Travel With Fruit

I have a theory that's probably very unpopular. I believe that fruit is more often than not, bad for road trips and hiking. Don't get me wrong, I really like fruit, but it often gets a reputation for being the perfect road trip or travel snack, and frankly I disagree. I've decided to make a collection of common fruits, and give it a score based on how well I think it travels. I'll also give a short write up and justification about why I think it doesn't travel well.

Each fruit will get a score out of 10 1 being horrible for travel 10 being slightly inconvenient for travel. Keep in mind that this is an argument that all fruit is hard to travel either hiking or road trip, and no fruit is going to "win". The thing that I'm most excited about writing this is the fact that I get to eat all this fruit... for science.

Watermelon - 2 out of 10 - This is probably one of the worst fruits for traveling. If you want to keep watermelon in good shape, the best thing one can do is not cut it. I've kept watermelons in my fridge for over a month uncut and it still tastes great. However, after I cut into a watermelon it feels like you have at most a week before it starts to go. It's even more so if it's out of the fridge. 

Let's also not forget about the trash left behind with a watermelon. This includes the rind and all the seeds. The seeds also create a problem as picking them out can make a mess. Even if you're some kind of watermelon seed ninja, in general watermelon is a fruit that requires a shower after eating it. This is not only a horrible road trip fruit, it's like the worst road trip fruit with one exception (see below).

Orange 5 out of 10 - The peel is the first and most obvious problem with bringing an orange on a road trip. If you happen to be driving the car, you'll have to pull over and peel the orange before you can even think about eating it. Even if we assume that you've pulled over and thrown away the peel, even if you're willing to lose that much time to get a little extra vitamin C. Then you have the stickiness. 

Orange stickiness is no joke. There's two dose of sticky to contend with too. There's the obvious juice that you'll have to deal with when eating the orange, sure sometimes it's contained in the wedges, but that's pretty rare. Even if you have a lucky orange, you'll probably already be sticky because the peel releases a stealthy sticking liquid that I contend is worse than the juice on the inside. This ninja spray that comes off the peel is even a pain to wash off your hands, so you're probably looking at more wasted time scrubbing your hands at the next truck stop.

Banana - 6 out of 10 - Bananas are deceptive, because they may at first appear to be a great road trip or hiking snack. They're self contained in single serving packages and they taste great. But let's start off by looking at this self contained package. Banana peels have the ability to go brown and rot faster than any other fruit by-product. I feel like the banana peel starts to rot before you even finish the banana. If you're on a road trip your trash bag is going to smell like rotting banana very quickly. This is even worse if you're hiking and have no place to dispose of the peel. And don't go throwing that peel on the ground either, I've seen enough black and white comedy movies to know that's a lawsuit waiting to happen.

The other thing about bananas is the fact that they go bad really quickly too. Even if you leave the peel on, I feel like bananas have the ability to go from just ripe to a sock full of mush in minutes. And god forbid you happen to bump it in any kind of way. A bruised banana will be a sack full of liquid in no time.

Apple - 6 out of 10 - I think we can agree that the core of the apple is the worst thing about eating any fruit. Even in the perfect environment when you have a cutting board and knife, the core is going to be the biggest challenge you'll have with an apple. You have to make one of two choices when eating an apple, either go in deep and try to clean the core off running the risk of eating a seed or those sharp seed pods, or agree to waste some apple and leave a little extra room. No matter which you choose, you'll still have a core to deal with, and similar to the banana peel, the core of an apple rots at breakneck speeds.

There's also the juice problem. Some apples are very juicy and you'll find beads of juice running down your fingers for sure. Other types of apples may not bleed juice, but all apples will likely give you a light misting of sticky juice. Maybe a baby wipe or a stop at a roadside rest stop might help you, but I feel like that spray of stickiness will likely find a way to stick around.

Grapes - 7 out of 10 - I'm going to be honest, I think grapes might be the best fruit to bring on a road trip or hiking. They're not perfect, but I think they're as good as it gets. The thing is, there are very particular stipulations to make these an acceptable road trip fruit. First of all you have to get rid of the stems. This means that you have to break them into a bunch of very round and easy to lose pieces. If you have a container than you might be okay (but then you're carrying around an empty container all day). 

