A Week's Worth Of Squish

All this week I'm featuring gummy candies from a Canadian candy maker called Squish. They specialize in gummy candies, which is something I would have never thought I would ever see. When I was a kid the concept of a candy only store was rare, unless it was a fancy chocolate shop. Then as a teenager the candy store started to creep up in popularity, until the retro candy store started to become fairly common all over the place. Today it seems we might be heading into a new era, where we don't just have candy stores, but stores dedicated to one particular kind of candy. As a kid this would have totally blown my mind.

Check out the first Squish candy review, it's pretty amazing.

Be sure to follow me on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter to see all of the Squish reviews that I'll be posting later this week.

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I Don't Like Barbecue

I don't mind the real thing, pork and beef slow cooked over a barbecue pit, but I've never been able to really enjoy barbecue flavoured snacks. I think it has something to do with fake smoke flavouring. I don't mind if something has a real smoky flavour, but that liquid smoke (or any fake smoke) flavour just doesn't cut it for me. In my time as the Candy Critic I've attempt to train myself to appreciated certain flavours like licorice and marshmallows, but I feel like barbeque chips might be one that I just don't bother trying to appreciate. I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything just because I don't really dig fake smoke flavouring.

Check out the full review of these barbecue chips, and find out why they didn't do that badly.

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Candy In The Media - The Bug That Poops Candy

Aphid poop seems almost good enough to eat... oh wait, we already do.

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Most Memorable Candies Reviewed In 2016

2016 has been a pretty big year of change for us at candycritic.org.  Actually it's been a return to lack of change, if you look at it technically.  This is the year we returned home after 6 years away.  The goal, to get back in touch with my Canadian roots, with a few stops in the US to make sure I haven't missed any other North American things.  Because of this change, our reviews have been pretty eclectic as well.  We've had candies from all over the world, but over the last few months, a focus on North America.

I feel like my palette has evolved with living abroad and I look at North American candy a little differently. Sometimes I think I see it as more nostalgic (particularly during the holidays) and sometimes I see it as so advanced and confusing.  It really depends on my mood, and the candy.

This post is all about looking back at old reviews.  I've picked 5 that are not the best or worst, but some of the most memorable reviews of 2016. They're each memorable for different reasons, some good, and some bad but all made me happy that I was a Candy Critic.

Worst Candy - Remember in that paragraph above where I said that this list does not contain the "best or worst" candies, well I kind of lied. This durian candy might be the worst tasting candy I'd eaten all year.  It was so bad that it was memorable, and that's why it's on this list.  If you're not familiar with durian, it's a fruit found in Asia.  This fruit smells so bad, that many airlines will not let you bring them aboard.  I can only describe the smell as being similar to sweaty gym socks, rotten onions, and burning tires.  The connoisseur of this fruit claims that although it smells really bad, the flavour is smooth and creamy. The problem is that the smell is so pungent that it's really hard to taste anything but the gross smell.  Needless to say, these candies while being very gross, pretty much match the fruit perfectly.

Click here to read the Durian Cream Filled Chocolate review.

Craziest Chip That Worked -There seems to be a trend these days of making sweet flavoured potato chips.  Sweet and savory in the potato chip world is nothing new.  When I was a kid I remember tasting my first chocolate covered potato chip, and although it was a delicacy, it was around.  Today we see chocolate covered pretzels and sweet flavoured potato chips at our local corner store.  The chocolate covered snacks work most of the time, the sweet flavoured chips aren't always as successful. These chips not only worked, but they worked in a very unique way.  They combined two flavours that worked together, butter and honey, then mixed them with potato chips.  The butter works with potatoes as well, but this is the first time I've seen it matched with chips, and it works. These chips not only tasted great, but they made me think about new possibilities in potato chip flavours.

Click here to read the Lay's "Honey Butter" review.

Strange And Memorable Candy - I don't know how much I liked, or disliked this candy, but I seem to remember about the adventure of trying to find it.  This candy was bought as a result of me trying to find candy in India.  It was one of our last adventures when we were living abroad, and I wanted to find something that represented our trip to India.  These stick out to me because they remind me of our secondary mission in India, to eat as many different varieties of mango as possible.  That mission was a great success, even thought this candy wasn't.

Click here to read the Mango Papdams review.

