Munchies Part Deux: Malt Loaf

Recently, during a rare foray into the supermarket, I decided that as well as the obligatory fags and booze, I needed - or rather Lovely Girlfriend and I needed - some kind of filling yet easy to eat and sweet foodstuff for later in the evening.

So I bought a malt loaf.

All evening I looked forward to the malt loaf. Although I was busy making every effort to destroy brain cells, I could not wipe out the desire. I yearned for it. Every inch of my body was tantalised, taut, on edge, waiting for the...

Sorry, I must apologise, I got a little carried away and forgot I was writing a blog rather than Fiesta's Reader's Stories page. On with the crucial bit.

The malt loaf was presliced.

Presliced. Already sliced, sliced in the packet, sliced and ready to apply butter to, with no slicing required.

"A benefit", you may say.

No. Preslicing causes the crusts to dry out and the edges of the sliced section to dry out. Dry so no amount of butter will revive it. I'd like to say I was disappointed, and indeed I was, but more, I was upset that the familiar gooey, sticky, sweet, but nonetheless filling, and in theory at least not too unhealthy, snack was not how it should be.

But its not just the dryness. It's the thickness too. EVERYBODY knows that the crusty bits at the end should be cut thickly (then piled high with butter, of course). While the rest of the slices should be cut at random thicknesses so there is variety. In the presliced version, each slice is cut the same, no doubt to micrometer precision. Dull, predictable and PLAIN WRONG.

Tonight we have eaten proper, normal malt loaf. Lovely Girlfriend has sliced it up herself. Into totally random thicknesses. Each slice is moist and feels fantastic to bite into, each mouthful a delight.

All of which is good. But doesn't help Lovely Girlfriend remember the name of those chocolate button type things in packets of Revels but which weren't chocolate buttons. Or Minstrels.

Munchies

I must apologise yet again for the lack of recent blogs. The more regular observer may assume this is down to Lovely Girlfriend, the less regular to sheer idleness. However none of these are the reason. The real reason is that I have been researching my subject. And that research has taken some time.

Snack foods. Those convenient bags or similar small packages of nutritionally pointless food. Around this time last month I, together with Lovely Girlfriend, felt a little peckish, and decided that the only reasonable course of action was to consume a packet of Frazzles each.

Frazzles (and not, as Lovely Girlfriend has just pointed out, Razzles - an entirely different form of sensory stimulation) are a corn based snack which looks (or looked...) a bit like a rasher of bacon. I'd really, really like to say tasted like a rasher of bacon as well. But I can't.

Anyway, we noticed the following: Frazzles are no longer as pink. The "rasher" effect is far more stylised and, frankly, crap. They taste perhaps almost less of bacon, too. And finally they are far more puffed up and much cornier. All in all quite a disappointment to the bacon flavoured snack connoissieur.

But that's not all. The following snacks have deteriorated over the years:

Milky Way: the middle bit has changed colour and taste (according to Lovely Girlfriend. I must admit I couldn't quite see it myself.)
Wagon Wheels: they have taken the jam out (except in the now "special" Jammy Wagon Wheels), they've shrunk, and most importantly of all, the marsh mallow layer is now pointlessly thin.
Walkers Roast Chicken Crisps: Don't taste like they used to.
Revels: Still quite similar but Lovely Girlfriend reckons the round flat chocolate disks without the coating (ie NOT Minstrels) used to be available in bags on their own, but don't seem to be any more. And if anybody says "Cadburys Buttons", say it very quietly.

There are, no doubt, many many other snack foods which have been altered over the years, probably by some masochistic "product development manager" who just wants to ruin our chances of remembering some small but pleasant part of our childhood, but the one which I am most upset by, the one which I reserve my most vitreous vitriol has to be Hula Hoops. They still seem to taste exactly the same. But they have shrunk. When I was 18 I could fit Hula Hoops onto the end of all of my fingers. Almost. Now, there is no chance. My fingers haven't grown, so Hula Hoops must have shrunk. Terrible. It's almost upsetting enough to make me want to comfort eat...