If your grapes have seeds than consider the advise above null and void. I understand that seeds are the key to life when it comes to plants, but if there could be some way of outlawing seeds in grapes that are sold to the public as food I would not disagree. Seeds in grapes have been something that has made me sad many times.

Honorable Mentions - I just want to mention a few other of my favourite fruits that are also not great for travel. Dragon fruit is a terrifying looking fruit that actually might be one of the better road trip fruits. I've peeled a dragon fruit by hand and feel like you might be able to enjoy it while on a road trip. It'll likely be kind of messy, but not nearly as messy as the last fruit I want to mention, the mango.

Fresh mango is probably one of the most amazing fruits one can buy. If you live in a colder climate you might not understand what I'm talking about, but a quick visit to Pakistan or India will teach you how great this fruit can be. The problem is getting into it, particularly on the road or hiking trail. We once decided to pick up a mango while on a road trip in India. It was an amazing looking mango, super soft and ready to eat. The problem is we did not have a knife or cutting board to deal with it. We did some research and only came across warnings about how intensely messy it is to peel and eat a mango by hand. We ended up in the shower, in our underwear, covered in juice enjoying one of the tastiest fruits we'd ever eaten. In a car this would have been disastrous. Having said that, there are two fruits I can think of that are just no goes at all...

Pineapple and durian.

CC

The Violence Of Popcorn

 

I’ve just been doing a doodle to celebrate National popcorn day (see above) and while doing a little research I made a horrifying discovery. Popcorn might be the most violent and disturbing snack in the world. While it’s very tasty, and one of the most versatile sacks out there, it has a very violent birth and destruction. It even looks like it’s in totally agony when it’s sitting in a bowl. After looking at close up pictures of popcorn, and then drawing my doodle, I was a little horrified.

I guess while it’s corn it’s not that violent a life, although I know almost nothing about the harvest and production of popcorn. Come to think of it, a tour of a popcorn farm and factory might be fun. I’ll be sure to put that on my list of future adventures. The thing about popcorn is the first thing people do to it is put it in a really hot environment until it explodes. However popcorn is designed not to explode all the way.

Instead, popcorn is designed to almost pause in time, at that moment after exploding, but before it splits apart into millions of pieces. This is likely why I feel like popcorn looks like it’s in agony. It looks like the slow motion close up on a villains face during the climax of an action movie. Twisted in a way that looks impossible. Then, after you’ve frozen your popcorn in the middle of a large explosion, you often pour hot oil (or sometimes molten sugar) on it. It’s final demise is when it’ finally crushed in your mouth.

If I was to ever write a movie about the life of a kernel of popcorn, people would find it super disturbing. It would be interesting to make that movie as the people likely to be watching it would actually be eating popcorn at the time.

CC

We Had Some Thoughts And Ate Some Breakfast

On this months episode of Chris's Monthly Morning Breakfast Thoughts, Chris talks about all the news from August, as well as what's happening in September on Candy Critic.

If you want to keep up with the news, and what's happening on Candy Critic, make sure to follow us on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram.

You can also join us on Patreon for a bunch more stuff.

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A Look At The Irelands - Part 3 Of Our European Adventure

I'm going to do something very unpopular, something that has been the subject of tension for years, and even cost people their lives. I'm going to write about Northern Ireland and Ireland in the same article.  Culturally I can see some differences between the two countries. There's no doubt that there are differences and ask any citizen of either country and they'll explain those differences. The problem I found is that the food is very similar. In fact I had to do some research to find out where some of the food I ate actually came from.

 

Take Tayto's for example. Tayto's are a brand of potato chips (or crisps as they’d call them) that no one else in the world except those who live in Ireland (north and other) have ever heard of. That's a shame, because they make a mean bag of chips. They're not the best chips I've ever eaten, but they're pretty good. The most amazing thing about these chips is how popular they are in Ireland. When we landed in Belfast, it seemed like the entire airport was sponsored by the potato chip company. According to one of the posters on the wall of the airport, Tayto's Cheese and Onion flavoured chips account for more than half of  the chips sold on the entirety of Ireland (both sides of the border I assume). I assumed by this huge presence in Belfast that these must be a Northern Ireland thing.

