awholelotofcrunch

"There will be no Twiglets here"

Oh pity the poor Americans... Not only do they have to suffer the arrival of the bloody Tesco supermarket chain, they do so in the knowledge that Twiglets will not be available. Shameful,

Drive along Route 79 through the desert east of Los Angeles, through the scrub and the mountains, and you reach the city of Hemet, once famed as the retirement capital of the US. Nestled among the strip malls and tract homes, the palm trees and liquor stores, there is a more surprising sight. A friendly green sign tells you it is Fresh & Easy, the name given to the latest enterprise from Britain's biggest and the world's third largest retailer, Tesco... "There will be no Twiglets here," Tim Mason, the head of Tesco's US operation, recently declared. Undaunted, the Guardian came away with a box of Fresh & Easy English breakfast tea bags. link

But, seriously...

A few weeks ago I sent a container load of Twiglets from London to Adam Kuban at the New York offices of the excellent Serious Eats. Reaction was mixed, but generally not good,

Me [Adam K]: [Scrunches up face.]

Ed Levine: "That ... is odd. It tastes like I'm eating coal ash."

Alaina Browne: "These are weird." [Picks up a jar of peanut butter sitting on conference table.] "Maybe if you dipped it in some of this peanut butter."

Raphael: "This tastes like burning."

Robyn Lee: "Ew. That's gross. It does taste like burning."

However, Adam later admits,

"dipping into the Twiglets bag over the course of a few days, these little twiglike sticks started to grow on me."

Oh they grow alright. You're just not trying hard enough... Read more.

Twiglets are a "Sidekick to evil"

Lance in the enlightened, easy going town of Massachusetts grabs the garlic, crucifix and silver bullet as he hunkers down for a Twiglets attack,

For some reason, the technology to manufacture pretzels never made it to the UK. I couldn't tell you why. The closest thing they've got are Twiglets. They're basically pretzel thins baked in, you guessed it, Marmite.

You've been out drinking, you've got the munchies, and you want pretzels. You look the bag. The picture looks right. The slogans are... peculiar.... "Satisfyingly 89% fat free!!" ..."Extremely crunchy!!" ... "Hazardously knobbly!!"

The knobbly thing should be a warning, but hey, you're drunk.

You shell out your 1.49  and dig in.  And you've just been orally ambushed by Satan's little buddy.  Repeat steps 9 and 10.

It really is that bad.

And if that's not bad enough, you should see what he has to say about Marmite...

Technorati Tags: twiglets, pretzels, marmite, snackfood

The official unoffical snack

The official unofficial snackfood of the corner table of NMK Forum 2007, London, UK.


Technorati Tags: NMK, NMKforum2007, Twiglets, NMK2007

$5.50 bag Manhattan score

Over on Chowhound, fellow expat Twiglets head ballulah hunts down a bag of the brown stuff in deepest Manhattan,

I headed straight to Myers of Keswick on Monday night and made it just before closing. They had them alright, but they weren't cheap: $5.50 a bag (150 g). The little shop next to Tea & Sympathy usually carries them, but they have been sold out everytime I've gone recently.

A search through the Chowhound lardbanks reveals the Twiglets yearners. the latest price check in the UK, courtesy of Sainsbury's and my trusted camera, 91 whole new pence.

The Twiglets have landed

They took their time about it - and I'm not blaming either the British or the French postal systems, but I do have my suspicions... - but the twins arrived this afternoon. I'll be exploring them intimately over the coming days and weeks.

Etc. etc.

Excuse the indulgence... but... I just received a parental email, the contents of which contained this badly formed sentence,

"Posted your suet etc yesterday."

I appreciate this is hardly earth shattering news. The suet will find itself part of a jam roly-poly pudding or two and no doubt a large spotted dick, but the "etc." is the interesting bit. In there, I'm assured, be Twiglets. From Scotland to Toulouse as the French crow flies they may be here by the weekend. Praise be.

Twigletless in France

As far as I know France is a Twiglet free zone. Toulouse, where I live, is certainly bereft of the gnarly, marmitey, crunchy snack wonders. I've been promised a delivery from the UK by mail to arrive in the near future. I'll use this space to document the period of waiting, the period of eating and the period of mourning and then another period of waiting and a period of.... etc. etc ad infinitum until the French see fit to import the things or I seek out shady characters on street corners with pockets that rustle.