Candy Most Likely To Make Me Enjoy Licorice - This candy represents two things for me.  First of all it's a step towards me trying to gain a taste for licorice.  In the last few years, living abroad, I decided to try and change my palette in two ways, one to gain a taste for licorice, and secondly to try and tolerate hotter foods.  Both of these have been fairly successful so far, and I felt that the fact that I kind of liked these chocolate covered licorice candies was proof.  The second thing these candies represented to me was those chance meetings where things go really well.  Allison was in New York at some meetings (I tagged along), and there was a small reception.  I talked to a few people at this reception, often about candy.  I met one man who was from Iceland, and I mentioned to him that I'd never eaten candy from Iceland before.  He mentioned that he happened to have a giant bag of Icelandic candy with him to share with anybody who might be interested.  I ended up leaving with a big bag of puffin eggs and a great story.

Click here to read the Freyju Djupur Sukkuladihjupadur Lakkris (Also known as Puffin Eggs) review.

Most Surprising Variety - It's very rare that a "normal" candy makes my list of most memorable, but these Skittles really worked well.  First of all I first tried them in the fall, actually I first tried them while walking through Gatineau park in Quebec while walking a trail during the fall.  Gatineau park is world famous for the beautiful fall colours, and this day did not fail.  I was walking along eating these Skittles and the flavour just worked so perfectly.  Even though a few of them aren't orchard fruit from where I live. The fruit choice was perfect, and the timing was perfect.  This doesn't always happen when I'm eating candy, but when it does it's truly magical.

Click here to read the Skittles "Orchards" review.

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This Week In Candy

Over the last 6 months or so I've become very interested in ration packs. As it turns out I'm not the only person with such an interest.  In fact since writing the articles I've talked to several people about these random packages of food specially designed to keep soldiers fed.  I've also been offered more ration packs to write about.  So every day this week I'm going to review a different ration pack for lunch.  The thing to keep in mind about ration packs is that they're designed to last.  Most of them have a shelf life of 3 or 4 years, and can survive in very cold or very hot environments. Because they're designed to last, you never really know how tasty they'll turn out, it's always a surprise (good or bad). I'm having my first ration pack lunch today, and I'll have another tomorrow, all the way till Friday.

Some of you who have listened to our podcast Junk Fud, may know about our good friend Mark who has appeared on the podcast several times.  Mark has suggested that we update the podcast, and the two of us are looking to re-format the whole show.  We've been spending the last month brainstorming some ideas for the show, and we hope to have it online soon.  If you have any ideas you think might work, let me know, we're also looking for guests to interview about candy, snacks, or fast food.

This week on our Instagram feed called Snack Facts, we're looking at sugar.  We're looking at several kinds of sugar, and we're going to post a fun fact about the sweet stuff every day.  So check out our Instagram feed daily and find out something new about the sweet stuff.  If you don't use Instagram, you can also follow Snack Facts on our Twitter feed and our Facebook page as well.

Last week was my birthday, and I ate a lot of cake. In fact I went to a buffet for my birthday dinner so I could specifically sample as many cakes as possible at one time.  So I thought it would be appropriate to review a fun cake themed treat this week on Candy Critic.  Who would have thought of crossing Peeps and birthday cake?

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The Oldest Sugar Ever In Our Greek Sweet Review

In my opinion, and in the research I've done on the subject, honey is the oldest candy ever.  It was probably the most obvious source of sugar in ancient and pre-historic times. Other than a few stings, it was the easy to harvest, and requires almost no manufacturing at all.  The best thing is, we still use it today.  We have the technology and know how to harvest and create all kinds of sweeteners, yet we still go back to the original fairly regularly.

Click here to read today's Greek honey filled review.

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I Feel Better Review

Last week I had a cold.  It was one of those colds that simply makes you feel crappy, nothing serious, just very annoying.  Then a package came in the mail, it was a gift from the heavens, it was lozenges.  It was just what the doctor ordered (keep in mind I didn't visit my doctor just for a cold, this is just a figure of speech).  So today's review might be a little biased because I wasn't just looking for a tasty snack, I was also looking for some relief as well.

Click here to read the review that made me feel better.

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Sweeter Than Sugar?

There are so many products in the food industry that try to replace white refined sugar with something more "healthy". White refined sugar has become public enemy number one to many people, but yet people still want their food to be sweet.  This has created many movements and industries with the simple goal of eliminating refined white sugar while keeping our food sweet.  I can't say that I'm against these changes,  I even tend to use more natural sugars when I bake.  I also drink many diet beverages using these synthetic sweeteners.   I'm not saying that I don't like refined white sugar, I'm just saying that I like variety, and I'm convinced that you can have too much sugar in your diet.

