10 Second Kitchen - Ribfest Ottawa

 Slathering on some barbecue sauce and showing off their ribs at the Ottawa Ribfest in Canada.

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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Rip Into What?

 I've always thought of a Slim Jim as being a very masculine snack. There's a lot of ripping going on. Today I try to look at the Slim Jim objectively, and find out how weird it actually is.

Make sure to follow me on YouTube if you want to keep up with all my new videos.

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I Expect A Lot Of Complaints About This Review

I have to be honest, I'm not even sure if a Slim Jim qualifies to be reviewed on this site, so don't send me any messages complaining. I'm going to keep it up for now, but who knows, maybe I'll pull it off later because I just don't feel like a stick of meat is candy. I will argue that if we take the food category of meat, and look at where Slim Jim's fit, I think one could say that the Slim Jim is the candy of the meat world.

Read this new review, it might not stay online forever.

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We've Got Our Second Down Under Episode of Junk Fud On The Road

In the latest episode of Junk Fud on the Road, Chris and Allison talk about their second adventure in Australia. This time they stayed in South Western Australia, and managed to find some amazing food in this remote part of the country.

You can follow all the episodes of Junk Fud on the Road by following us on YouTube or Sound Cloud.

You can also follow us on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook to keep up with all our day to day shenanigans.

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It's Another 10 Second Kitchen - China Town, Singapore

I could watch machines making food all day long.

If you want to see all of our 10 Second Kitchen videos, check out our Candy Map.

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10 Second Kitchen - Street 244 and Street 19

Drying meat in the sun is a common occurrence in Cambodia. I've been tempted to try eating the results some time, but frankly I'm not sure if my stomach could handle it.

Find out where we shot this video on our Candy Critic map.

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It's A New Episode Of Junk Fud On The Road All About Italy

In this episode Allison and Chris talk about their short trip to Italy a few years back.

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Something Smells Like Dinner... Oh It's You.

Have you ever dreamed of smelling like a slow cooked roast beef? It doesn't appeal to me, but Allison would probably appreciate it.

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Two Years In Pakistan

Pakistani culture is similar to its food, it can be really good, and sometimes it can be very difficult.  While I'm sure locals get over the difficult parts, as a foreigner that can be much more challenging.  If you're even somewhat  adventurous, the challenging can be at the very least educational. The part that shocked me most when moving to this country was the amount of good that there is, both in the people and the food.  People wise there is a lot of good, some of the most friendly people you'll ever meet, people who want to make you happy, and many who are willing to give the little that they have just to be a good person.

Food wise the challenges mostly came from the poverty issues. Health and cleanliness are a big issue in Pakistan.  There are really two levels of this when it comes to the food, one is that there are certain bacteria that locals can handle, but foreigners cannot, this lead to some problems particularly early on.  The second comes from other contaminants that even the  locals can not handle.  The contaminants are often found in the tap water, and this makes life very challenging. While this is a problem that cannot be overlooked, if you did you'd be in for a bad night of stomach upset, you also can't overlook how great some of the food is as well.

You can't start a conversation about Pakistani food without India.  In the 1960s Pakistan was part of India, while the religion may have been different, the food has many similarities.  Spicy is the order of  the day, and you'll have a hard time finding anything that isn't spicy, even the basic fast food places have menu items that would shock most westerners.  There is also a great range in spices used, it's not just about heat, but it's also about the flavours behind the heat.  The biggest differences you'll find  in the food between Pakistan and India is the meat.  Beef being illegal in many parts of India, is a huge part of the Pakistani diet.  Pork, while not illegal in India is not common, in Pakistan pork is illegal. This certainly makes for different choices when it comes to meals.

Subtlety there are a few differences between the two cuisines.  I found that Pakistani food tends to blend more spices together in each dish.  It's much harder to take apart a Pakistani dish and figure out what flavours are mixed in.  In Indian food the flavours are simpler, and maybe a little bit cleaner, with one or two spices leading each dish.

