Candy Report: Part Four
New Zealand, part two—an epic candy adventure.
I started with the Cadbury Crunchie, a “golden hokey pokey covered in DAIRY MILK milk chocolate.” I wasn’t sure what a hokey pokey was, but I’m pretty certain that’s what it’s all about.
Hokey Pokey, it turns out, I think, in honeycomb. That’s what this candy reminded me of, is the chocolate covered honeycomb I used to get at Papa Bear’s in high school. Only this was milk chocolate, so it was almost unbearably sweet. But I ended up digging it. I wish I had another—a pregnant lady of my acquaintance would enjoy the crunchy flavour, I think.
I wasn’t overly enthused about the pinky. It was chocolate covered marshmallow, and even the fact that it was pink couldn’t save it. A little too sweet, again, and gooey.
I must admit, I feared the pineapple lumps when I saw them. I tried to rationalize the fear, and couldn’t. After all, I like pineapple. I also like Mounds, which are a similar concept, only coconut instead. Pineapple and chocolate might be good, right?
No, pineapple and chocolate is not good.
It was like a pineapple…I don’t know…marshmallow? You know those candies in the whitman’s sampler you throw out because it’s like biting into a sponge? Imagine that, only yellow and pineapple flavoured.
This here is what they call a “luxury biscuit bar.”
I can’t say I would concur. The biscuit was sweet and crumbly, the toffee sweet and gooey, the chocolate sweet and cheap. Woah nelly. Too much sweet for me to handle. Moving on.
I like bananas, and I like chocolate. One of my favourite things in the world is bananas with hot fudge. How would the Perkynana stand up?
Let’s just say badly and leave it at that.
This Peanut Slab was actually pretty good. I think the chocolate may have been a higher quality, and though I’m not a huge fan of peanuts in chocolate, this was decent.
I think Cadbury pawns off their inferior chocolate on New Zealand. Seriously. The Canadian Cadbury stuff was good, but all the New Zealand stuff was milky and foul–likewise with this caramel chew, which was simply too sweet for me.
I realize I must be bagging on some New Zealand favourites. Really, the only thing I dug was the Jaffas, and even those I was lukewarm about.
It’s really interesting to get candy from other places, because it’s tailored to a palate different than my own. Canadians seem to like their candy a little darker and more sophisticated than Americans—I really liked the Canadian goods. New Zealanders, apparently, fancy cheap overly sweet confectionary.
Or maybe that’s why my friends in New Zealand are always begging me to send American candy over there. Candy freedom fighters! Striking a blow for justice! I’m going to have to eat a nice solid bar of Chocolove or something to get over this New Zealand stuff. Ugh.
[Crunchie]
[Pinky]
[Pineapple Lumps]
[Toffee Pop]
[Perkynana]
[Peanut Slab]
[Caramel Chew]
Tags: Food
Just feel that as a New Zealander I should say a few things.
Put pineapple lumps in the fridge or freezer for a while before eating them and all the spongeyness goes away and somehow makes them taste AMAZINGLY better. Some supermarkets actually sell them in the freezer section.
Hokey Pokey is one of those New Zealand only things like Marmite, so I wouldn’t expect a non-kiwi to be into it. Sometimes it is a little too much at once in a crunchy bar, but it is much nicer in the Crunchy Bar Ice Cream, or regular Hokey Pokey flavour ice cream (vanilla with little balls of hokey pokey in it, like gumdrops or something).
Pinkys, Perkynanas and Chewys are gross. No arguing that, but you do come from a land where people eat peanut butter flavoured snacks like their life depends on it.
You should’ve skipped the toffeepops and gone for TimTams instead. TimTams are amazing, and find me a foreigner who doesn’t think so too. They come in a bunch of delicious chocolatey flavours and just like you guys are particular about how you eat an Oreo we have our Tim TamSlams. Bite off a corner at each end of the biscuit and dunk it in a glass of milk/coffee/hot chocolate and suck it through from one end to the other. Sounds weird, but it’s amazing.
And yeah, Whittakers chocolate is a little more expensive and tends to be a bit better than the other “leading brands”, like cadbury (which for the record makes everything it sells in New Zealand in a factory down south, so we can take credit for all the crappiness, they’re not shipping it in. BUT, you did miss some cadbury gems, like the Flake bar, and the Cadbury Creme Egg).
Nobody eats Spaceman Candy Sticks seriously for the taste or anything. It’s one of those things you’d buy at the dairy for 50cents when you were a kid. It’s like a nostalgic childhood icon, note the fairly retro packaging. They’re designed to look like cigarettes but of course they couldn’t get away with actually saying that.
Snifters aren’t THAT minty, toughen up. And the inside is supposed to be like that, it wasn’t shipping.
Giant Jaffas are better.
You bought the wrong brand of Jelly Babies.
As for “New Zealanders, apparently, fancy cheap overly sweet confectionary.”, I think that’s an unfair judgement based on the products you tried. Did someone reccommend those to you? ‘Cause they are /so/ wrong.
I hope this doesn’t come across harsh or anything, I’m not having a go at you, just figured I’d offer a local’s opinion.
I just thought I’d say, if you don’t like sweet food, then why eat chocolate!? It sounds like you’re way too fussy for your own good!
(As a New Zealander I think our chocolate is pretty dam good)..and they even sell some products (such as toffee pops) overseas for outrageous prices!