Curly Wurly

Delicious milk chocolate with a caramel centre, produced by one of the UK's leading manufacturers of confectionery - Cadbury Limited. The curly wurly is long and thin with a vaguely pretzel-like shape: imagine two long railway-lines of chewy caramel with a zig-zag crossing from one track to the other and you've pretty much got the basic idea. Furthermore, imagine a delicious coating of creamy milk chocolate and you're probably wanting one already.

The curly wurly, of course, has suffered slightly over the years, mainly due to nostalgia. The one I've just opened is around twenty centimetres long and three centimetres across. It might just be that my hands and mouth are bigger nowadays, but I'm sure that the average curly wurly was a good ten centimetres longer a couple of decades ago. And the shape - at one time they really were curly and, well... wurly, too. There was none of this zig-zag-railway-track business; there were shapes lurking in the caramel that were so weird and unearthly they would have grown men quaking with fear. There was, undoubtedly, something almost Lovecraftian about that innocent bar of sugary indulgence. Certainly the wrapper has changed; the public likes things fresh nowadays, and apparently wrapping everything in shiny plastic foil is the way to achieve this. The old waxy white paper has gone, and the curly wurly now comes resplendent in its own bubble-lettered wrapper with a rather pretty drop shadow and some swirly spirals in the background. Not that the wrapper matters; it's what's inside you really want...

But while we're discussing the wrapper, we must acknowledge the inevitable dilemma. Is it really curly wurly? There is no gap on the wrapper, thus one might assume it to be a curlywurly. However, Cadbury's own website uses the space, and anyway, you'd probably rather know more about the sweet itself than worry about a space. Speaking of Cadbury's website, a nice man called Charlie took the trouble to respond to my rather strange email ("Hey, Charlie - we've got another curly wurly obsessive here..."), and I can now share with authority that Curly Wurly has been made since at least the early 70s, has always been between twenty-five and thirty-grams, and the pattern is made in exactly the same way it's always been. This either hints at a dread conspiracy to delude the curly wurly enjoying public, or proves once and for all that the sweets you loved as a child really were exactly the same as they are now; you just remember them being three times as long and a lot more chewy.

Regardless, nowadays the Curly Wurly weighs precisely twenty-six grams, of which sixty-nine percent is soft, chewy caramel. That's glucose syrup, sweetened condensed skimmed milk, sugar, hydrogenated vegetable oil, dried whey, some emulsifiers, soya lecithin and E471, along with a bit of salt and some mysterious flavourings. Mmm! E471, by the way, is glyceryl monostearate and glyceryl distearate, but it's okay - they're just more emulsifiers and apparently a perfectly normal part of digestion anyway. (Note: If I told you height of the bar is approximately five millimetres you could even work out the density of the caramel. If you find yourself wanting to do that, seek professional help.)

The rest of it, of course, is chocolate. Lovely chocolate, with fourteen percent milk solids, and an unspecified quantity of cocoa solids. And, in the twenty seconds it takes you to bite and chew you'll be pleased to hear that the delightful sum of 115 calories will become yours. Frankly, it's worth it.

Parma Violets

(i) The Flower

Parma violets belong to the more exotic branch of the violet family. First appearing in Italy, in the 16th century, most types of parma violets sport lavender flowers of varying sizes. The d'Udine, for example, features large, bluish-lavender flowers and a strong perfume, whereas the Neapolitandisplays much paler flowers, although very rarely - it seems to be far more fussy about its living conditions.
There is, also, a single variety of white parma: the Comte De Brazza. Hardy, and with a sweetly delicate perfume, the Comte produces pure white blooms, which in some climates, produce pale blue tips when they are exposed to plenty of good, strong spring sunlight.

The origins of the parma violet are a source of some mystique. First imported into Naples a certain Count Brazza took the plant to Udine in the latter part of the 19th century. There are no records of his work, though it is widely believed that he made deliberate crossings to produce at least two varieties of parma. One of these is still available, whereas the other one is romantically believed to languish in some forgotten back garden somewhere, just waiting to be rediscovered.

