Candy In the Media - Don't Eat A Crayon Sandwich

Even if you think the Simpson's is the best show ever, and smarter than anything ever put on TV, eating Ralph Wiggum's grilled crayon sandwich is not a good idea.

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Classic “American” Foods That Weren’t Invented In America

There's nothing more American than giving the kids a peanut butter sandwich for lunch, ordering a side order of fries, and maybe enjoying some ice cream for dessert, right?  As it turns out some of the classic American foods aren't American at all.  Here's a list of some of the items you find in restaurants all over America, staples in the American diet, that have their origins in other places.

The Sandwich  - What's more American than the Sandwich?  As it turns out plenty.  The Sandwich is a creation of a British Earl; in fact, the Earl of Sandwich.  There are debates about how he came up with the idea of putting things between two slices of bread.  Some say that he was a gambler and he wanted a way to eat meats with his friends without getting his playing cards dirty.  A few people argue that the Earl was a victim of bad publicity and he in fact worked very hard and wanted a meal he could eat while he worked.

Kit Kat Bar – Probably one of the most popular candy bars in not only America, but the entire world, this bar has its origins in the city of York in England.   It's not the only candy to come out of this Northern UK town; the Aero bar, Terry's Chocolate Orange, and many others were found in this great city.  The reason, this was the home of Joseph Rowntree, one of the most influential and successful candy makers in the world.  While the city of York is full of chocolate themed attractions, Rowntree's original storefront is now a Pizza Hut, but still worth a pilgrimage for any candy fan.

Pizza – Of all of the items on this list, the origins of Pizza are probably the most controversial.  I've read stories that it was invented in Chicago or New York by an Italian immigrant restaurateur that wanted to celebrate a visit from a famous Italian royal to the United States.  Italians would have you believe that it's come from a small village in Southern Italy.  Greeks also take some credit as they say they've been baking flat breads with toppings for thousands of years.  The most likely story is that today's pizza is influenced from the flat breads found in Greece thousands of years ago. However pizza as we know it came about in village called Naples where an industrious restaurant owner Raffaele Esposito came up with what we would probably define as a pizza (topped with tomato sauce, cheese and other ingredients).

French Fries – There was a time when Americans wanted to call French Fries, “freedom fries”, and that would actually be fine with the French, since they didn't invent them either.  French fries are actually a creation out of Belgium; yes that place that mastered chocolate as well (be very jealous).  French fries are still very popular today in Belgium, where they also boast that they invented the process of double frying to make the fries even crunchier on the outside.  Stranger still is that they offer a French fry sauce in Belgium known as Americano, a sauce I've never seen in the USA, a sort of thousand-island type topping.

Ice Cream – You can't argue that the recent renaissance in the ice cream world is a product of great Americans like Ben and Jerry, and Baskin and Robbins, but the origins of ice cream are certainly in Europe.  It's not clear exactly when ice cream was invented, however Charles I was said to have enjoyed a similar dessert at his royal table.  There are even stories of the Romans collecting snow from the mountains and flavouring them with juices.  The first public sale of ice cream most likely happened in Cafe Proscope in Paris, France.

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Candy In The Media

Sandwiches are probably the best food invention ever.

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Be Rational

Remembrance day was just a few days ago, in Canada this day is about remembering all of the Canadians that gave their lives, and their time to keep Canada awesome.  Recently I had the oportunity to sample a small part of the life of someone serving abroad.  I was given a Canadian military ration pack to try out.  For those that don't know what a ration pack is, it is a bag of food that should be able to give the average soldier substanance for one day.  Historically ration packs have been given a bad rap, it's been said that the basic food is just enough to keep someone alive, but nothing to keep them happy.  However, with the advancement in food science and packaging, ration packs have become fairly sofisticated, and now offer some pretty fancy meals to soldiers that may have nothing but a fire (or sometimes not even that) to heat up their meals.

The pack I received is for a soldier that notionally has some way of boiling water.  The pack contained a pretty wide range of foods, from a small Werthers candy to suck on, to a bag/box of something that claims to be sweet and sour pork.  It also comes with various powedered fruit drinks, coffee, tea, and a bag of Oreos.  I pretty much munched down the Werthers and Oreos imediately after opening the package.  They were exactly what you might expect, mini Oreos and a nice smooth butterscotch candy to suck on.  I'll probably never drink the coffee, and the tea and powedered drink were un-eventful.

The real highlight of this meal is the sweet and sour pork, or at least that's what was written in huge letter on the box that all of this comes in.  To prepare the pork you have to boil it in water for about 10 minutes.  I can assure you that this has nothing to do with "cooking" anything, and it's more about warming it up.  The side dish of rice involves taking some boiling water and pouring it into an envelope, sealing it closed, then letting it sit for 10 minutes.  I assume that the bags you cook these dishes in are also designed to be eaten out of, but since I was at home, and since I wanted to photograph them, I decided it might be better to serve everything on a plate.

