Waaaay back in mid-December, Donna and I found some time to dive into the last Universal Yums box in my gift subscription of 2022. Donna wrote about it, here. Pardon my tardiness in posting! Mid-December to mid-January is usually a time when I “hibernate” both socially and in terms of projects (and become even more introverted and introspective than I already am) and I am just starting to come out of this period now.
So, without further delay: I give you the Italy box!
Donna and I had high hopes for this one. Italians are so good at making delicious food, amiright?!
We started off with the world’s tiniest cookies (to my knowledge 😉): Amarettini Almond cookies.
The story behind these cookies is that they were an improvisation by a young couple who wanted to make a treat for a visiting cardinal (a man, not a bird although I am sure cardinal birds would enjoy this also) and so they whipped these up out of apricot kernels, egg whites, and sugar. Now you know.What they lacked in size, they made up for in flavour I am happy to report!
Next up: Pizza-flavoured corn rings.
Hmmm…looks interesting. Pizza is only about 300 years old, according to the booklet that came with the box. Should pineapple ever be considered anything other than an abomination a fit topping for pizza? Let’s discuss in the Comments. She just had to go there 🤣. These were more fun to play with than to eat, clearly.
Another savoury treat followed – Paprika potato chips aka the main ingredient in BBQ chips we learned by tasting, as that is pretty much what these tasted like. Universal Yum’s writeup on this chip stated they had never tasted a chip seasoned like this before. Seriously? BBQ is an OG Canadian chip flavour, as I recall. It was around even before ketchup chips!!!
Italy’s favourite brand of potato chip, apparently.
After all that salt, we tried the Chocolate Tiramisu Cream Cake. The name tiramisu means “carry me up”, and the booklet assumes this means “to heaven”…LOL!
I thought it was OK, but Donna wasn’t too impressed.
After that we tried the chocolate bar with hazelnuts. I think everyone can imagine what that would taste like. (Nutella, that you still have to chew.) Apparently containing hazelnuts from the Piedmont region of Italy.
After all that chocolate, I was relieved to taste something different – the Italian fruit jellies. I am not normally a fan of fruit candies but these were quite tasty and delicious! Made with real Italian fruit juices, apparently.
Donna was not a fan which meant more for meeee!!!!
Finally, we came to the last treat in the box – Milk chocolate popcorn bites. Sounded intriguing but nothing extraordinary or exciting in flavour.
Donna says these taste like a candy you can buy in Canada called a Whopper. I don’t remember ever eating one, so I’ll have to take her word on this. Score sheet.Your happy tasters.
This gift subscription was a whole lot of fun – and the most fun when I got to share it with Donna and all of you lovely readers! Donna and I are going to put together our own box – the Canadian version of a Universal Yums package – we have all the goodies picked out already.
That probably won’t happen until later in February though as I am leaving the island next week. First, to spend some shenanigans IRL time with Joanne (of the now quiet blog My Life Lived Full) in Ontario, and then to join my practically life-long friend CJ for our annual 2 weeks reading books under the palms and drinking Banks beer enjoying the sea and sun of Barbados. YES! After 2 long years, I am getting on a plane and heading out of Canada to a tropical destination again, universe-willing!
I really thought that this box would be our last one, for the subscription. But then, another box showed up in the mail. So here is the review of the now next-to-last box – South Korea! Once again, Donna’s husband Richard was able to join us as our extra special guest judgeinsert favourite RuPaul’s Drag Race meme here.
This box looked quite promising, and it did not disappoint!
First on the list of snacks to be evaluated: the choco pie.
We all agreed we have tasted this confection in another form. Apparently this treat was given as a bonus to North Korean workers. It got so popular that the buzz-killevil dictatorship government banned them. No happy moments for you! So South Korean activists sent thousands over the border using balloons. There, now you know!
Next up: spicy chicken flavoured corn puffs!
Also known as KFC – Korean Fried Chicken! American KFC used to be a special occasion treat for Koreans, but now they can eat it whenever they want (in South Korea only, that is). And they have spiced things up, including with this snack.
Then it was on to some marscapone shortbreads (What a lovely combination of 2 yummy things!)
