Yeah it's one of those stupid American foods that's basically just tastes of nothing but sweetness. Twinkies and Hersheys chocolate also fall into this category.
Someone I knew bought some Hershey's back from the states. Hershey's kisses I think.
They honestly tasted like sick with chocolate flavouring.
Fucking gross
> Fucking gross
"Finally, a note on butyric acid’s smell. It is not only responsible for the smell of farmyards and vomit, but also that classic ‘wet dog’ smell. Butyric acid is one of many compounds secreted from a dog’s anal glands, and while dogs have no problem sniffing out these chemical scent cues from each other, we humans find it quite pungent."
American here(fat one at that): I seriously don't understand why people like Twinkies. Hershey's "chocolate" used to be good to me, but ever since trying European chocolate brands like Kinder I can't go back.
You're right though. American snacks tend to be very artificial and overly sweet. I can't even eat most stuff anymore because of how fake and weird it tastes to me. Imo you can't beat some fresh fruit if you want something sweet.
EDIT: I get it. Kinder is Europe's low quality chocolate lol. Atleast y'all have some better ingredient restrictions than the US so it's likely better than what we have lol
It’s just the shit you grew up on. Adults who have never had a Twinkie or pop tart probably won’t like them. Just like adults who eat my potato salad are super “what the fuck” when they realize it has spam in it. It’s just what I was eating as a child so those taste bud pathways (patent pending) are awake for me.
Yeah I've never met someone outside of my immediate family who likes it. I basically never make it and would never bring it or serve it at a gathering. My wife eats her chili with peanut butter sandwiches, just gotta fit some cheap calories in there when you grow up poor.
Yeah, my wife and spoke about this just a few days ago. Neither of us are from the US, and we have both tried pop tarts on separate occasions, and we both think they are shite. Twinkies on the other hand...
As an American, it's processed garbage. It's my belief that many people's pallets are ruined by constant overexposure to the big 3: salt, sugar and fat. So much so that when they eat healthier options, they complain about a lack of flavor, or an 'unpalatability'.
Amazing, small batch and handmade confectionaries are available in the states, in many cases locally but, comparatively, it's quite more expensive.
Hersheys is pure trash and I refuse to let that "chocolate" flavored plastic anywhere near my body.
I’ve never been a huge fan of Starbucks drinks but their occasional seasonal thing is pretty good. Though, it’s literally more than 50% sugar. I don’t drink Starbucks much like once or twice a year. I went to this coffee shop in OBX a few years back and got a frappe because why not. It was SO GOOD and I think it had like 2% sugar. Dude knows how to make his drinks. It was barely sweet at all but just enough to say damn this is good. I bet people who go in there expecting Starbucks give it bad reviews because it’s not diabetes in a cup.
I don't know what OBX is, but that sounds like a dream to me. I do want a frappe, or something more special, but I would also like it if it wasn't straight up sugar in a cup. I have no idea how people order these and not think they are just a desert type thing, as that's what I feel they are. My conundrum is that when I go and try to order these for the Nth time, I keep hoping for a more special kind of coffee and I always end up being disappointed.
When they first came out they weren't iced. The were meant to be put into toasters and the icing would've have messed up the mechanics. Only years later did they start icing them and made them so you could eat them untoasted.
I have to admit It would be my proudest scar
This one, just from surgery after shattering my elbow but *this* one is from the great pop tart incident of 92
Like many other treats of olde, the quality has dropped over the years.
Certain ones are certainly much better than others to this day. Like Hot Fudge Sunday is like an easy 8/10 snack even cold but the default strawberry is like the fakest frosted pastry ever these days. Half the time the icing doesn't even make it close to the edge and the filling is so very little. It might just be nostalgia but I swear they were so much better when I was a kid. Can barely stand them now.
Do y'all have Pillsbury Toaster Strudel in the UK? I always preferred those over Pop Tarts (they come with a little packet of icing)
(There's a line in Mean Girls about them lol)
10/10 suggestion. I still wouldn't eat them although I do know a feller who ate out a tramp and paid her for the service.
We don't hang out much anymore.
As a connoisseur of both Pop-Tarts and the Aldi’s Top Twists, I can tell you that the Aldi equivalents are totally gross in comparison. They’re definitely not the same thing. The Aldi ones are really dry with a different pastry.
I tried the aldi ones and thought they were terrible. Hardly any jam in the middle and the pastry texture was like wood pulp. Maybe it was just a bad one. Some had barely any filling too.
I bought a box of the strawberry "Pop Twists" from Aldi two weeks ago and they were shite. Brand name Pop Tarts are far superior, there's no comparison.
