We tried two new English foods last night; crumpets and Jelly Babies. The crumpets were really very cheap, and so we bough twelve of them, because Avram wanted to try them out. They are very moist, at least compared to the American English muffins, and very good with butter. English muffins are nothing like crumpets at all. They do sell muffins here, and maybe those are more like Enlgish Muffins (they're flat, at least).
George Harrison's favorite candy was Jelly Babies, and so when Avram saw them in the store he became very excited to try them. They are soft, with the outside consistency of gummy bears. George's fans in Britain would throw them at him after concerts, and such. Well, in America his fans wanted to know what his favorite candy was, and because we don't have Jelly babies they threw Jelly beans at him. Jelly babies? Soft. Jelly bellies? Not at all.
I have a couple of questions about that. Like who would waste perfectly good candy throwing it at someone. Now, those who know me may be currently thinking of Tree Singing, wherein we bring skittles to distribute to the trees (for those who don't know about this tradition, this won't make any sense anyway). Actually I've always made a point of eating the vast majority of the skittles, with only a very few chosen to be spread to the trees.
Anyway, since hearing that story, Avram has always wanted to try them, so try them we did. They are a little larger than Gummy bears, with a softer inside consistency. Also, they're covered with what appeared to be a thin covering of powdered sugar. I thought they were okay, nothing to get very excited about, but I'm not much of a candy person anyway. Avram was rather disappointed in them, especially the black current flavor. Just as he was telling me this, Lydia, who had claimed a couple since she has way too much of a sweet tooth, walked over to Avram and deposited the gummy mess of a slightly chewed black current Jelly baby, so apparently she didn't like it either. I have to admit, the flavor tasted very...not American.
So out of two foods, one was very much a success, and one was...different.
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Peppermint Bark Fudge
5 days ago
Didn't the Tom Baker Doctor like Jelly Babies too?
ReplyDeleteAlso, do they still sell Smarties in the round tubes, with the plastic end caps? Those are good 'cause you can mash the tubes and shoot the caps at each other.
Oh yeah, I've always been fond of wine gums myself. Oh yeah, toffee.. The little slabs of Walkers toffee, where you get a packet, take it home, and smash it against the side of the table before opening it, so you get bite-sized pieces. And proper mars bars. I've heard you can still get them there.
Good stuff.
- Matt
Hurray for crumpets! If you ever get the inkling, honey goes very well on them as well. In fact, my taste for honey actually came from slathering my crumpets with honey. They drip a lot, but that always seemed to add to the general pleasure of the experience.
ReplyDeleteAh, the Skittles. My mouth always felt so gross after the Tree Singing. But it was all totally worth it.
ReplyDeleteMy big English food discovery when I was over there was my discovery of the word 'sultana.' As soon as I figured out that 'sultana' meant 'a raisin made out of a green grape' I was buying everything I could find with sultanas in it.