As it turns out, Tayto's are actually made in Ireland (the south), but you'd never have guessed that in the north. The north also had a huge amount of Cadbury products available. This was no surprise as Northern Ireland is a commonwealth country, and every commonwealth country I've ever visited is loaded with Cadbury treats. I thought that maybe this is something that would disappear once we visited the south, but no, lots of Cadbury all over the place. I found the same thing with grocery stores, and fast food places as well. I couldn't find one single difference between either Ireland when it came to food.

I would say the only difference I found between these two countries food wise was beer. It's more that I would say Ireland has an obsession with Guinness beer. At the very least it's something they truly celebrate/push on tourists. This is most obvious in Dublin, but every tourist stop we visited in Ireland (not the north) had some kind of Guinness trinket. Every truck stop had a whole section dedicated to buying Guinness merchandise. I didn't see that much up in the north, so maybe that's the great divide.

It makes me happy though, these are two countries that have a very bloody history. There's a lot of differences that these two countries will always have, and a history that can never be erased. But it's good to know that there are areas they can agree on, small things that remind them that although they've fought a war, they can still be in agreement upon. On either side of the border they can agree, cheese and onion Tayto's are pretty good.

CC

This Week In Candy... Maybe Our Last

Don't worry, I'm not ending candycritic.org, I'm just not going to be posting any more "This Week In Candy" posts on this blog. I'm not sure if this is a permanent thing or not, but this summer is super busy and I haven't had the time or ability to keep this up.  I also know for a fact that I would have been missing a few more This Week In Candy posts in the future. So rather than continue to post these late every week (or not at all), like this one is, I've decided to give it a break.

Instead I'm going to focus on write a few editorial like posts that will go up randomly here on the blog.  I'm also going to focus on our podcast and YouTube shows. I'll continue to post about the new episodes we do here on this blog. We'll also continue to post Candy in the Media every Friday.  As for reviews, I think I might go back to a random format for posting new reviews. That means I'll post a new review whenever I feel like it.  I can promise at least one review a week, but sometimes we might have more. I'll make sure to post a link to the new review on this blog as well, but you can also see them on our Facebook and Twitter feed as well.

We may bring back This Week In Candy later on, we'll see how things pan out.

Just to keep things consistent for our last This Week In Candy post, we'll be posting this week's new candy review here. The one thing I can't figure out about this week's new review is weather or not it's actually a candy or a if it's an ingredient.  Click here to read about it, and let me know what you think.

CC

This Week In Candy

Spring has sprung, and I know this because my alergies are gonig nuts. You can tell they're going nuts because of the fact that I didn't change the weird way I spelled "allergies" and "going" above. Having said that I misspell a lot on this site, more than I want, but it seems to happen.  This spring has been a little crazy for me, I've been doing a lot of spring cleaning, home repairs, and preparing.  Preparing for what you may ask?  Well that's a secret for now, but I'll probably have some news for you guys later in the summer.  Because of this craziness going on, I've decided that this summer we're going to be playing it a little loose over the summer, and that means we'll be posting things a little more randomly.  Such as posting This Week in Candy at 10pm instead of 10am on Monday.

This doesn't mean we're going to be posting less, in fact we might be posting more fun things on candycritic.org, it's just going to get posted whenever we can find the time.  Take what we're posting this week for example.  We've got a couple of great posts going up on our Instagram feed for the Doughnut Project.  We've also started to post some of the great Canada 150 treats we've been coming across lately on Facebook and Twitter. Not to mention we're hoping to get a new episode of Junk Fud On The Road up this week.  All of that, and we have a new Candy Critic recipe in the wings.  I think we might also start to post some random new reviews here and there, just because we can.

So don't worry, just because things are happening randomly doesn't mean we're slowing down. Judging by that list of things we're working on, it seems we're posting even more than usual.

This week's featured review is an interesting milestone, but likely only in my head.  This is the first review. It's not the first review we've ever posted, we've got hundreds of reviews online, this is the review that is at the top of every page that it's featured on.  Its name starts with the lowest number of any candy we've reviewed.  So no matter which category page we post it on, it's on top (see).  So click here and see if this top level treat is worth the rank.

CC

It's A New Episode Of Chris, Why Would You Eat That?!!

