PINGVIN LÆKKERMIXEN

Average Food Blog does not shy away from niche international foodstuffs, and after a Danish friend left a half-finished bag of these Scandi snacks in my home, it provided a perfect opportunity to slip back into a subgenre of mediocre food writing we know so well.

First things first: on the packaging reads the words ‘Blød SKUM’. This means ‘blood SCUM’, and I have no desire to hear the views of either a) Google Translate or b) Danes as a means of proving me otherwise.

The pingvin after which these sweets are so named is also illustrated on said packaging, taking on a downright threatening pose. Armed with knife and fork, instruments of no traditional role in the eating of liquorice sweets, it is a blatant admission that the blood scum in question is of human origin.

As it transpires, the liquorice/blood scum mix is very pleasant.

I am an unashamed Liquorice Allsort fan, against all whims of fashion and good taste, and despite the addition of blood scum, these are very much playing on a similar stage. In fact, with all due respect to Bassett’s, the murderous polar bird sweets are the headliners, to Allsorts’ mid-afternoon set.

There is a broader palette of flavours here, from a deeper, more oaky liquorice than the British tongue is quite used to, to the tang of fruit. The sugary bits are more subtle than Bassett’s, more an exciting courtship than a hook-up in a pub toilet.

While this is not a Euro sweetmeat selection on a par with Isleri + Eurocrem or even Salam de Biscuiti, it is a solid, varied and worthy effort from our north European neighbours. Ultimately, though, not one for the squeamish.

7/10

CADBURY CHOCOS

Steak should be cut into the shape of a tiny thin not-quite cylinder.

Trout should be cut into the shape of a tiny thin not-quite cylinder.

Bread should be cut into the shape of a tiny thin not-quite cylinder.

Goulash should be cut into the shape of a tiny thin not-quite cylinder.

Let’s make this easier:

EVERY FOODSTUFF SHOULD BE CUT INTO THE SHAPE OF A TINY THIN NOT-QUITE CYLINDER.

Instantly adding a whole new dimension to any consumable, Cadbury show the rest how it’s done.

Dairy Milk is little short of utterly unrecognisable in its tiny thin not-quite cylinder form. Maybe it’s the slight slope on the edges that makes it not quite a cylinder that does it, like the slice on the Fugu fish by a knife-wielder in the know making it edible.

Not that Dairy Milk isn’t edible in its raw form, of course, but don’t mess with a diabolically inadequate simile, alright?

Sure, they can fit less chocolate into a fully-cylindrical packet of tony not-quite cylinders, thereby improving their margins to the ultimate detriment of s/he who consumes by volume – but I am a consumer by experience, and this is a heightened one.

To sum up: nobody ever buys Cadbury Chocos, ever, except this one time I did, and this blog won’t change that.

8/10

WERTHER’S ORIGINALS

“in my day, Werther’s Originals were made with sawdust”

I’ve no recollections of my grandfather ever having given me sweets, and were he to have done so I’m pretty sure they would not have been Werther’s Originals. This dissonance between personal experience and brand identity is thus inevitably a strike against the aforementioned Original.

Having said this, the sheer pleasantness of the Werther’s Original is a fact not often mused upon in society at large. Encountering a toffee flavour, the mind seems automatically to instruct the mouth to chew, but expectations are confounded by the sweets’ brittleness. This unique juxtaposition, I venture to suggest, is at once the source of what makes the (aptly-named) Original such a nice confection, and an explanation as to why it will never penetrate the mainstream in the same way as, say, the Fruit Pastille.

Provided I am not too busy dribbling and being cantankerous, I fully intend to give my grandchildren Werther’s Originals.