Individually wrapped cookies – lovely! And lovely to look at, too! This might be one of my favourite snacks; at least top 5.
These cookies have a weird (to us Westerners) backstory. Apparently Valentine’s Day in South Korea is the day for women to treat the men. And then came the sequel: White Day (March 14)…where men give white gifts to the women, including these cookies. Apparently this tradition originated in Japan – in 1978 – and spread to South Korea. Although LGBTQ+ folks appear to be left out of this celebrating, never fear Singletons! April 14 is Black Day, when you dress in black and go eat your feelings with all your single friends. Black-bean-sauce-smothered noodles is the preferred comfort nosh. All of this info according to the literature that came with the snack box!
Now onto some candy! Sweet and sour grape-flavoured chews.
Check out those super cool grapes 😎. Very flavourful!
Back to savoury snacks with the next on the list: Shrimp Chips.
I’ve eaten a lot of shrimp chips with Indonesian dishes. In fact, we used to have to deep fry them ourselves. It was exciting for me as a kid to watch the tiny hard chips expand into these airy delights when fried. I found the South Korean version quite “shrimpy” though…stronger flavour than what I am used to.
Last but not least were a bag of Peach Flavoured Gummies, to sample.
These were delicious!Isn’t the peach also known as the butt emoji, in social media? I can see the resemblance 😄.
I think this was my favourite box to date. So did Donna. Here is our scoring.
As usual, Donna treated us to a fabulous lunch afterwards. She wrote all about it on her latest WOYPBC post, here.
Yeah, you could say we were pretty excited about those cookies 🤣.
One more box to go! Stay tuned – we’re going to Italy next.
The catch-up binge of snack boxes is behind us, and I was relieved that there were only 3 more boxes to go through, to be fully caught up. Imagine my relief when the next box I opened was a duplicate of one we had just tried (South America)! I didn’t even want to complain to Universal Yums about getting a duplicate…I was just glad we were now down to only 2 more boxes to review. Oh the pressure I had been feeling, seeing those boxes pile up!
The next box I opened (the October box, I believe) takes us to Spain.
Contents of the Spain box
Once again, Donna hosted for this box devouring sampling, and we even had an Extra Special Guest Judge on hand. I will reveal who later in the post!
Also, this rascal joined us (but did not get to sample anything):
Bowser: ready for my walkies!
First up:
The writeup says that these are Spain’s famous caramel candies. Think extra special Smarties.
Next up were corn puffs, but with a sweet instead of savoury twist:
Honey butter flavoured corn puffs.
Forgot to take a picture of this before it got unwrapped:
Pistachio-flavoured Toffee.
This next one was, well, something else.
The sulphurous fumes hitting the roof of the mouth as you tried one of these fried-egg flavour chips was quite the experience. Very eggy and not in a good way, we all agreed. Supposed to be indicative of the “classic Spanish huevo frito“. Esto no sabe bien. Pass.
Next up: a peanut flavoured confection.
Spain’s favourite treat for over 400 years, apparently. Delicious, even though I was still getting hints of egg in my mouth from those damn chips.
From sweet to sour:
Another winner. Who doesn’t love a sour gummie? One of us, apparently 😉.
And finally:
Pardon the out-of-focus shot of this chocolate pine nut candy. Made from an 80 year old recipe, apparently. A man had a surplus of pine nuts and gave them to his neighbour, who mixed them with sugar, milk and coffee to make this delightful candy.
After all of those rich treats, Donna treated us to some fresh fruit and veggies.
Post-judging nibblies.
Have you guessed the extra judge yet?
Our esteemed judging panel (ignore Bowser), including guest judge hubby Richard – who was born for the role!
And here is our scoring:
One more box to go (I think?) and the gift subscription is complete. Any guesses as to where that box is from?