It's not the most appealing looking plate of food, but it smelled pretty good.  My assumption throughout the whole process of making this food was that the pork would be disgusting and the rice would be tolerable.  I was wrong.  The pork, while not being the best asian meal I've ever eaten, wasn't that bad.  The meat was pretty tough, but what can I expect from something that can sit in a bag for months.  The sauce was actually pretty tasty, and I the chunks of fruit and vegetables throughout the sauce was a really nice surprise.  The rice on the other hand was horible.  I can't say that I've ever tasted rice that was actually inedible, until today.  It wasn't just the texture, but the "butter" flavour just ruined everything.  I think the rice would have worked out so much better if it was just plain rice.

For dessert I was offered pears in a syrup.  For some reason I imagined some kind of poached pear served with a caramel like syrup.  I really thought it would have been something fancy, but it wasn't.  What I got was a bowl of pears that looked identical to the types of pears one might find out of a can at the grocery store.  It wasn't bad, but it could have been better.  I think a little spice, or some kind of caramelized flavour could take these typical pears and made them something special.  I'm not saying I wouldn't be grateful for these if I was stuck out in a jungle with nothing else, but why aren't the people that serve our country entitled to something with a bit of extra flavour.

The next day I decided to treat myself to the "lunch" portion of the ration pack.  Or at least that's what I assume this is supposed to be.  Frankly it didn't really have much explanation and the peanut butter, jam, and pita really didn't go with anything else in the pack.  I decided to make myself a peanut butter and jam pita lunch, and it was OK.  The delivery method was a little messy, but once I squished the pitas together my poor peanut butter and jam squirting skills went unnoticed.  The great thing about this sandwich is that it reminded me of being a kid.  When I was a kid I loved making pita sandwiches, I liked pita bread more than sliced bread.  This simple ration pack made me feel like I was a kid again, back home.  I sure hope that the folks that eat these packs overseas get the same feeling, because they deserve a little bit of home comfort.

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Candy News

Canadians busted... smuggling Kinder Eggs.

I've always wanted to try a cronut, but these spam donuts don't seem so appealing.

Huffington Post has a list of amazing ice cream sandwich ideas perfect for keeping you cool this summer.

There's a new Mars store opened at the Paris airport.  I always love the way Mars themes these stores, and I'll be sure to snap a few pictures if I find myself in Paris again.

Here are 4 really good tips for making a great ice cream sandwich, using toast instead of a cookie is still up for debate.

Tired of all of the berries available from mother nature, why not make up your own?

There's a new kind of chocolate in town, and it's called Blond.

Police in Thailand nab chocolate thief, apparently there's not much else going on.

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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Friday Candy Video

I've been thinking a lot about Mickey Mouse ice cream sandwiches lately.  I'm not too sure if watching some lady eat one is really helping, in fact, I think it's making me a little jealous.

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It's National Ice Cream Sandwich Day!!!

I don't have a picture of me eating an ice cream bar, and frankly I can't remember the last time I had one.  I looked back through the Candy Critic archives, and I can't find one picture of me eating an ice cream bar.  I would think the purchase of an ice cream bar would be worth blogging about too.  The clossest thing I can find is the review I recently wrote about Nacho Karamell, although not a "sandwich" exactly, it's pretty close.

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Stuff I Want To Try

Lay’s Classic BLT potato chips  - Frito-Lay - Fact, the BLT is one of my favorite sandwiches. - Click here to learn more about this treat.

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Cookies You Can Spread

If you're not familiar with "Speculoos", it's a cookie found in many European countries (Germany, Austria and Belgium really like them), and it kind of tastes like a ginger snap cookie.  The most common way to get one of these cookies is with a hot beverage, coffee, tea, or hot chocolate.  That's not to say that you can't just buy a box of these, but if you visit a coffee shop, bakery, or tea shop, chances are you'll get one of these on the side. It's a very well loved cookie, and the flavour is distinctive.

The thing that makes this cookie different than any other cookie I've ever had (with or without tea) is the fact that you can also get this cookie in a really strange form.  Lotus makes a Speculoos spread.  I've tried many a spread in my life that contains cookie bits, but this spread is very different.

This spread is a smooth paste made up almost entirely of Speculoos cookies.  It has the consistency of really smooth peanut butter, and the exact flavour of the cookie.  It's really a strange texture and flavour combination to eat a slice of toast that has cookie spread over it.  I'm trying to think of more aplications for this spread that would really highlight the flavour and texture.

The first one that came to mind was to spread Speculoos spread on a Speculoos cookie.  Or as I like to call it, Meta-Speculoos.

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It's National Ice Cream Sandwich Day

Two cookies and some ice cream are the perfect combination.

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