Milkybar Wowsomes

Tags

2010s, Food, Ireland, milk, Milkybar, Nestle, no sweeteners, oat cereal, reduced sugar, structured sugar formula, UK, Wowsomes

Milkybar Wowsomes (Nestle, 2018)

Nestlé unveiled Milkybar Wowsomes, the first chocolate using Nestlé’s new structured sugar to reduce sugar by 30% versus comparable bars. It was only available in the UK and Ireland.

Milkybar Wowsomes achieved the sugar reduction using only natural ingredients and with no sweeteners. It has milk as the main ingredient and contained crispy oat cereal and is a source of fiber.

Researchers at Nestlé changed the structure of sugar using only natural ingredients. They created an aerated, porous sugar that dissolved more quickly in the mouth. This allowed someone to perceive the same sweetness as before while consuming less sugar.

Advertisement

Bubble Beeper Bubble Gum

Tags

beeper container, Bubble Beeper, bubble gum, Food, message wrappers, neon colored

Bubble Beeper Bubble Gum (1990s)

For a bona fide candy controversy, look no further than Bubble Beepers. Another must-have for kids of the 1990s (yes, gum was big then), the neon-colored sticks of gum came in a container shaped like a beeper — another of the decade’s big trends.

It was the packaging that was an issue for many people, including a former DEA agent who was quoted in the Philadelphia Daily News in 1992 as saying, “What if it’s misinterpreted, and this kid goes through someone’s turf wearing that beeper, and they misinterpret that beeper? It could possibly cause someone to lose their life or get hurt…To me, it’s similar to carrying a toy gun. If it looks real, you may have to pay the consequences.”

Ghost Dots

Tags

cherry, Food, Ghost Dots, lemon, lime, orange, Tootsie Roll, translucent green

Ghost Dots

When Dots, a brand of gumdrops marketed by Tootsie Roll, decided to get on board with Halloween 2006, the result was Ghost Dots. They weren’t all that groundbreaking — they maintained the original Dots flavors, like cherry, lemon, lime and orange, but were all the same pale translucent green color, meaning you didn’t know what you were eating until it was in your mouth.

Just like regular Dots, but green, then.

Official All Star Cafe

Tags

1990s, AMC, Food, merchandise, Official All Star Cafe, Planet Hollywood, restaurant, sports theme, stadium cuisine

All Star Cafe (1990s)

The Official All Star Cafe was a chain of sports themed restaurants developed by Planet Hollywood. Planet Hollywood recruited Wayne Gretzky, Joe Montana, Shaquille O’Neal, Ken Griffey, Jr., Andre Agassi, and Monica Seles to invest in the concept. Restaurants featured “stadium cuisine” and sales of professional sports merchandise and souvenirs.

The chain’s first location opened on December 18, 1995, at Times Square in New York City. Two more locations opened the next year in Cancun and at the Showcase Mall on the Las Vegas Strip.

Planet Hollywood International announced on September 25, 1997, the formation of a joint venture for an Official All Star Hotel.

With theme restaurants’ novelty wearing off and Planet Hollywood’s reorganizing by December 1998, Planet placed the chain up for sale. Also, the plans for a Chicago location were canceled.

From 1997 until 2001, Official All Star Cafe locations also were to be operated alongside Planet Movies by AMC entertainment complexes at select locations in the United States. An Official All Star Cafe was also located at Disney’s Wide World of Sports Complex in 1997, its opening year.

With its parent company’s first bankruptcy filing of October 11, 1999, one location was closed, leaving nine corporate locations. In February 2000 after exiting bankruptcy, Disney offered to purchase the location at its sports complex. The last Official All Star Cafe, the one at Disney’s Wide World of Sports, closed on September 23, 2007.

Crown Shaped Nuggets

Tags

Burger King, Crown Shaped Nuggets, fast food, Food, limited edition, online petition

Crown Shaped Nuggets (Burger King, 2000s)

Crown-shaped nuggets are exactly what they sound like. We don’t have to like things for logical reasons, OK? But if you need to analyze it, eating crown-shaped nuggets was the socially acceptable version of wearing the Burger King crown on your birthday as a kid, and don’t we all still deserve that feeling? They were available from 2006 to 2011 and are survived only by a very sincerely written petition seeking to “bring awareness” about returning these nuggets to the throne.

