2 AM is a bad time to start a post if you don’t want really bad puns. And I know that’s on me, not you, but I felt if nothing else, I should tell you the lesson that the title already indicates. Where are my manners? Why hello there, and Welcome back to Kitchen Catastrophes, I’m your host Jon O’Guin. It’s late, and I’m emotionally worked up because apropos of nothing I decided to chug down a bucket of sappy emotional moments from one of my favorite book series before writing this, because I make bad decisions. You didn’t need to know that, but I overshare when I’m tired, and get rambly.

Speaking of going on too long, Sorry on this post being delayed by a day. I know we’ve had quite a few delays this year, but I assure you, I’m doing what I can to prepare and minimize that. The next month of posts at least should be on time. Today just got held up because I knew what I wanted to do for it, I just couldn’t get it done until last night. And I was going to convince myself to do something else, but it’s also tech week for the play I’m in, so my nights were completely shut down, and I scheduled several important (and long) appointments during the week, so I just didn’t have the time to research a new topic.

So, what was my Goal that I almost put off? A box of snacks! But not just any box of snacks, one that spoke to me on a deeply resonant level. And before I talk any more about it, I want to be completely clear: this is not an ad, these people have not paid me in anyway. IN fact, I am paying them. Nor have I reached out to them about this post ahead of time, because of the aforementioned “too busy to do my day job” schedule. So maybe I get asked to take this down, maybe not.  Until it does, let’s talk about Universal Yums.

A Universal Solvent

Universal Yums is a company I learned of through Facebook ads, so if you’re NOT interested in the product, I apologize if this link crams it onto your feed for the next weeks, like it did with me. The basic concept of the product is pretty simple: every month, the company ships you a box of snacks from a specific country. You can get three different tiers of boxes, and the second and third offer a sort of info packet

This ISN’T the info packet, but it is a nice little info insert about French towns

This has a bunch of little trivia about the country, information about the snacks, as well as a suggested recipe from the country to try making at home.

And if you read that last sentence and DIDN’T understand why this product instantly appealed to me, then welcome! This must be one of your first times on the site, so let me introduce you to the blog, whose entire goal is telling people trivia, history, and how to make various foods in an effort to get people to try new things, connect with other cultures, and generally feel more confident in the kitchen. We’ve got a link on the top (on the far right, since someone asked that we make it more obvious) that connects to some of our more emblematic posts. But nothing stops you from forging on with us here and now.

This is an “adventures in” post, which means that it’s basically just a summation of my family’s experiences working through some multi-tiered process. Today, we tried 9 of the 12 snacks in the box. Why not all of them? Well, A, because 12 things is a lot to cover in one post (I may not even get to all 9 in this one) and B, because the three we didn’t try are all chip-like, and we had just had dinner. So this mostly covers the candies and sweets in the box this month. Let’s go!

Sables (Shortbread)

I don’t know half of what’s going on on this box.
And sometimes, my partial knowledge of French makes it MORE confusing, like “aux oeufs plein air” means “With eggs full air”. What the hell does that mean? Eggs filled with air? Whipped Eggs? (It turns out that “en plein air” is the French version of “free-range”)

The first thing we tried were some shortbread cookies, called sables in French, which means “sand”, after the fine texture of the flour and butter mixture used to make the cookies.

(It is worth noting at this juncture that, during dinner, everyone in the O’Guin household had “tied a few on”, as it were, and were all notably tired from a busy week. As such, we may come across a little punchy. I personally spoke relatively little in the immediate reviews, since I was writing it all down and reading the info and picking most of the order.)

Nate: This smells amazing.

Mom: This tastes more buttery than normal shortbread.

Nate: Hmm. I don’t know that I like the taste as much as the smell.

There’s definitely something to the taste of the cookie that makes it distinct from other shortbreads I’ve had. I know Europe has different standards for butter, so maybe that’s it. Texture-wise, it’s not “crumbling to pieces in my hands”, but it is very soft and tender.

Mom: It’s almost too much butter, in the cookie.