Last week, Donna and I got together to sample the next box in my Universal Yums gift subscription (thanks again, Kenn and Jonathan!). I had meant to post this earlier but – as I explained to Donna – feeling sorry for myself for injuring my IT bands in both knees was taking up all of my time, doncha know?😉. I’ve seen my nurse practitioner and my chiropractor already, and I am seeing a physiotherapist tomorrow with hopes to resolve the problem as fast as possible. I am mightily miffed that I have had to curtail my exercise program for the time being, lest I make things worse. All those hard-won meagre gains will be lost! ARGH! OK, Pity Party over…
Donna decided to make us a delicious chicken shawarma lunch to accompany our sampling of Israeli snacks, and I decided to make an Israeli drink to go with our lunch (recipe included in the box) so we were all set for another fun morning.
Box contents
First up: Falafel sticks
These really captured the flavour of falafel, nicely although they did not contain any chickpeas whatsoever. I guess it’s all about the spices.The only issue I had with them is that they reminded me of something I have fed to a pet in the past (I think it was my hamster). 😂
This was followed by another savoury snack.
Lemon flavoured corn snacks? Sounds good!These were a hit with the both of us as well. Not spicy at all, despite the chili pepper depicted on the bag.
Next up – a sweet candy bar.
The name of this bar means “Time Out”.White chocolate, milk chocolate, caramel wafers and milk cream. Very rich and very sweet.
Back to savoury (and sweet) with some pretzel bites.
These tasted and looked exactly like what you can get in North America. Nothing unusual about these.
The next sampling was also nothing new – marshmallows.
Your basic marshmallows…Israelis apparently eat more marshmallows per capita than Americans. And the package proclaims they are made with fish gelatin. Maybe to keep kosher? Although there is no dairy listed in the ingredients…hmmmm, a mystery.
Another sweet offering was next on our agenda – grape toffee sticks (found in the Yum bag).
This was interesting. Nice grapey flavour I remembered from grape candies in my childhood.
Our last Yum from the box (and the Yum bag) was the Strawberry Banana Swirl soft candy.
Neither of us like these types of candies. Flavour was good though, and candy interior was pretty.
Another delightful box. Our scoring:
No surprises here…
Now on to the Israeli drink – Limonana!
IngredientsAssembling the LimonanaThis drink was absolutely delicious and refreshing, as promised. We couldn’t be bothered to separate out all the membranes from the lemons so our drink was cloudier than in the recipe (bonus fiber!😄). I will be making it again this summer – you can count on it! I bet it would go great with gin or vodka.
We capped off our tasting session with a delicious lunch prepared by Donna. Thank you again, my friend!
Wow! What a beautiful spread.Slow cooked shawarma-spiced chicken with veggies and a liberal helping of baba ganoush, in a pita. Amazing flavours!We didn’t try to dress like Israelis because a) we didn’t know how and b) we had to skedaddle immediately after lunch to an outdoor class on trees (where we were rained upon, per usual 🤣).
I wonder where the Universal Yums box will take us next month…Any guesses?
This month – instead of visiting just one country – Universal Yums provided me with a “smorgas-box” (their words, not mine!) of Scandinavian countries to sample snacks from.Off we go!
Donna and I had so much fun dressing up and setting the tone for France last month and we wanted to do the same for this (and all subsequent boxes). I had a plan for music and setting, and Donna researched how to dress Scandi-style (lots of black and they love plain white shirts, apparently). We were set to start snackin’!
ABBA was the first group that came to mind, natch.
The box included this cute sticker:
Edvard Munch is probably rolling in his grave about now.
That sticker inspired me to change the artwork on my Frame TV to this:
This painting always reminds me of the scenery around my new home.
Here are the contents of this month’s box:
Looks promising!
The very first item to try was the Danish Yankie bar – a weirdly wonderful pairing of Nougat and (salty) Licorice, in a chocolate bar. I have to say that even I – a salted licorice afficionado – was taken aback by this pairing.
Yep. That is a ribbon of salted licorice, folks where the caramel should be.
We gave this first treat the ol’ college try what even does that mean.
How it started…How it ended…(note IKEA Kallax unit under the Munch artwork…Scandi, Scandi, Scandi!)
As you can tell from the above photos, it nearly came to blows surprise! We both really really liked the damn Yankie bar. 🙂 Oh – and nice gun show, Donna – your online gym sessions are really showing results!
Next up was the Cheesy Corn Puffs, also from Denmark.
