Netherlands

This month’s box of goodies from Universal Yums featured snacks from the Netherlands.  

There was only one item in the box I disliked and a couple of them I was meh about but I happened to start off with what turned out to be my favorite.

The Choco Stroopwafels is a delicious caramel and cookie combo wrapped in chocolaty goodness.  You can see the caramel trying to escape from the chocolate prison but the only place it went was in my belly.  Nice start to the box. 

My second favorite was a box of cookies.

These rectangular spice cookies reminded me of windmill cookies I used to buy at a bakery outlet back in the 80s.  I think you can still find them in stores.  The taste was not quite gingerbread but definitely cinnamon spiced and maybe something else.  The texture was a bit crumbly and they are topped with sliced peanuts and very light glaze.  These rivaled the stroopwafels when paired with a good strong cup of coffee.

For the most unusual I’m going to say it was the truck gummies.

These little trucks came in three different styles and colors and each one had a different flavor and texture.  The light brown ones were the least “gummy” and broke down quickly as you chewed them.  The flavor like licorice with a heavy dose of brown sugar or molasses.  The medium brown were like a combo of caramel, licorice and a hint of milk with a more gummy texture.  I know that sounds weird but they weren’t bad.  The dark trucks were the most stretchy and chewy of the lot and tasted most of licorice but also caramel mixed in. 

As odd as the trucks might sound the truly oddest also qualified for the worst of the lot.

From the bag of candies came the Napoleon Zwart-Wit in the top right of the photo.  This little nugget of nastiness was supposed to taste like licorice with a salty filling.  Now I like licorice a lot and I’ve tried some salted styles from Denmark that I quite enjoyed but even salt couldn’t save these balls of bad.  It tasted faintly of licorice with an ammonia aftertaste which was off putting to say the least.  Turns out ammonium chloride is an ingredient.  I’m game though and stuck with it until the hard shell melted enough for the salt kick in.  That did dampen the ammonia a bit but the overall taste experience was like sucking on some kind of caustic cleaning product.  These were the Waterloo of the Netherlands box.  Just in case you thought I was on the fence these were disgusting.

I did want to go ahead and mention a couple of the others because they were good or at least interesting.

The pink Cadillacs were fruit gummies that tasted pretty good but I could only sit there hearing Aretha Franklin Freeway of Love song in my head the whole time I was eating them.  They came in strawberry, cherry and black currant.

The Roka Cheddar & Raspberry cheese crispies were worth a mention two because they had some of the best cheddar taste I’ve had in a cracker.  The texture of these were like a pastry dough that had been sliced thick and back with the cheddar and the little dried raspberry bits scattered in for a surprise sweet taste every now and then.  

Overall the box was 75% good, 17% meh and 8% yucky.  That’s a win percentage I can live with.  Decembers box is going to be a holiday box with several countries represented and I’m looking forward to it.