One of the great debates in local cuisine between India and Pakistan is who makes the best naan bread. Many people prefer the lighter Indian naan bread, but personally I really liked the thick heavy naan bread from Pakistan.  Indian naan is more flexible, and would then be easier to pick up food, but the heartiness of Pakistani naan made it a meal into itself. Pakistani naan also often had highlights, as well.  In Pakistan you can find naan stuffed with so many fillings, spicy or sweet.

As for candies and confectionery, Pakistan was a fascinating place.  In the packaged candy department there are a few locally made treats.  Most of these are either hard candies or gummies, and two of the most predominant flavours are Imli (a sweet red bean) or hot peppers.  The most popular packaged treats in Pakistan are not Pakistani at all.  Most of the chocolate bar market seemed to be British, this is likely because of the British influence from occupying this area for so long.  Dairy Milk and other British brands can be found everywhere.

Locally made treats where very different indeed.  Most treats came in the form of barfi and jalebi. As unappealing as it sounds to North American ears, barfi is a really great sweet treat, often made of milk.  It's a smooth creamy and sweet treat that takes on many forms.  Jalebi is a common sweet treat found in Pakistan that looks like a poorly made pretzel, but is in fact a sweet deep fried treat.  It's my favorite of all the treats I found in Pakistan, and something I hope to learn how to make myself.  As with the food, many of these treats can also be found in India, and there is always great debate as to where they have originated.

I can't lie, I had some trouble with the food in Pakistan. Many a night I found myself in the bathroom lying on the floor wondering what could have possibly made me this sick.  It's not a place for those that aren't adventurous (I'm still not sure how I survived).  The thing is, when it works, it works really well.  There's so much more to Pakistani cooking than just the food. I can't tell you how many times I enjoyed the environment, and people around me when I was eating. I'll never forget eating on New Food Street in Lahore, up on the rooftop of Andas restaurant looking down at a giant mosque with good people all around me.

Before I go, I can't forget the mangos... They're like nothing I've ever eaten before.

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A Button Pushing Candy Thing Part 1 - Bite Into A Slim Jim

Are you familiar with Dash Buttons? At first I thought they were some kind of prank put on by Amazon, but now I've learned that they're a real thing.  A Dash Button is a small button that when pushed will automatically order a particular product from Amazon and send it to you within a couple of days.  I'm not sure how I feel about them yet, but I have to admit, I am curious.

Today's example of a Dash Button is the perfect choice for anybody who needs regular Slim Jim fixes.

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A Thirst Quenching Bacon Thing

Every so often I come across a treat that I'm just not sure about. Most of the time when I see a treat that's new to me, I have some kind of idea weather or not I'm going to like it.  My "idea" isn't always right, as I've been known to hate a few things I thought I would like, and like a few things that I thought I would hate.  But once in a while I'm faced with something that I'm not really sure about.  Bacon flavoured soda pop is one of those things.  It could be really nice, it might have a strong maple cured bacon flavour, sweet with just a bit of salt.  It could also be like drinking a cold cup of bacon grease.

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Daily Rations - Part 4 - Macaroni and Asian Beef

Of all of the ration packs that I've reviewed so far this week, this one is the one I've feared most, even more than the cabbage rolls.  First of all, while I'm pretty sure I know what macaroni is, I wasn't really sure what Asian beef sauce was.  I imagined a cross between Chef Boyardee canned pastas, and that red "sweet and sour sauce" you get at mall Chinese food restaurants.  After opening the pack and checking it out, I was only mildly more confident.  If it was a cross between these two things, at least it seemed to lean a more towards the Chef Boyardee, instead of resting in the middle.