Cute packagingNo surprises hereThese were good. Did not leave much of a cheesy residue on fingers, either!
Then, another savoury Danish snack…these tasted like very nice BBQ-flavoured chips:
Lucky potato? WTH?Donna deals out the chips. Mine is the lower right one, according to her.Note to self: Who put Donna in charge of apportioning the snacks, anyways?!?!
After this, it was the biggest package in the box: the Oat Cookies.
Low key disappointed they weren’t heart-shaped like the box photo.I soon got over that, though!These cookies were absolutely delightful! Very crunchy. Bittersweet chocolate filling. Karen Volf, born in 1864, rose from very humble beginnings to become a household name in Denmark for her delicious baked goods. Ms. Volf, we salute you!
So far, so great! Everything we tasted up to now was wonderful. Next up, the Cocoa Mud Cake Balls.
Looks promisingSorry for the blurry photoUhhhhh…not a favourite of either Donna or myself. A bit too sweet for our tastes. Apparently this is based on a classic Swedish dessert called Delicatoboll that is so simple it is one of the first things children learn to make.The guidebook included the recipe, in case anyone wants to try their hand at making Delicatobolls.
Wild Strawberry Toffees (Sweden) were up next in our snack travails travels. Apparently this candy is reminiscent of the start of summer (Midsommar) festival, where locals go “to the countryside to eat strawberries, wear flower crowns, and dance like frogs around an ivy-covered pole called the midsomar staang”. Dance like frogs????
To the point packagingI wasn’t expecting them to be red, but OK.I thought these were quite delicious. Strawberry and caramel pair well together – who knew?
Lastly came another sweet treat: the mixed fruit licorice (again with the licorice???) stick. “Copenhagen’s chewiest, fondant-filled secret” the booklet proclaimed.
Not wowed, so far.PrettyThis one also really surprised me. I loved the chewiness and the bright flavour (thank you, spritz of lemon!)
This Yum package was another winner. It was difficult to pick amongst so many favourites, but we managed to come up with very similar rankings for the Scandinavian box.
Donna’s rankingMy rankingFinished score card.
Thank you for joining us on this snack trip through Scandinavia! From your frog-dancing fools friends…
…Deb and Donna. (If anyone knows what actual frog dancing is supposed to look like, please comment below!)
While waiting for the next snack box in my gift subscription to arrive, I received an email from the giver of such deliciousness advising me that the upcoming box would be from Russia and that Universal Yums was offering to switch that out for another country instead. I didn’t feel comfortable receiving and blogging about a Russian box given the current situation with Ukraine so I said yes please to the switch. Barely 2 days later my box arrived and I was a bit apprehensive that there hadn’t been enough time to sub in another box. Luckily though:
Hoorah! The switch was made!
Once again, I enlisted the snack-judging prowess of my blogging partner-in-crime Donna, and a date was set. Then I had a thought and texted her to see if she had a French beret or two hanging around her place. I thought it would be funny to dress stereotypically “French”, while we sampled the goods. Of course Donna being Donna 😉 , she had to take it much further including a soundtrack while we “worked”.
I have to admit, it did really add to the ambience.Yeah, yeah. I know these aren’t actual berets. They are “beret-ish”, and all we had to work with. And we don’t have actual Breton sweaters on either, but hey, we have a very limited budget here at Chez Badass and Chez Retirement Reflections. P. S. I wanted to draw on a Hercule Poirot moustache with eyeliner, but Donna wisely talked me out of it.
Here’s what was included in the box, besides the guidebook:
Map of Deliciousness on back of scorecardCute stickerSnacks and front of scorecardLooking very promising!
First up, a bag of French strawberry chews. According to the book, we have France to thank for strawberries, and these particular candies were the top-voted Yum in the last two French snack boxes.
We were immediately put off by the labeling of “artificially flavoured” (France, how could you???) but the taste was really good. We both thought they tasted like something we ate in childhood. Ahhhh, that sweet nostalgic time of artificial everything and cancer-causing red dyes… Donna was reminded of a candy called a Mojo. I don’t remember those, but do any of you?