Couscous

Tags

cereal, couscous, Food, North Africa, semolina, UNESCO

Couscous (North Africa)

In the North African nations of Algeria, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia, people understand couscous better than most. The dish originated here, and in 2020, UNESCO recognized not only the dish itself, but also the knowledge associated with how couscous is produced.

Couscous is a cereal, thus the process starts with a seed. The semolina that’s grown and harvested is rolled by hand to form those tiny rounded balls. It’s then steamed and finally cooked. Each of the four countries listed has a slightly different way of preparing and eating couscous, but one thing they all have in common is the ceremonial nature of the processes involved, which are transmitted down from parents to their children through observation.

There are special tools involved with making couscous too, including clay and wooden instruments that are manufactured by specialized artisans. The final stage in the couscous lifecycle – eating! – is also linked to important social and cultural practices. Traditionally shared from a large pot between family members and friends, couscous is a symbol for togetherness.

Try it for yourself: It’s hard to avoid couscous when traveling through North Africa – it’s a staple dish on almost every restaurant menu. Tagines are a particularly popular dish containing couscous. For an up-close look at how couscous is prepared, try enrolling in a workshop at a culinary school. Marrakesh is a popular place to take a short cooking class and learn the intricacies of this beautiful dish.

Ceebu Jen

Tags

bolus, bread, ceebu jen, fish, Food, hands, onions, passed down, rice, Saint-Louis Island, seasonal vegetables, Senegal, terranga, thieboudienne, tomatoes, variations

Ceebu Jen (Senegal)

Ceebu jën (Thieboudienne) is the national dish of Senegal in West Africa. The recipe originated in fishing villages on Saint-Louis Island and is today eaten across the country and in other nations in the region, including Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Mauritania, and The Gambia.

Ceebu jë recipes are passed down from mother to daughter. Every region and community puts a different spin on the dish, but the essential ingredients include fish, broken rice, tomatoes, onions, and other seasonal vegetables. Higher quality fish and finer vegetables are used for special occasions or when a family is preparing ceebu jë for guests.

At home, the dish is served in one large bowl (a bolus) and eaten with one’s hands or using a piece of bread to scoop up the rice. Ceebu jë is widely considered to be a symbol of Senegalese terranga (hospitality).

Try it for yourself: If you’re lucky enough to be invited into a Senegalese household to share a bowl of ceebu jë, remember that there are certain customs and etiquettes associated with eating the dish – for example, you must hold the bowl with your left hand and use your right hand for eating. Variations of fish, meat and chicken ceebu jë are widely available at restaurants in Dakar and across the country.

Chocolate Mousse

Tags

Chocolate Mousse, foam, Food, France

Chocolate Mousse (France)

An airy confection made with just a handful of ingredients, chocolate mousse is a delicious paradox: the richer it is, the lighter it seems. Gallic chefs have been whipping up chocolate mousse — the word means “foam” in French — for at least a few hundred years, but the quest for foamy chocolate is much older.

Among the Olmec, Maya and Aztec peoples who consumed chocolate long before contact with Europeans, a hefty layer of foam was considered the height of good taste, and ancient codices depict cooks pouring chocolate from several feet in the air to create a froth.

Cendol

Tags

beverage, caramelized, Cendol, coconut milk, dessert, Food, palm sugar syrup, pandan juice, Singapore, smoky

Cendol (Singapore)

On afternoons in Singapore, locals cool off with this chilled and silky sweet concoction, which is a favorite at seaside restaurants and sidewalk stands. Iced coconut milk is sweetened with a palm sugar syrup, which lends it a lightly smoky, caramelized flavor.

The rich liquid is a lush base for tender threads of green rice-flour jelly, which gets its vivid color from the pandan juice that’s extracted from leaves of the tropical screw pine.

Versions of this blissfully cool dessert can be found throughout southeast Asia, but with the addition of a scoop of sweetened red beans, Singapore’s take on the classic treat remains especially tempting.

Mopane Worm

Tags

chili sauce, dried, Food, Mopane worm, rehydrated, smoked, Southern Africa, tomato sauce

Mopane Worm (Southern Africa)

A big fat, juicy worm that’s said to be full of meat. Although traditionally dried or smoked to preserve, they are usually re-hydrated and cooked with tomato or chilli sauce to flavour. According to an American couple who tried the dish on the Food Network, it tastes like honey barbequed chicken.