The thing I'm not convinced is that these substitutes  be it natural sugars or sugar replacements, can replace white sugar all together.  There are certain foods, drinks and sweets that I'm not sure would work with these replacements.  One thing I recently realized is that I'm not really sure what many of these substitutes taste like compared to white sugar.  So I've decided to sample a nice wide range of sugar replacements and see how they compare to the pure white stuff.  For this taste test I'm going to sample the sweeteners on their own, and stirred into iced tea.  I've decided to use iced tea because I think it has a fairly neutral flavour that will allow the sweeteners to shine.  So here's our selection of sweet replacements:

White Refined Sugar - This is pretty much the standard, I know I like it well enough, but I'm not sure if it'll be my favorite.

On it's own refined white sugar has very little flavour other than sweet.  That's the main advantage to using it when you're cooking, it doesn't change the flavour, it just adds sweet.  Notionally this is what you'd want from any other sweetener as well, unless you're also looking for an additional flavour as well.

In iced tea the sugar eliminates the bitterness of the tea, and adds a nice sweetness.  The problem one gets with sugar however is that you can over do it very easily.  Too much sugar can overpower, and that can lead to headaches, sore teeth, and stomach aches.  Sugar also doesn't mix into cool liquids very well, and even with a great deal of stirring, you're bound to have a sugary sludge at the bottom of your glass.

Stevia - This is the latest trendy sugar replacement, I have it in a powdered concentrated form.

If you sample Stevia powder on its own you're in for a pretty shocking flavour.  Stevia has a really bitter flavour that coats your taste buds.  It's not that pleasant at all on its own.  According to the research I've done it's one of the most powerful sweeteners and that is obvious by it's very strong flavour.

The strange thing about Stevia is once I added it to my iced tea the bitterness goes away.  I was left with a super sweet drink after only adding a very small amount.  The great thing about this stuff as a sweetener, in powder form, was how well it dissolved in the iced tea.  It took a few stirs to get rid of a couple of lumps, but once stirred I didn't get any traces of it, except for a really sweet iced tea.

Splenda - This is the classic sugar replacement, it's apparently made from sugar, but I'm not really sure why it's healthier.

I can't say that I remember ever having sampled Splenda on its own before.  I know that I've had it in baked goods and sweet treats in the past, but just tasting it is new to me.  Most surprising was how tasty it is.  I was expecting a chemical taste, but it was just sweet.  It wasn't the same kind of sweet as the white sugar, but it was very close.

In the iced tea it was the best, better than even the white sugar.  It sweetened it up really well, it didn't have much of an after taste, and it dissolved instantly (even faster than the Stevia).  I've had a few baked treats in the past with Splenda, and I've noticed a bit of a metallic flavour, but in iced tea it wasn't that bad at all.  Also, unlike the Stevia, the flavour was not overpowering, and it acted more like sugar in the amount that I used.

Honey - This is a nice quality locally made honey, I like using it on my yogurt in the mornings, and I often bake with it.

Honey is one of my favorite sweeteners to use in many desserts and baked goods.  I usually replace any sugar I'm supposed to use when I bake breads or cake and I use honey instead.  To me honey is go to ingredient when I don't want to use sugar.  Most importantly when cooking, honey dissolves a lot faster than sugar, so it's a little easier to use.

In the case of iced tea however, honey is pretty useless.  The only problems with honey is that it has a slight flavour (unlike the sweeteners or white sugar) and it only dissolves with heat.  Since the iced tea was cold, it didn't seem to dissolve at all.  So my iced tea was pretty much not affected at all, except for a few gobs of honey on the spoon and on the bottom of my glass.

Maple Syrup - If I didn't include a nice high quality maple syrup, I'd probably have to renounce my Canadian citizenship.

Right after honey, maple syrup is my second go to sweetener when baking.  It reacts pretty much the same as honey, only with a bit of a stronger flavour. The flavour can be best described as a sweet woody flavour.  Fortunately for me I love this flavour, and I think it goes well with many baked goods.  If you don't want the woody flavour however, maple syrup really isn't that great to use.

