Individually Wrapped

While digging around for something sweet to eat yesterday (I made the Moffat Toffee last quite a while, thanks Adrian) I came across one of the more random things I brought back from my trip to Beijing back in 2010; an individually wrapped Polo mint!

Now I know that individually wrapped sweets aren't that uncommon, but individually wrapped Polo mints were a new one for me. The meeting room at the hotel we were staying in was always well setup in a morning with cups for the tea that was brought in at regular intervals as well as large bowls full of these mints. Needless to say I think we all found them quite intriguing and we certainly ate quite a lot of them.

It's now been over two years since my trip to China but I think that is probably the last of the blog worthy things I saw or did!

The Kindness Of Bloggers

I was spoilt for choice when trying to choose a title for this post. I considered both "It's Not What You Know But Who You Know" and "The Postman Wore Shorts" before settling on "The Kindness Of Bloggers". A simpler title, that gets straight to the point, would however, have simply been: Thank You Adrian!

Last weekend, when Adrian ended up in Moffat as the campsite at Biggar was closed, I suggested that if he needed something to do then he should definitely visit the Moffat Toffee shop. I didn't know at the time but Adrian doesn't really have a sweet tooth, but he does have a kind heart, and hence he made an offer to post me a tin of toffee.

Moffat Toffee is, to put it mildly, a bit weird. Firstly it isn't actually toffee, but a boiled sweet! According to their own website it has a caramel outside with a lemon centre, but personally I think they taste of toffee apples. Whatever they actually taste like I love them and the chance to have a tin (possibly only the third I've ever had) was too good to pass up.

We are really fortunate in the UK to have a number of local foods that are worth hunting out; as well as Moffat Toffee I'd recommend Wensleydale Cheese (although that's easy to buy in almost any supermarket now), the output from most of the small breweries/distilleries that dot the landscape (usually the smaller the better) and most definitely Grasmere Gingerbread. Grasmere Gingerbread is as much like gingerbread as Moffat Toffee is like toffee so don't rely on it's name for a description!

Thanks again Adrian, I know what I'm doing this weekend; sucking toffee!

They Are All Blue!

It is probably a good job that Nestlé changed to using only natural occurring food colourings in Smarties. I have no idea the effect a large (170g) tub of all blue Smarties coloured using E133 would have on me but I feel better knowing I'm eating seaweed instead -- the new blue colour is derived from cyanobacteria spirulina.

Possibly even better than a whole tube of naturally coloured blue Smarties is the tube they are in. They are in a proper Smarties tube with a blue plastic lid. Strangely it doesn't have a letter on the lid but a turtle instead.

Blue Smarties

I was recently bought a tube of Smarties. I don't eat chocolate sweets/bars very often and so it must have been at least a few years since I last had any Smarties and I instantly noticed three things 1) the tube was hexagonal and missing the plastic top, 2) the colours all looked washed out and 3) there were no blue Smarties.

Apparently the tube was changed to it's modern form back in 2005 which probably tells you how long it is since I last bought a tube of Smarties!

The colours of the Smarties probably look washed out because at some point the makers, Nestlé, changed the way Smarties were produced to remove artificial colourings and flavours.

There are currently no blue Smarties because there wasn't an alternative natural colouring that could be used.

Having noticed all these things just a few weeks ago I was interested in a BBC news article today that announced the imminent return of blue Smarties. Apparently there is now a natural blue food colouring, extracted from a seaweed called spirulina, that can be used.