joe randel's art dump

Snack Swap happened again this year and this time it was with a U.K. follower. They reached out once the call was put forth, and from there we gathered up some tasty treats from each others side of the pond and sent them off. Come on and check out what was had on this latest Snack Swap!

Where to start… I think these will do very nice. I think of this collection we liked the Monster Munch best. Which was quite a surprise. We expected that to be the worst. But my family and I loved them! The Sun Bites are like our Sun Chips, so that one was a bust. I remember liking the Fruit Pastilles and Banana Split Eclairs. They are similar to a candy my grandma used to have which made me very happy. The fruit gummies where quite good too.

Next selection of candy are the chocolate bars… mostly. The Sherbet was um… interesting. Needless to say it was not a will liked treat. The turkish delight was also not a favorite… except with me! I loved it. But then, I do love me some turkish delight. You don’t get that very often in Canada. The rest where pretty standard and well liked by all. There is one in the bunch we get here though. Crunchie! That’s okay, we gobbled it up just the same.

The Happy Hippos where well liked, but then again, we like Kinder products in this house. Never seen those before though. The Mr. Kipling cakes only his 50% of the likes. I thought they where good, others thought they where too sweet.Everyone liked the caramel wafer cookies though. Mmmmm… ^_^

Okay, I’ll be honest. I was quite scared with the Haribo gummies. I’ve heard some scary things about them. Massive stomach cramps and all that. But we put on a brave face and tried them out. Quite good. They seemed a bit thick/tough compared to gummies we get. But the taste was okay and we enjoyed them all.

Okay, these chips are amazing. Easily my favorite things in the box. They where a nice thick cut chip with not too much flavor or salt. I might just have to find more of these over here.

What joy! We got real English tea! This made me and my wife very happy. We ate them with the Scottie Dogs and Jaffa Cakes. Yum! I still have the afternoon sweets at my work desk for when the sweet mood strikes.

Last was these assorted candies. I think the winner in this bunch is the Black Jack. I like black licorice but my family isn’t such big fans. Shockingly enough… we liked it! I’m pretty particular with my licorice flavors, but this was fun and sweet and I think a little citrus. The Fruit Salad on the other hand… ugh. I thought it tasted like soap.

So what did I send to the U.K. in exchange? Let’s have a look.

These are some of my favorites. I love the Big Turk, which is like a turkish delight chocolate bar and the Wunderbar. I LOVE Sweedish Berries and the rockets are from my childhood. In the States, they’re called Smarties.

I can’t get enough Hickory Sticks. A thin sliced chip and Hawkins Cheezies are made in my home town.

With out a doubt, these are very Canadian chip flavors. Dill Pickle can be found in other locations, but Ketchup is purely Canuck through and though.

All Dressed chips are also very Canadian and some red and white potato chips because they’re fun and made on the east coast of Canada.

Laura Secord is a Canadian icon that was in the War of 1812. She has nothing to do with the chocolate though. Oh well… it’s still good. ^_^

Maple cookies because everything maple is awesome. ^_^

Finally, some real. honest to goodness maple candies made right here in Canada. Because nothing says Canada like maple. Did I mention that maple is awesome?

So there you have it! The swap the crossed the pond. I loved the experience of trying out snacks and candies from around the world. Maybe next time you might be interested in having such marvelous Canadian treats in post box near you. Thanks for checking it out, and thanks to the U.K. swapper. I hope they liked all I sent them. ^_^

Okay people, I want to do another Snack Swap for this summer. What is a snack swap you might be asking? It something I thought up a few years ago. What happens is this… if you’re interested, you can contact me and let me that you want in. Then we both buy up a bunch of snacks and we mail then to each other and enjoy. The whole idea is to try different snack and treats from different areas of the world. It’s lots of fun. If you send me snacks from your area I’ll send you some from where I live… Canada! Woo hoo for Canadian treats! So if this sparks your interest, sent me a message and we’ll get down to business. Here’s the catch though. I would love for you to live some place outside of North America. Last time I did a swap with someone in Mexico and it was awesome! So I’d like to try other worldly treats. Here are the previous swaps I did so you can see how it all works. ^_^

Snack Swap #001 – America!

Snack Swap #002 – Mexixo!

Last summer I was contacted by someone who wished to take part in my ever popular (not really), but rarely seen Snack Swap! Just to bring others up to speed, Snack Swap is an idea I had some time ago where I will swap Canadian candy and snacks with those around the globe. It started when I moved to Montreal and found that some of the treats you could get were different then in my home province. Not really thinking that snacks would be different so close to home, I got wondering what junk food is like in other places. What kinds of chip flavors to others get and so forth. So far I’ve done only a few of these and they’ve been from different parts of the U.S. so to get one from Mexico was quite a treat. I also must put forth a huge apology to the trader for not putting a post up about this when the exchange took place. It was an EPIC trade and they deserve full props for what they sent. So without any more delays… lets’ get to it.

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This, dear readers, is the first ever official Snack Swap post.

Some time ago we made an exchange with friends.  Some of our Canadian cookies and treats for some American ones.  The results where lack luster.  I proclaimed that all American candy sucks, put forth the idea of snack swap (a concept I dreamed up a year or so ago) and the challenge to prove me wrong.