As far as in iced tea I was really surprised at how much I like it.  I didn't expect the flavours of the tea and the maple syrup to work well together, but they do.  I think it's because tea has an earthy flavour, and so does the syrup.  Even more surprising was how well the maple syrup dissolved into the iced tea.  I was expecting it to react similarly to the honey and stay as a single glob.  The maple syrup dissolved instantly, and after a couple of stirs it was fully incorporated.  The flavoures it added to the tea were great, and it blended perfectly.

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Spreads - Honey

I just finished an art piece for bewarethecheese.com's fine art gallery "Senses". For this piece I had to photograph, and eventually eat more than 40 different spreads.  I've decided to post a little something about each spread that I sampled.

I think honey might be the oldest spread in the world.  It's one of the only processed food that requires no human intervention to make.  Nature will pretty much take care of everything, so it seems like people have probably been eating this for a very long time.

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Friday's Candy Links

If you're interested in slightly simplified but still mildly confusing stats on cocoa production this year, have I got a link for you.

If you own a restaurant, and you want customers to return to your restaurant, here's a really good way to make that happen.

Our friends at Honibe have expanded their market reach, if you happen to find yourself in space, on the international space station, then why not pick up a honey drop.

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Monday's Candy Links

Here are two details about the movie Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, that you may have never known.  First this one about the edible wallpaper, and this one involving a little kid getting hit in the face.

Do you like bees? Well I don't, but I love honey.

S'mores pudding snacks, I could have listed this under "Stuff I Want To Try", but I'm not sure about that.

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Monday's Candy Links

It appears that the honey industry is even less honest than I thought, illegal honey isn't the only problem.

78 percent of people don't eat meals, they just snack.  This is not a good thing, you're making the snack industry look bad.

If you find yourself in Salt Lake City, you might want to check out Amano Artisan Chocolate's factory tours, on till the end of December.

And the new flavour of Extra gum is.... Root beer float.

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Illegal Honey

In the last few months I’ve come across many articles on the subject of “illegal honey”.  Many of these articles talk about what a problem this has been, and that the problem seems to focused on honey from China, but very few give great detail about what “illegal honey” really means.  I decided to do a little checking around and I contacted the honey experts at Honibe.  I talked to John Rowe from Honibe on this subject and he cleared up a lot.

He focused on three key impacts that illegal honey is having on the honey industry, environmental, trade, and health.  I have to admit that I was rather sceptical about this talk of illegal honey, and I imagined that it might be a ploy by honey producers to try and stop the trade of cheaper honeys into the market.  While this is an issue, the real problem comes down to why this honey is cheaper.

John told me that there are really two problems with these cheaper honeys (often coming from China). Some of these honeys contain a “blend of honey with corn syrup”.  While this is not dangerous, unless you have an allergy to corn, it is dishonest.  The bigger concern comes from the use of antibiotics in these illegal honeys.  Many of the honeys coming out of China use antibiotics that are banned in Canada and the US and have been found to be very unhealthy.

Both Canada and the US have been working hard at fighting this kind of honey from entering their borders.  After discovering that Chinese honey was a problem a huge tariff was implemented in order to make honey harder to export. Regular inspections of honey imported into the US and Canada make sure it doesn’t slip through the cracks.  This tariff or basically a ban on importing Chinese honey hasn’t been easy.  As soon as the tariffs went up for Chinese honey, suddenly some other countries would have a boom in the amount of honey available to export.  It was/is thought that these countries would bring in Chinese honey, re-label it as their own, and send it to Canada and the US.  It’s become such a problem that John tells me “people have gone to jail for this” and the department of homeland security is now involved.

I asked John about his opinions of small producers of honey (the kind you might find at a county fair) and if home hives are a problem to the honey business.  John explains that “everybody should have a hive”.  To John, honey is not just about business, it’s also about taking care of the world.  He has no problem with low priced honey; he has a problem with dishonest honey and unhealthy honey.  In fact, he explained to me how important honey and honey manufacturing is to the world. 90% or all pollination comes from bees, so the environmental impact of the loss of bees is gigantic.

What I got from this conversation is the passion that many of these honey producers and users have.  Although there is money involved, there are bigger problems that illegal honey creates such as health and the environment issues.  Paying a little more for a quality honey isn’t just about supporting an industry, it’s also about making sure you’re food is healthy and so is the world.

I also found a great link on the subject of home honey hives, well worth reading.