This month on Chris, Why Would You Eat That?!! I eat sugar, strange sugar that's wrapped in some kind of leaf.

If you want to check out more episodes of Chris, Why Would You Eat That?!! click here to check out our older episodes.

CC

This Week In Candy

We're back from New York, and what a fun adventure we had. It's been a while since I've been to New York (more than 10 years), but some things didn't change at all, other things changed like crazy, and that's why I love New York (Cliche I know). The one great thing that hasn't changed about New York is the food, or the fact that there's great food all over the place.  There's constant food innovations coming out of New York since this city is all about trends. There's also some mainstays in this city that will never go away, and that's what makes this city feel comfortable to me.  I've got a whole article about our trip to New York going up this Thursday, and I'll talk all about the places I checked out on this trip with a bit more detail.

Now that this trip is over, as well as American Thanksgiving, it's probably time we start to focus on Christmas... right? I picked up a few Christmas treats in New York, and will certainly post those reviews later in December.  I'm also going to be keeping an eye on Christmas candy trends here in Canada as well.  I'm always keen to hear about your sweet Christmas traditions, so let me know on Facebook or Twitter what you can't miss over the holiday season.

This week on Candy Critic we're posting all kinds of content.  Tomorrow we hope to have our latest installment of Junk Fud On The Road online. We're also posting our regular Candy Things, and Candy In The Media posts. That with our New York round up this is a pretty full week.

This week's new review is a treat I picked up at Dylan's Candy Bar in New York. It was likely the strangest candy that they make, and I was warned that it might not be for everyone. Make sure to check back later this week to learn more about my trip to Dylan's, and click here to read my review of their very strange Pizza chocolate bar.

CC

A New Episode Of Chris, Why Would You Eat That?!! Is Online

In this episode of Chris, Why Would You Eat That?!! Allison sets up a fun little taste test for Chris to find out if he can sniff out the fake Nutella.

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The First Episode of In Hindsight Is Online!

Welcome all to the first episode in a 4 part series called In Hindsight.  In each episode of In Hindsight I'll look back at an old review that I've posted on Candy Critic and see if the review still holds up.  I've been reviewing candy for longer than I care to admit, and frankly some of my early reviews... well... they suck. So this is a way for me to make up for that. This week I'm looking back at one of my favorite childhood candy bars, the Oh Henry. So sit back and relax and watch me realize that I'm not that great at reviewing candy.

CC

There's A New Episode Of Chris, Why Would You Eat That?!! Online

In this latest episode rather than watching Chris get grossed out, you can watch Chris be disappointed, and when it all boils down that's just so much worse.

Watch past episodes of Chris, Why Would You Eat That?!! here.

CC

This Week In Candy, I'm Home

It's been 6 years now, but I'm finally home.  Over the last 6 years I've been living outside of my home country of Canada. It started with 4 years in Greece, and then 2 years in Pakistan.  Withing these times I traveled a lot, and saw a great deal of the world (including sampling a huge number of awesome treats), but now I'm home.  For the next little while my travel plans are going to go down (but not all gone), and I'm going to look at the food from my home and native land.  I'm also going  to look at the food from my favorite neighbours to the south as well.

Already in my first few days back I've noticed a few things.  First of all portion sizes are huge compared to most of the world.  I haven't been able to enjoy too many desserts lately because I can't even get through half of my giant dinners and lunches. Secondly, the selection of food in North America is amazing, I've found snacks and treats at Walmart that before this I only could find at local shops in developing countries.  Finally, food looks really good in North America, it doesn't always reflect the quality of flavour, but everything just looks great.

You might be asking, now that I'm back, what's going on here at Candy Critic?  I think there will be a few changes, mostly with when and how things are posted on this blog.  I might delay the posts so they go online later in the day, but that will come about as time goes on.  This week we're still going to have our regular posts with a new Candy Thing and Candy In The Media.  We'll also post a new episode of Chris, Why Would You Eat That?!! going online later this week.  For the next few weeks Snack Facts (our Instagram feed) is going to continue on vacation mode, and just post facts as we come across them.  This could mean you get several posts in one day, and maybe a few days off in between.

