salted caramel pretzels and salted caramel latte (Allison actually picked that last one). After our shop, we got on our train and headed south to Busan. I opened my first bag of these flavoured almonds and was instantly impressed by the smell coming out of the package. It not only smelled great, but matched the flavour perfectly. Even the almond itself was perfect, fresh and very crunchy. I could see why people were so excited to pick up these nuts, and I thought to myself that I should probably go back to that store on our way home to get some more. Little did I know that there were going to many more opportunities to get some HBAF again in the future.

Our first stop was in Busan, a smaller city in the south of Korea. Within a few days of exploring I quickly realized that HBAF almonds were not going to be hard to find. Every single store had at least a small display for these tasty almonds, some had whole sections dedicated to them. At one point we were walking down a trendy shopping street in Busan and I noticed that they were in the process of building an entire store dedicated to HBAF almonds. It looked like it was going to open soon, and it looked pretty epic. I was a little sad that I wouldn’t be around to see it open, but it really gave me an idea of how popular these almonds were... or so I thought.

After our time in Busan we headed north to Seoul. Our first night we decided to walk to one of the trendy areas of town that also had a night market atmosphere. This is when I realized how popular these nuts really were. Every single shop that sold packaged food (there were a lot) had a huge display of these nuts. As far as visiting a HBAF store, I had a choice of no less than 3, each bigger than the next in this one neighbourhood. I don’t think I’ve ever seen any snack have so much publicity and available in so many places in my life. It was like spotting Mickey Mouse at Disneyland, these nuts were just everywhere.

The good thing about the HBAF almonds is they’re really good. The flavours are super creative and the way they make the flavours work is even more ingenious. You could easily try a new flavour every day for a month and not only will you not repeat, but you’ll be amazed how different each flavour is. I’d like to tell you that you shouldn’t miss HBAF if you happen to be visiting Korea, but I feel like you’d have a harder time avoiding them, they’re just everywhere. I just wonder if this trend might make its way outside Korea, I sure hope so because I’m already craving another bag.

Kit Kat Bars I Want

 Here's a few Kit Kat bars that really should be around, but for some reason Nestle hasn't made them yet. Maybe they will now.

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Treat Those Beasts Right

 Pick up my fine alphabet book called Treats and Beasts, featuring a treat and a beast for every letter of the alphabet.

Available at bewarethecheese.com/treatsnbeasts/ or on Amazon.

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