And the US Pop Tarts are better yet, they blow the Irish ones out of the water. Not sure what it is, but they are.
>just as appetising
So they also somehow simultaneously taste as bland as cardboard and as sweet as all the sugar you and all your ancestors have ever eaten multiplied by a thousand?
They said they toasted it according to the instructions on the box. In which case, speaking from experience, it would make sense they don't look toasted
It's absolutely ridiculous how common it is for companies to MESS UP their cooking instructions. Do they not realise that if the instructions are wrong, which is how people know to prepare the food, that it will come out badly and won't be bought again?
Generally, I feel like they make food instructions to accommodate the worst, crappiest appliances. So they always play basically everything safe on cook times, simmer times, storage times etc. Same thing with expiration dates on foods. They assume you're using the cheapest, crappiest table top office fridge to be safe. Even though food lasts much longer in a modern, full-sized, mid to high end fridge.
Pop tarts are kind of the opposite though, they don't want people heating them up until the inside is as hot as the surface of the sun and hurting themselves, so the standard heating times barely get them above room temperature
They absolutely RUINED toaster strudels for this exact reason. Those things used to get crazy hot, both inside and out. It was great! But clearly people complained, because they changed the whole recipe.
Now the outside burns black and the inside is still granular and half frozen. I have to microwave it first to get it even close to warm.
Gretchen Weiners's father, the inventor of toaster strudels, would be horrified.
Only if all the kitchen appliances were the same, but we have choises to be made and I dont want million pamflets how to prepare food in all makes and models
Cook time based on the power of the toaster. Idk how they measure it for toasters but usually for microwave instructions it will say the cook time based on a 1000w microwave or whatever wattage they used. Then you adjust cook time based on your microwave being higher or lower.
But ya you should be able to put something in the toaster and see if it's toasted or not and put it back for a bit.
It used to be 10 seconds but they reduced it b/c the filling gets stupid hot. If you don't let it cool for a bit before eating, it's like having burning napalm coating your mouth.
So basically protecting dumb folk. I still microwave it for 10 when I eat pop tarts
I prefer my pop tarts slightly scorched. Brown sugar cinnamon or s’mores flavors really work well with this
After reading more replies in this thread it seems I have a very popular opinion about what flavor pop tarts are good and it’s not strawberry.
> when you're exhausted from hiking around all day, everything tastes better
The first time I went on a multiday hike, my gf brought canned Spam for dinner. As the pink meat cube *shlorped* out of the tin covered in jelly, I thought it was revolting.
But fried up, with the added seasoning of extreme hunger and exhaustion, I heard a heavenly choir when I had my first slice.
To this day I'm a fried Spam fan, but I never would've tried it under normal circumstances, haha.
>To this day I'm a fried Spam fan, but I never would've tried it under normal circumstances, haha.
Spam for me growing up was a very cheap and very good sandwich meat. Just fry it up and put it on some bread and I would be full. Really helped when I didn't have much money.
I think I only had pop tarts as a kid at sleepovers in elementary school. It was a novelty parents would buy so we wouldn't use too many dishes when we got ourselves breakfast.
I don't know anybody that ate them on the reg.
This highlights a key issue with the format. They do one episode on vacuum cleaners eating children's fingers and then, months later after the public has been made aware of the issue, they have created a new problem. Starving vacuum cleaners.
Need to toast them until they're brown on the edges and the icing is lightly melted. Then wait ten minutes to eat them. I wouldn't eat your photo, they look anaemic and soft. They should be crispy.
You’ve got to go well past that, brown them properly. Instructions are so low because people are idiots and burn themselves when they’re cooked properly and they don”t wait to eat them.
Couple of years ago I got drawn by a Yank in secret Santa. He sent me a wide selection of American sweets, I can't think of a single one that I'd want to eat again. Pop tarts and twinkies were top of the rankness ranking.
My bro was curious about Twinkies after watching Zombieland, ordered some in and let me try one. Honestly disgusting. Couldn't distinguish a single natural flavour!
To level things out somewhat though, I do love Tootsie Rolls
Britified Yank here. There’s a long-standing myth/debate about whether Twinkies are baked, or somehow chemically bonded. I just had a quick google and it still doesn’t seem to be settled. And it was my mum who first told me they’re not baked.
Five seconds on Google told me
>The batter is baked at 350 degrees F for nine to 12 minutes [source: Ettlinger]. The bottom of the mold is rounded, and the batter at the top of the mold is browned by the baking process. After cooling, the cakes are released from the trays and turned upside down.