Next up was a bag of French Cheese tubes. The book advised us that French cheeses are better and so are their cheese snacks. We both agreed. So far, two winners!
Think of a really good cheesy Bugle-type snack.
We left “Savoury Town” and headed back to “Sweetsville” with the next offering: Pure Butter Sablés. The book explained that the name “sablé” (French for sand) came from how these cookies are made: by rubbing cold butter into flour and sugar to form tiny particles that look like sand.
Yet another winner! How long can this go on????
After the cookies, it was time to try the other savoury snack in this box: Garlic Aioli Potato Chips. “Yes, you will get garlic breath. And yes, it will be worth it” the brochure opines. We have to agree. These were amazing. (Apologies to my hairdresser, who I met later on in the day. Thank goodness for masks, non?)
Can we get these here, please???Fresh and delicious!Please France, we want some more.
Salted butter caramels were next in order. Confectioner Henri Le Roux created the first salted caramel in 1977. Sir, we salute you. Hopefully in Brittany they have erected a statue of this god amongst men.
Donna and I both agreed on the flavour but Donna found them “too chewy”. I like to make them last as long as possible so that means very little chewing is involved – full marks from me!Donna took this artful picture of me hard at work. 😉
After waiting forever for me to finish my damn caramel, it was time for truffles. Apparently truffles were a happy little accident (RIP Bob Ross!). In the 1920s Paris Confectioner Auguste Escoffier mistakenly dumped hot cream into the wrong bowl, which contained chocolate. Rather than waste it, he rolled the paste into balls and coated them with cocoa powder, and named them of what they reminded him of: mushroom truffles.
Pretty packagingBehold the truffle!I haven’t ever seen a mushroom truffle, but I’ll take Escoffier’s word for it. I have had truffle-flavoured french fries though…and they are heavenly (and I don’t really like french fries, so that is high praise indeed!). Anyways, I digress…these chocolate truffles were rich and sweet flavour bombs.
Last (and probably least) were French Fruit Chews. I had the raspberry and Donna selected the orange one. Made by Confiserie du Nord, this family-owned company has been making bon-bons since 1912. These French “Starbursts” are supposed to be bigger, chewier and juicer than the American candy. It’s probably been decades since I had a Starburst so I can’t compare but I have to say my raspberry chew was excellent.
Donna selected this one.Which left me the raspberry to try.Sorry to get to the end of this snack box!
And here are the results:
Filled-in scorecardDonna’s rankingMy rankingNot a loser in the bunch! This one was hard to rank (they were all good!) but we persevered.Just two French chicks, hanging out in front of the fire. Not to brag or anything, but someone has perfected the French tuck. N’est-ce pas?
France, you are a snacker’s paradise and we salute you!
A lot of readers were interested in knowing what was in the next (and any subsequent) snack boxes I received with my gift of a subscription to Universal Yums (original post here). I could couldn’t just sample the snacks on my own so I enlisted the help of esteemed snack judge Donna once again, and off we went to Poland (snack-aphorically speaking).
Contents of Poland box, artfully arranged by Donna
First up on the scorecard was Poland’s iconic dark chocolate-covered marshmallow bar. According to the brochure, this is Poland’s most famous confection and the name translates to “an unobtainable delicacy”. We’ll see!
That tasted exactly like you would expect. Maybe it was “unobtainable” and a “delicacy” back in 1936 when it was first created, but it seems pretty average now. Marshmallow bar sampling. Photo by Donna.
Next, we were guided to a salty snack. Pretzels are Poland’s favourite salty snack, according to the writeup on this one:
Now you’re talking! (Donna and I are both salty snack fans.) Cheese and onion flavoured aka pierogi-flavoured, apparently.
Back to sweet, for taste test #3:
Chocolate-covered gingerbread sticks. I didn’t think this would be such a good pairing.But I am happy to report that they were quite good! Poles love gingerbread – especially at Christmas time – and their favourite holiday film is Home Alone, according to the brochure. KEVIN!!!!!
Next was something that intrigued both Donna and myself:
Too cute to eat…almost! These are considered a national treasure in potato and salty-snack loving Poland.