Parma violets are widely believed to be sterile, and there is much store laid by their reproduction through cuttings. Armand Millet, French violet grower, proved this belief to be a myth, however, and with the right conditions any sturdy and content violet could well produce a seed pod.

(ii) The Sweet

The delicate purple flowers of the parma violet plant also give their name to a delicate, violet-scented sweet. Parma Violets, manufactured by Swizzels Matlow for decades, come in a cellophane roll. Delicately scented and flavoured, the sweets are a cheaper version of the traditional cachou. Though their taste is, apparently, an acquired one, Parma Violets are undeniably popular; they are aimed squarely at kids, despite their peculiar flavour, although the occasional offer of a trip down memory lane must sell a few packets to more than one wistful grown up. As well as their original, diminutive form, Parma Violets are also available as a 'giant' roll, just for those of us who can't get enough of their chalky-yet-fragrant perfection.

Turbo Truffles

"Turbo Truffles are the original and best tasting caffeinated chocolates on the planet! Supercharged with caffeine and maximum flavor! Better than duct taping your eyes open, Turbo Truffles will ready you for anything that comes your way."

Or so the marketing says. What we have here is a 'gourmet supercharged chocolate truffle' that 'tastes like after-dinner candy', the Turbo Truffle is part of the trend for caffeine or guarana laced products which saturate the market at present. Everyone wants more energy for less effort, and a quick glance through ThinkGeek's special category devoted to caffeinated products is a mind-boggling experience. From penguin mints to a re-energizing soap, you can enjoy caffeine in an amazing range of ways - smearing it on yourself, frantically rubbing caffeinated lip balm into your mucous membranes or, if you want to be boring, plain old ingestion.

Why? Marketing for these products tends to focus around key words and phrases. Energy boost, kick, fizz and buzz. Realistically, what actually happens? Well, caffeine is absorbed by the stomach and small intestine and alters the process by which your brain absorbs adenosine. The result is increased blood flow, increased blood sugar, dilated pupils and an increase in heart rate. Add an increase of dopamine levels in the brain, and yes, there's a bit of a boost going on somewhere; something of a caffeine rush. Thinking practically, are you going to notice it? Is the dose of caffeine in one small Turbo Truffle going to shift you into some higher plane of consciousness? Just how much caffeine is there in a Turbo Truffle and what is it going to do?

Well, each truffle contains 150mg of caffeine. That's about the same as three cans of coke, a little more than a cup of freshly-brewed coffee and approximately a third more than a mug of instant. If you're a fan of Excedrin and follow the instructions rigorously, then each of these Turbo Truffle chaps clocks in at two Excedrin tablets, but without the painkilling portion. No DoZ users will find they need to munch one and a half tablets for the same effect, while those of us in the UK will be disappointed to find out that the weak and puny Pro Plus tablet contains only a third of a Turbo Truffle. (This, incidentally, goes some way to explaining why munching Pro Plus by the handful seems to have almost no effect.)

Are they safe? Since the LD50 for caffeine is around 10g, you'd have to munch down about sixty truffles to get close, and at $16.95 for fifty of them, your wallet's likely to be complaining long before your nervous system even gets round to noticing. A recent review noted, however, that the kick comes pretty hard and pretty fast, and you're unlikely to want to eat two. Looks like fifty of them could last you a goodly while.

Taste-wise, Turbo Truffles generally come up trumps, although the review for 'Hot Rod Hazelnut' seems less than complimentary - "What the hell did I just eat? I know it says hazelnut, but that wasn't hazelnut..." If you've tried them, you'll undoubtedly have your own favourite flavour; if you haven't tried them, just be sure to avoid the hazelnut. There are eight different varieties, all ridiculously-named: Cosmic Coconut, Coffee Craze, Hot Rod Hazelnut, Chocolate Mint Madness, Outrageous Orange, Peanut Butter Blast, Racing Raspberry and Toffee Tornado. You can also, if you're unable to make up your mind, order a mixed bag and let God play dice with your chocolate selection.