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Wednesday's Candy Links

Serious Eats looks at mini cereal boxes. One day I'm going to replicate the sugary selection of the mini cereal pack in full size boxes, that'll show my parents.

More news about honey, apparently Florida is going to de-regulate small scale honey producers.

Do you like candy?  Are you a fan of Boise State?  Well I have news for you.

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Wednesday's Candy Links

According to an online poll by hostess, chocolate was rated the number 1 flavour of cupcake.  This leads to the question, what are the other flavours?

Check your honey containers, you might be eating illigal honey from China.  I'll be writing more about this later.

Lonely Planet posted a list of "the world’s best gourmet sights".  I've been to a few, but not to the one you'd expect.

Remember the Dallas Chocolate Conference I mentioned a little while ago?  Well if you didn't make it, here's an article to make you sad about your decision.

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Food Is A Big Industry In Canada

According to this article, the food industry in Canada is actually one of the biggest industries in Canada.  More people are making food in Canada than other things, like Blackberries (although the name sounds like a food) and auto parts.  Best of all one of the top food makers in Canada is Honibe, a company that makes some of the best honey candies I've ever had the pleasure of eating.

Click here to read more about the food industry in Canada.

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The Last of the Greek Reviews

At least for a little while this is the last of the Greek reviews.  I only say this because I have a pretty solid line up of non Greek candy on the way that I'm dying to try out.  But seeing as I'm living here, in Greece, for the next little while, I imagine you'll see more Greek reviews in the future.  Maybe even another "Greek Review-a-Thon.

Click here to read today's review.

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Honibe Teaches Me About Honey

I have to say when it comes to honey I'm a bit of an ignoramus.  Sure I can taste a difference in some honeys, and I might even like one over another, but I really don't think I have a developed pallet for honey.  The reason I bring this up is because Honibe just sent me this e-mail:


"Honibe™ Announces Collaboration with Comvita to Launch World's First 100% Pure Manuka Lozenge

Island Abbey Foods Ltd™, specialty honey manufacturer, today announced a partnership with Comvita, the world's largest manufacturer and marketer of Manuka (Leptospermum) honey .Comvita will use the technology created by Honibe™ to produce the first pure dried Manuka honey products in the world.
The first product from this collaboration will be Pure Manuka Honey Lozenges with a UMF (Unique Manuka Factor) of 10+.

The Honibe™ brand is built around a proprietary platform technology that has enabled the creation of 100% pure dried honey products in a variety of form factors with no additives or preservatives. Comvita will now expand their current product lines to include Honibe’s innovation in honey to create a 100% Pure Manuka Lozenge “Comvita is the leading producer of Manuka honey and Manuka products in the world,” stated, President of Island Abbey Foods Ltd., John Rowe. “Comvita has established a reputation for creating innovative natural health and wellbeing products which is further reiterated by this partnership. We will be producing a 100% Pure Manuka Lozenge for Comvita with our patented technology to create an entirely new innovation in Manuka honey."

Now I'm fairly certain I don't know what a "UMF" is and I'm really not sure how good a 10 is either.  However I trust the folks at Honibe so I'm sure it's pretty darn tasty.

UPDATE:

Graham from Honibe sent me this message:


"Manuka honey comes from a Manuka flower that is only native to New Zealand. This honey has considerably more active ingredients in it compared to other honeys on the market. It has been proven to provide more health benefits for the body than other honeys. The Unique Manuka Factor is the biggest reason for this as it contains high levels of antibacterial properties which is graded based on the +5, +10, +15, +20, +25.

I hope this helps explain it a little bit better.

Best,
Graham"


Thanks Graham, see the folks at Honibe are OK.

Click here to check out Honibe's site.

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Deep Fried Cookie with Honey

Over the holidays I was lucky enough to receive a box of these very yummy deep fried cookies.  I first saw them in a shop window (the store was closed) and stared/drooled at them for about 10 minutes.  Then a few days later some friends came by bearing gifts, and the gift was these round rolls things.  The good news about these rolls is they taste exactly as you might imagine.  Crunchy deep fried dough covered in sweet honey and nuts.  They are truly spectacular.

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Red Honey

The New York Times has an interesting piece about a hive of bees that suddenly started to make bright red honey.  Unfortunately the honey isn't any kind of super honey at all, and in fact it apparently tastes kind of bad.  But how it happened is really fascinating.

Click here to read about the red honey.

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