Nate: You’d have never survived in the (Paula) Dean household.

He looks at me, and we snort.

Jacquot Truffles

This had maybe the fanciest packaging in the box. It was also the LARGEST container in the box.

The info packet tells me a questionable story about Auguste Escoffier (who we’ve talked about before) inventing chocolate truffles by accident, which a quick Google search tells me is one of the predominant theories of their invention, so I guess I was wrong to doubt them.

When I opened the box, I immediately smelled…something. It’s a smell I associate with those chocolate liqueur bottles, and Christmas chocolate. I’ve never had a good name for it. Almost like alcohol, a little banana-like…

Nate: This smells like isopropyl. Like straight up rubbing alcohol.

Well, at least we’re in the same neighborhood. Nate licks the exterior, and curls his nose.

Within a few moments, we’ve all eaten our first one. It’s perfectly fine to me. Not amazing, but not bad. There is a bit of that continued, almost alcohol-vapor quality to it. Perhaps they’re used non-alkalized cocoa powder, which would be a little more acidic?

Nate: I still don’t really like it.

Mom: It’s not bad. There’s something…

Me: There is an added flavor. What do you think it is?

Mom: (with surprising certainty) Almonds.

Nate: Oh, yeah, now that she says it, I definitely get it. Tasted a little more like Cyanide than almonds to me.

Fraisoo Bool

I thought at first that the mascot was an apple, which would be a weird choice, given the name but I think it’s actually one of the pieces of candy themselves.

Nate: (Seeing the packaging) Ooh, Strawberries.

Nate took French for several years, while I studied Spanish. At multiple times through the evening, I attempted to pronounce a French word on a package, only for him to laugh at my feeble attempts. Though in my defense, several of them stumped him as well. The town name of Lheraule, for instance, seemed like gibberish to him. (Google suggests that the package failed to include an accent on the E)

I tear a corner off of the bag, and even at arm’s length, there is a definite strawberry smell. I pour some for Nate first.

Nate: These smell like strawberry yogurt.

I pour myself some as Nate eats.

Nate: These are fucking delicious. Like strawberry Mentos.

Me: The best kind of Mentos.

I stop to pour myself some and try them, which Nate takes as an opportunity to needle our mother. He’s right, they are remarkably like strawberry Mentos, though a touch more authentic tasting to me, like they used a strawberry extract instead of artificial strawberry flavor.

Nate: They’re so good. It’s a pity mom hasn’t gotten any. I bet she’d like them. I guess Jon and I will just eat them all.

I pour some into my mother’s hand, who immediately forgets to say anything ABOUT the food she’s eating, and becomes absorbed in the Korean drama she’s watching, adding nothing as Nate and I continue.

Nate: The flavor’s like a Mentos, but the texture’s a little chewier.

Me: There’s like, a floral bit to the flavor.

Nate: it’s kinda like-

Mom: (finally tuning in) It’s kinda like taffy.

In my opinion, it’s definitely the best so far.

Nate: So far, the truffle was the worst one.

Thus motivated, I immediately picked the second pack of chocolate truffles for the next option.

Truffle Bar

I wish I had taken pictures of the candies themselves, and not just the packaging, but I didn’t think of it until a couple of the snacks were completely eaten.
Luckily, if you go the Universal Yums facebook page (again, beware what it might do to your ads for a while), they have pictures of the stuff out of its packaging.

These truffles smell…darker than the other ones. An almost coffee-like note.

Nate: These already smell better.

Mom: Well, it’s clearly a different chocolate.

Nate: and a better cocoa powder, I bet.

We bite in.

Nate: This is fucking delicious.

Mom: Yeah, but it’s a darker chocolate, which you like.

Nate: it’s creamier, too. A better mouthfeel. It feels like Aero. (He turns to me) That’s a reference I’m sure a ton of your readers will get.

(Aero is an originally English chocolate, where the bar has a ton of tiny air pockets left in it. It’s a favorite chocolate bar of Nate’s, and I quite like it. They’re not impossible to find, but not particularly easy to find either. (at least in our area))

For the record, I agree with Nate. This is a delicious chocolate. Darker than the first one, and smoother.