Later this week I'll also be  posting a recap of my time, and the food I discovered in Pakistan.  It's a pretty amazing place,  and although it's not an easy place to live, I had some great experiences. All this week I'm also going to be posting updates on my life settling back in Canada.  You can follow this adventure on our Facebook and Twitter feeds.

This week's new candy review is a candy made by some of my favorite candy makers here in Canada.  OMG's came out a few years  back, and I was lucky to have been visiting when they did.  Now that I'm back, I'm really happy to see that they're still around.  This week's review makes me proud to be a Canadian. Click here to read the review.

CC

It's Another Episode Of Chris, Why Would You Eat That?!!

Part 4 of our Indian series of Chris, Why Would You Eat That?!!, Chris finally catches a break and eats something pretty tasty.

If you want to check out past episodes of Chris, Why Would You Eat That?!! click here.

CC

A New Episode Of Chris, Why Would You Eat That?!!! Is Online!

This is part one of a 5 part series where Chris samples strange things from his trip to India (and ending in Dubai).  In this episode Chris tries some "pickled" onions, probably the worst thing he's tried yet.

Click here to see some of the past episodes on YouTube.

CC

This Week In Candy

Hey everybody, we're back from India.  It was a really epic adventure, and I really learned a lot about the culture, the beauty, and in particular the food of this great place.  We traveled mainly in the northern parts of the country, starting in the mountains, and working our way as far south as Agra.  The diversity of foods in this huge country is amazing, and we tried to sample as much as possible.

That means that this week we're going to be posting a lot about this trip.  First of all we're going to write up a post in this very blog giving you our overview of our culinary experiences.  We hope to have that online this Thursday.  We also managed to record a special on the road episode of Junk Fud On The Road at the end of our trip.  We hope to have that edited and ready to go ASAP (we also owe you guys an episode of Junk Fud News from last month, which we'll record this week). We're also going to start posting 4.5 (I believe) episode series of Chris, Why Would You Eat That?!! this week, all about some of the strange (and even tasty) things we tried on this trip.

The one thing we're not giving you this week is Snack Facts, we're a little busy sorting through everything from our India trip, but it will be back next week for sure.  But if you need a daily fix of us, I'm talking to you mom (and likely no one else), just like every other epic trip, we're ending this one with a review-a-thon.  As you might have guessed, an all Indian candy review-a-thon.  Speaking of which...

Today's first entry into our Indian review-a-thon is in a treat category that I didn't expect to find in the middle of summer in India, chocolate bars.  I thought that considering this is one of the warmest countries in the world, that chocolate might be hard to find, but I was wrong.  Indians love chocolate, and it's found all over the place.  The big popular brand is Cadbury, as is demonstrated with today's review.  Click here to read today's new review, and to keep up with our Indian review-a-thon you can follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Pinterest, or just visit this page every day.

CC

A New Episode Of Chris Why Would You Eat That?!!

We just posted a new episode of Chris, Why Would You Eat That?!! where Chris "enjoys" a candy coated nut of some kind... likely an almond.

CC

This Week In Candy

This week's, This Week In Candy, is a little late.  I got caught up working on a few projects and suddenly it was much later in the day and I realized that I had yet to update Candy Critic. So I am here to tell you all of the reasons I was so busy.  First of all I'm still working on that menu for a restaurant that I started a few weeks back.  It's been really fun, and I've learned so much about how restaurant kitchens work.  Hopefully the folks running this place see my vision and everything works out.  I've also been researching the first new solo show for our podcast, Junk Fud.  I hope to have a few different types of shows on the podcast, which I hope to have going at full steam in the new year.

I'm also working on a few blog articles that will be going online over the next few weeks.  If you've been keeping up with us on Twitter and Facebook, you'll see that I recently posted some photos from our next dessert club recipe, Apple Pie Pizza.  That post will be going up in December.  I'm also working on a post that looks at Star Wars themed candy that I'd like to see, which will be going online next week.

This week on Snack Facts, our Instagram feed, we're looking at Fanta.  Probably one of the most popular fizzy fruit drinks in the world, Fanta is truly a global beverage.  Make sure to check out our Instagram feed every day this week to learn a little something.  If you don't use Instagram, don't worry, you can also follow Snack Facts on our Twitter feed and Facebook page as well.