While the smell that came out of the package wasn't spectacular, I had hope in my heart.  After taking my first bite, I was really surprised.  I was really surprised because the mysterious "Asian" sauces wasn't that bad at all.  Stranger still was how much I disliked the macaroni.  I would have thought that the meat with a possible four year expiration date would have been much worse than the pasta.  Considering I think I might have some pasta in my cupboard that's been around for at least a year or so, and I'm sure it's fine. When it comes to meat I wouldn't trust frozen meat for more than a few months, let along a couple of years.

All around I'd say that I was pretty surprised by this meal.  I was expecting a horror show, but instead I got a slightly spiced meat sauce with some really horribly textured pasta.  It wasn't great, and if I got it at a restaurant I'd probably return it, but not bad for a quick lunch today.

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Daily Rations - Part 3 - Sausage and Hash Browns

Everyday this week I'm posting a review of a ration pack meal.  So far this week I've reviewed wieners and bean and cabbage rolls.  Today I'm going to look at a "yummy" breakfast ration, sausage and hash browns.  My first impression of this ration pack, when I dumped it into my bowl was confusion.  I was always under the impression that hash browns were potatoes either grated or chopped into small cubes, then cooked in a pan or on a flattop grill.  The hash browns in this ration pack seemed more like large chunks of boiled potatoes.  There was nothing grilled or fried looking about these potatoes at all.

I was also a little shocked to see the sausages already chopped up into little pieces.  I'm assuming that this is to keep everything bite sized, just in case you don't have a knife and a fork available when you’re eating this pack.  The thing is, why not then just make tiny little sausages, which you can eat in one or two bites?  It would look nicer, and might hold in the meaty flavour a little better.

As far as quality of this ration pack, it was OK.  The flavour of the sausage was the clear winning attribute to this ration pack.  The potato was just as I'd imagined, just boiled potatoes with no fried flavour at all.  Fortunately the flavour of the sausage did mix around into the potato, so it added just a little bit of extra flavour to the bland potatoes.  I'm also really happy that the sausages weren't just hot dogs, similar to the wieners and beans, that would have made this meal really disappointing.

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Daily Rations - Part 2 - Wieners and Beans

All this week I'm eating ration pack meals for lunch, yesterday I had some pretty horrible cabbage rolls, today it's wieners and beans.  There is one serious problem with comparing a ration pack of wieners and beans to a home cooked meal of wieners and beans, and that is, I've never tried home made wieners and beans.  This isn't the first time I've ever had wieners and beans, however every other time I've ever tried them they've come out of a can.  In general canned foods, and ration pack foods are pretty similar, so my reaction to these is exactly the same as if I was having a can of wieners and beans.

So unless you're a wieners and beans connoisseur, and you make them at home from scratch, chances are you'll probably enjoy this ration pack fine.  The wieners are pleasant enough, sliced fairly large, but small enough to be bite sized.  The beans are also tasty enough, they maybe could use a bit more of a maple or brown sugar sweetness, instead these have a general sweetness.  The ratio of beans to wieners is exceptional.  I managed to have a bit of wiener with just about every bite of bean.

If for some reason you find yourself in a situation where wieners and beans in a ration pack are on sale at your local store, go for it.  They're exactly the same as the canned version, but the portion size is better for one person (I often find that a can of wieners and beans is a two serving things).

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Daily Rations - Part 1 - Cabbage Rolls

Over the next week I've decided to sample ration pack meals.  In the past I wrote an entire review on a ration box (this box contains all that a soldier would need to survive a day), and I've attempted to make an improved dessert out of ingredients from various ration packs.  This week I've decided to sample a different ration pack meal for lunch every day.  I've only recently discovered the curiosity that is a ration pack, and since sampling one, I've been obsessed with trying more.

One thing to keep in mind is that ration packs are not really designed for taste.  The most important part of a ration pack is to feed a soldier (or sometimes a civilian in a difficult situation), as well as provide them with the nutrition they need to survive and keep moving.  This means two things, first of all these packs are designed to last.  Many ration packs can last several years with out going bad, and can also survive with no refrigeration.  Ration packs are also designed to give the person eating them a very specific amount of energy, enough to carry heavy gear through hostel environments. That means they have lots of the stuff the average health conscious person sitting at home probably wouldn't want to eat, like lots of salt and sugar.