Also for the record, and hopefully neither Nate or my mother read this, but it was at this point that I realized that I had sat on literally the softest of the snacks without knowing. Only a little. I resolved not to tell them.  

Mini Roll

This is a perfectly normal shape for pastry. Rolls are often Chisel-shaped.

I tore off the flattened third for myself, to atone for my sins, and split the other two thirds for them.

The flavor is pretty much exactly what you’d expect: it’s a moist white cake with raspberry jam spread in it. It tastes of butter and raspberry. I like it well enough for a fancy version of like, a Swiss Roll. Wait, no, Swiss Rolls are the Chocolate ones. Jelly Rolls? Whatever the Little Debbie thing is called. (Editor: it’s a “Strawberry Shortcake Roll”, but the broader item is called a Jelly Roll, so late-night Jon was pretty right.)

Mom: This is weird.

At this point, mother decided to fast-forward through the villain of the drama she’s been watching explaining his backstory, because the way she watches her dramas is an assault on reasonable storytelling and narrative structure. Just any scene that she doesn’t think will be good within a couple seconds, she fast-forwards through. She will then, later, note that, when she goes back and watches the scenes she skipped, that she ‘gets’ a lot more of the story. One is rarely handed such a perfect example of irony.

Nate: It’s kinda like a Fig-Newton/Twinkie. The flavor is nice, but the texture’s a little meh for me.

And since we’re going long, I’ll wrap up today’s post with one last one, splitting the two halves of the post into 6 and 6.  

Tête Brulées Gout Cola

I’m about to compare these to Warheads, and let me tell you, branding-wise, they are almost CLONES.

Tête Brulées are a sour candy company from France. The name translates to “Burnt Heads”, and they’re functionally like the American Warheads candies…kind of. The big difference that I’ve encountered so far is that the French Tête are texturally more like the aforementioned Mentos while Warheads are predominantly a hard candy. They’ve got a bunch of pretty standard flavors, and then this one: Cola. As in “Pepsi” or “Coca”. Apparently, Sour Cola is a more popular flavor in France than in America. (Though, maybe this is just a small sample size working against me: we DO have sour cola candy in America, so maybe it’s just this one company.)

Nate: I know you asked me to wait, but I’m ignoring you. Also, Mom, Jon warned me about these. Apparently, these are sour cola candies.

Specifically, these are Sour Cola bars, not unlike slightly smoother, smaller Airheads. Nate and I take respectable bites out of our bars, while mother nibbles at hers.

Nate: Hmm. You know, the sour almost feels like a carbonations effect, and it- Ooh, wow, it gets pretty intense as you chew it more.

Me: Yeah, this is a real interesting flavor.

Nate: I actually quite like it.

And this is where we’ll leave you all waiting, since it took our mother at least 5 minutes to eat a 2-bite piece of candy. So you can experience the same delay in satisfaction that we had.

Maybe we’ll pick it up next week, maybe we’ll hit it later. Let me know if you guys like this, as, barring any kind of legal trouble, I’ve subscribed to keep getting boxes, so I could make this a recurring “here’s some interesting foreign snacks we tried this month” segment on the site (definitely edited with either shorter descriptions or trimming snacks out, since eating up 2 posts a month on one topic would be pretty limiting, unless we moved it to like, a once-a-month off-schedule post or something.).  Or we could move it out of the blog proper to a monthly Facebook post, we’ve got options, and I’m excited for next month’s box already.

MONDAY: JON BREAKS BREAD, AND MAYBE SPREADS SPUDS, AS WE UNEXPECTEDLY MADE MARCH SOMETHING OF A THEMED MONTH AROUND ST PADDY’S DAY.  

THURSDAY: MAYBE THE FOLLOW-UP TO THIS, OR MAYBE I’LL BINGE ALL FOUR EPISODES OF SEASON 2 OF UGLY DELCIOUS, AND TELL YOU IF I LIKED IT AS MUCH AS SEASON 1.