The next item came from the “yum bag” included in the box: a hard candy – fruit yogurt flavoured.
The bag contained 4 wrapped candies. Two of each variety. Jogusie tasted good but neither of us are hard candy fans (caramels excepted, of course). Seventy three percent of Polish people list yogurt as their go-to dairy snack, and Jogusie yogurt candies were created to “get a yogurt fix on the go”, apparently.
The next sampling I hoped would be good, since I liked the chocolate-covered gingerbread sticks so much:
However, neither of us found anything delicious about this particular snack. Frederic Chopin, however, sang the praises of gingerbread, as described in the brochure. Maybe he should have kept his opinions to music only.
Again, I had high hopes for the next offering – it even had a cute wrapper.
It was a disappointment, to say the least. Kinda crispy on the outside and blah on the inside. We’ve both had better caramels and better fudge. Apparently this is Poland’s most popular candy. Can I introduce you to a little thing called “Werther’s”?
Last but not least was a milk chocolate bar with a peanut cocoa filling.
I thought it had a nice nutty flavour but Donna was kinda “meh” about this. Manufactured by the company run by Jan Wedel, the “Willy Wonka” of Poland, who also created “the unobtainable delicacy”, seen previously. Jan Wedel was also famous for being a humanitarian by producing food for hungry citizens when the Nazis seized control of Poland’s food for themselves.Donna, in her snacking judging glory.
Here’s what the finished scorecard looked like:
And here are the Poland box snacks ranked by us, from favourite snack to least favourite snack (LEFT TO RIGHT):
My rankingDonna’s ranking
And the winners are…..
Us! Because we got to have a bunch of laughs and spend time together sampling exotic snacks! Photo by Donna
Where in the world will we go next (in terms of snack boxes)? Stay tuned!
At the beginning of January, I received an unexpected delivery of a mysterious package. The outside was decorated with cute symbols of food in red and white and it proclaimed it was from a company called Universal Yums. Curious, I opened it up and looked for some kind of note or explanation as to who sent it but there was nothing to be found inside except some packages of snacks, a score card and a booklet. So I looked at the outside of the package again and there it was, partially obscured by the shipping label.
Mystery solved!
What a lovely gift, from my good friends back in Ontario: Jonathan and Kenn!!! Clearly the package was supposed to arrive in December, but what with all the weather difficulties and highway closures it couldn’t make it to my door until early January.
Snack contents of the box: popcorn from Taiwan, truffles from France, candies from the UK, “plum” cake from Argentina, baklava from Jordan, and potato chips from another region of France. Scorecard and guidebook from box
As you can see, the December box is a collection of snacks from around the world. The regular monthly boxes contain snacks from one country, only.
Of course, you know I couldn’t just snack (and score) all by myself…so I called someone whose food judgement I trust implicitly.
Donna is clearly taking this project as seriously as I am. 😉 What concentration! What focus!
And so we began. One by one, we carefully sampled each snack and wrote our thoughts down on the scorecard.
I forgot to take a picture of the “plum” cake. Probably because I was pretty pissed it didn’t contain any plums. Imagine a twinkie stuffed with caramel, in lieu of a photo.
And here are the results of our scoring:
Your happy judgy McJudgersons judging panel (photo by Donna).
This was a whole lotta fun. And I get to do it every month for a whole year! Don’t worry, I won’t post it on WOYPBC each month…just this first time. While I was waiting to get together with Donna to do the scoring, my January box arrived:
Hmmm….what country am I going on a snack holiday to, next?It’s Poland! (Which has bison, apparently…who knew???)
I am so tickled by this subscription. I really love the scoring aspect of it. Something fun to do with friends and family. I think it is both a great idea for a gift to give, and also a joy to receive!
Once again, my co-host Donna and I are using a linkup for people to share their posts on. Please find it here:
Not sure why InLinkz hates me. What have I ever done to it???If the button doesn’t want to work, you can always join up at Retirement Reflections or try this link HERE.
Of course, you are still more than welcome to let Donna or myself know what’s on your plate at your house, in the Comments of either Donna’s or my post (or both, if you are so inclined!). Please check out Donna’s mouth-watering February post, here!