For the first meal I've decided to sample a cabbage rolls.  This is a difficult food for me to review because of my heritage.  I'm half Ukrainian, and that means that I have memories of my grandmother making me cabbage rolls when I was a kid, and I loved them.  So no matter how hard I try, I have to compare these to hers.  In fact the only reason I took this particular ration pack in the first place was to compare my memory of my grandmothers cabbage rolls to these one coming out of a package that is at least two years old.  Seems fairly unfair doesn't it?

As you can imagine these don't hold up at all to the ones my grandmother made. In fact these were so awful I had a really hard time getting through them.  To start, I'll mention the parts that I didn't mind, and then I dedicate a paragraph to why I couldn't stomach these.  The sauce was the surprise highlight of this meal.  It was a little sweet, but it had a nice tomato flavour and I might even say I liked it more than my grandmothers.  My grandmother's sauce was a lot dryer and didn't have nice chunks of tomato like this sauce did.  I also liked the cabbage, but to be honest, screwing up the cabbage would have taken some serious work.  It's pretty much the easiest part of this whole meal.

The part I hated was the part that took up the most space in this meal, and that was the filling.  My grandmother's cabbage rolls consisted of rice, pork, spices, and occasionally some very finely chopped vegetables. This filling contained meat, a big block of thick dense mystery ground meat.  It was like eating a giant disgusting meatball.  I think it may have worked a little better if the meat wasn't so tightly packed, and I think you could have achieved that by mixing in some rice, vegetables, or something.

Unfortunately for the first meal, things aren't going that well.  However I have hopes for some of the future meals.  I thought that I would start with a tough one, and maybe save a few of the "better" possibilities for later this week.  Even though this wasn't like my grandmother's cabbage rolls, I have to admit that in a pinch, it's still pretty amazing.

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Candy News

Here's an interesting suggestion for a new sweetener, it makes sense when you think about it.

I always tried to convince my family to make me cake for breakfast, apparently I was in the right.

Mental Floss has been randomly doling out facts, including what's the most shoplifted thing, and the scientific term for ice cream headaches.

So apparently gum sales are down. Hershey's has decided that to combat this by creating a mint flavoured "chew". In other words, gum that disintegrates in your mouth really fast.

Speaking of chewy candy, apparently the next trend coming is to make your chewy candy really small.

Here's a trend I could get into, apparently the next trend in snacking foods is meat flavours.

Have you ever wanted to make your favorite fast food meal at home, well here's a few recipes to get you started (tray not included).

If you want to keep up with all of the daily candy news that we come across as it happens, follow us on Twitter.

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Chocolate Salami Review... Yes You Heard That Right

I think when I post next years best and worst candy lists on New Years (A new thing I started this year and hope to continue), this review might make the list for the most potential for obscenity.  It's not that it is obscene at all, but if you say the words "Chocolate Salami" with the right tone, it's fairly lurid.  I guess you might chock this up to cultural differences, since I bought this on my recent trip to Italy.  Maybe in Italy saying chocolate salami doesn't sound that obscene at all.

Click here to read about the Chocolate Salami.

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Classic/Creative Candy Advertising

This is just a sample from a great collection of candy advertising found here.  I think it's also one of the cruelest jokes one could play on a human being.  Imagine expecting a horrible molasses Halloween candy and getting pork instead... wait a minute, this might be one of the nicest things anybody has ever done for anybody.

I found this ad here, and I recommend clicking the link to see more cool Halloween adds, including a few candy ones.

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Stuff I Want To Try

Gravy Candy - Archie McPhee - I'd like to enjoy this with a bag of cheese potato chips so I can make a poutine like treat. - Click here to learn more about this treat.

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