Our new review this week is one of the best cone shaped treats that I've ever reviewed. Sometimes the shape of a treat can really make a difference, it can be for the better or the worse.  So click here to check out our latest review.

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This Week In Candy

Welcome back to another fun week here at the Candy Critic blog.  There's lots to bite into this week, so let's get right to it.  First of all, Thursday we'll be publishing a blog about army rations.  I had the opportunity to sample a Canadian military ration pack, and I documented my whole experience.  I can tell you that the ration pack was surprising, both in the good and bad way.

Secondly, I've ironed out the details of the Giant Jawbreaker Challenge, and this week we're going forward with it.  I'm going to attempt to consume a giant jawbreaker, and I'm going to time how long it's going to take me to go through it.  I know that this is the kind of challenge that will have to be done in stages, so I have a plan.  I will suck the jawbreaker in 1 hour stages, after each hour I will photograph it, weigh it, and post a photo on Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr.  I imagine that at first I'll have to take longer breaks between each hour, but once it starts to fit comfortably in my mouth, I should be able to get through it faster.  Once the jawbreaker is gone, I'll post a blog recapping the whole experience right here on the Candy Critic blog.  So this week is going to be a tough one on my jaw.

This week on Snack Facts, available on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook, we'll be looking at Pepsi cola.  It's not really my go to drink, and I really didn't know that much about it.  So all this week you and I can learn a little something about Cokes biggest rival.

This week's new review is a re-working of a classic Canadian chocolate bar, the Oh Henry.  I'm often not a big fan of variations of classic chocolate bars, but this one might be the exception, make sure to click here to read the full review.

CC

This Week In Candy

Well Halloween is over, and hope you guys are enjoying all of your spoils.  Some of you are probably too old to trick or treat, but don't feel too sad.  After a few more years you'll start thinking about families of your own, and when you do just remember, you'll have a little child that will go trick or treating for you. Some of you might even have more than one kid, that means twice the trick or treating loot.  I call it the circle of Halloween life, and it moves us all.

Now that Halloween is over we're working on a few articles to keep you guys entertained while the weather gets cold outside.  We have our jaw breaker challenge that was called off on account of me getting a flu, but it's going to be starting for sure this week.  We're also finishing up an article all about army rations, I assure you it involves eating at least one horrible food.  I'm also working out the details for a sexy chocolate smelling challenge, but I need to find some local volunteers to help me out.

This week on our Instagram feed known as "Snack Facts", we're looking at PEZ.  We got a little help from our friends @PezNewsletter and we learned a little bit about this square shaped treat.  You don't have to be on Instagram to follow this feed, you can also follow "Snack Facts" on Twitter and Facebook as well.

Finally this week's new review is of a treat that's trying to change the way we think about ingredients in candy.  The concept is can we make classic candies, without "fake" ingredients.  You can read about how well I thought they achieved this goal right here.

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This Week In Candy

Well we're back, and things are starting to settle down a bit in our new location (which for now we'll just call Candy Land).  I've got lots to cover on changes and upcoming Candy Critic blog things.  First of all there's a secret message in the photo above, figure it out and... well there's no prize but you can feel really good about yourself.  It will however let you know the subject of many upcoming blog posts.

Secondly, we're going to be changing a few things here on the blog.  We're going to cut down on the number of entries and focus a few things exclusively to our social media.  The "Candy News" section that we used to post on Friday is going away.  Instead we're just going to focus on posting all our news on Twitter.  We may also decide to post our news on our Facebook site as well, but we're not too sure about that yet (let us know if you have an opinion on the subject).  We're also going to combine our "Friday Candy Video" and "Classic/Creative Candy Advertising" into one post.  I'm not sure what to call it yet, but we'll post weekly about an ad/campaign/candy reference that we've come across.  This will be posted every Friday starting this week.

We're also going to announce our weekly Candy Critic review update on This Week In Candy (the very post you're reading right now), instead of giving it a solo post.

Speaking of which, this week's new review is Lay's Cinnamon Bun potato chips. Click here to read our latest review.

Finally we're going to start writing more original content and longer articles on this blog, this also includes candy related experiments as well.  The idea of these changes is to minimize the number of posts and maximize the quality of posts.  This will be an ever evolving thing, and we welcome any comments.

CC