Okay, so I wasn’t really looking to be proved wrong.  I know every place has their own snack foods, good and bad.  Lots of people came out and said that the ones we received where crap and that there are far better ones out there.  I was more then willing to start up snack swap with anyone that would step forward with a list of treats to trade.  Fucitol, from the DeviantArt community soon sent me a note with a list of snacks and asked if I was willing to swap for the items listed.  I picked the ones I’d never heard of and sent him a list of my own.  He made his choices, and so began the journey of snacks to new and exotic locals to be enjoyed (or not) by  strangers linked only by a shared curiosity of what junk other people eat.

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Wow… I can’t tell you how happy I am to see so many people voice their opinion on the great “American candy sucks” debate (here, at DA and at FA).  It was great to read all the responses and I honestly wanted to reply to all of them, but I figured this was the best way to reach everyone. Thank you everyone, you’re all awesome! ^_^

Lots of people spoke up and stated that I should try M&M’s, Reese’s, Snickers and such because they’re quite good.  And they’re right, they are very good, plus they’re American made and internationally sold.  So my original, sweeping statement isn’t exactly true, and I quite enjoy a good Snickers Bar to be honest.  But not all candy gets to make the trip to strange lands.  There is so many snack treats that not only never make it to the border… never make it across the country.

Quite a few snack treats are regional and so people a few cities over might never know about them.  Like how you can buy Strawberry Crush in Quebec, but not in Ontario.  Which is really the whole point of the Snack Swap idea.  To try fun foods from other places.  Which is why sending me M&M’s in the mail won’t work, because I can already get all those here in Canada.

Now to all those who agreed with me that American candy sucks… I’m still on your side… US candy blows.  But I am willing to change my opinion.  I wanted to take people up on their offer to swap snacks, but I didn’t really know who to pick.  But then some one stepped up, sent me a note and offered me a list of American candy for me to choose from that would send.  In exchange, I offered up a list of things they could pick from.  Once the details are laid out, we’ll ship them off and I’ll jump back here and give my opinion of them (and probably post their thoughts of the Canadian candy I sent).

I think this is the best way do things at this point.  I can’t wait to be honest.  Getting crap candy or totally awesome candy if fun ether way.  I just love trying new things.  Maybe once a month or so I’ll put the call out for snack swaps and see who responds.  Oh, and if people are wondering what my Canadian list of treats is… here it is…

Smarties – Chocolate candy like M&M’s
Big Turk – chocolate bar
Aero – chocolate bar
Ketchup Chips – chocolate bar
All Dressed Chips
Caramilk – chocolate bar
Kinder Egg – chocolate egg with toy inside
Bounty – chocolate bar
Crispy Crunch – chocolate bar
Eat-More – chocolate bar
Miss Vickie’s brand chips
Hostess Hickory Sticks – chips

Joe ^_^

I’m sorry.. but it has to be said. Consider it tough love from your Canadian neighbour. How do I know this? Well… my wife has friends in the States and on rare occasions we do a snack swap. We got a bunch of Canadian snacks together (ketchup chips, Caramilk bars, Eat-more bars, Kinder eggs, etc…) and sent them off and in exchange we got a…

Zero Bar
Cherry Mash
Whatchamacallit Bar
100 Grand Bar
Heath Bar
Baby Ruth Bar
Pay Day Bar
and something called a “Chick O Stick” o_O

Well, we sampled everything and came to the same conclusion. They all tasted extremely cheap. I’m talking like they we bought a bunch of these from the dollar store. The Zero and Cherry Mash tasted like the chocolate you get at easter. You know… like you can taste the wax in it. The Whatchamacallit was… um… interesting. The 100 Grand actually wasn’t so bad and the Heath was quite similar to our Skor (but cheaper tasting). baby Ruth was like our Oh Henry! and Pay Day was… strange. No chocolate in that one… just nuts and caramel. It wasn’t bad… just different.

Then there was the Chick o Stick. Good grief, what can one say about this thing. It’s orange… it’s… um… a stick… it’s crumbles when you eat it and has toasted coconut rolled up in it. It looks sort of like a turd. Sort of… It tastes like peanut butter… sort of. And it’s currently the last piece left from what was sent to us because no one wants to eat it.

The next day I went to work and asked one of my US co-workers “How and Americans get so fat off candy that tastes like crap?” He laughed and asked what I had received from our friends, then proceeded to say some of those where pretty good. o_O He then gave a pretty good reason for why things taste the way they do South of our boarder. He said, as sad as it is, a lot of American’s don’t care about food quality. What they do care about it getting a lot of it for as little as possible. “How much of that can I get for a nickle” is how he put it. He also said that most don’t even realize that they’re eating crap, it’s so far to Canada or Mexico that they’re just stuck with what ever the companies make them. He also agreed that a lot of what we have up here does taste better.

After I heard that I felt sorry for central US people. Not ever really knowing there is better confections then what they get at the local store. I seriously tempted to do a snack swap with others out there that are willing to do so. I’ll send some tasty Canadian treats and you try and convince me that there are snacks out there that are of decent quality in the States.

Anyone up for the challenge?