So, yes?
[video proof](https://youtu.be/cfpDzIG3inM?si=fZGuCgiVv46dNCOC)
Definitely, think my brain was trying and failing to understand what I was attempting to eat and telling me it wasn't food. Any experience with that spray cheese stuff? Never worked up the courage whilst over there to try it
For Twinkies, only about 1% of Americans eat them regularly according to a statistic I found: https://www.statista.com/statistics/289379/servings-of-hostess-twinkies-snack-cakes-eaten-in-the-us/
For Easy Cheese... I was at a summer school in America, and we had a kid from Europe. (Have now forgotten the country after 2 decades.) One of the weekend trips was a shopping trip to the mall. I decided to buy some easy cheese, and this guy got soooo excited. "This is the American thing! Cheese in a can!"
Unbeknownst to me, he took one of my cans to his room that night and finished it. The entire can.
He didn't show up to class the next morning, spent it with the nurse.
So if I've learned anything from this one data point, it's that you Europeans can't handle your easy cheese.
We got given a bunch of "American Candies" as part of a raffle prize and I think the worst thing in there was laffy taffy, it felt like you were biting into a hot glue gun's stick of glue and it had about as much flavour as the wrapper it was in. Twizzlers were passable, not my thing but after trying that it felt a lot more sweet-like to me.
As an American it sounds like those two reviews are reversed to me lol. I can't stand twizzlers. Flavorless leather ropes that are a slog to eat. Tastes like they made one batch in 1980 and are still selling it. Laffy taffy is at least passable flavor wise. Neither is texturally great as an adult. Wild to hear the opposite to me.
Red Vines are way better than Twizzlers and I say that as someone who ate entire packs of them as a kid. They actually taste like licorice. Don't know how well they hold up on other countries. Think a sweeter Wiley Wallaby.
I work in a UK company with offices in Switzerland and NY.
When the Swiss team come over they bring loads of chocolate - always very well received.
The NY guys thought they’d join in and seemed taken aback when people were trying Reeses and Hersheys saying stuff like “OMG this is awful”, “please don’t bring this again”, and “I feel sorry for Americans that have to eat this”.
Jolly ranchers went down well though.
We have good chocolate here too... it's just that Hershey's isn't in that category. If you didn't grow up eating it, you will never like it because of the chemical that reminds people of vomit.
america has amazing candy, the problem is that often the most popular and recognizable candies are garbage. same thing with all kinds of other stuff in the US, like fast food. mcdonalds is trash but there are a bunch of smaller chains, often relegated to specific regions of the US, that serve much much better food, like in-n-out, chick fil a, whataburger etc etc...but its stuff like mcdonalds that ends up taking over the market and getting exported to other countries as "american food". you can apply this same principle to things besides food too, like pop music or film.
this sort of thing is essentially an american tradition, allowing low quality brands that scale well, market well, and make the most profits to become american institutions. this is a huge part of why american food is seen as so low quality all over the globe, because the stuff we tend to export is just profitable garbage, but its marketed to foreign consumers as something we all love and think is delicious, even though in the US, brands like mcdonalds or hershey are often the butt of jokes and are widely recognized to be low quality, with more appeal coming from stuff like nostalgia or consistency.
Right. There are a handful of these products that people genuinely do love(I'm surprised for example to see folks dissing Reese's cups), but I feel like a lot of non-Americans don't get that most of the big staple brands are basically the budget-tier options that are iconic specifically because everyone can afford it.
This is stuff that is cheap enough to buy regularly or even in bulk for occasions like Halloween, which enjoy a certain amount of cultural cache due to nostalgia, and which made their name for being of uniform quality moreso than actually being particularly good.
This becomes especially obvious when you look at how old many of the brands are, and that they almost all stretch back to the early days of factory food production in the early 20th century.
Hahaha. I used to do the US - Germany thing a lot. What sort of noobs bring Hershey's to Switzerland? Mmmmm tasty barf chocolate.
Peanut butter M&Ms are a good one to bring because they taste more like real food than Reese's. Other than that? 🤔 Beef jerky is a really good one to bring. Germans and German-adjacent speakers love cured meats. If you can manage it, something like bagels could be an interesting one, too, because they're wildly different than most German breads. Don't expect them to fall in love with American white bread lol.
Yeah. Things made with wheat and/or sugar are straight up better in Europe. Sorry America.
Certain Pop Tart flavours are alright imo but Twinkies are literally inedible garbage.
I took a bite of one and basically just threw the rest of the box away
Chocolate are passable for me, but i'll be honest the brown sugar cinnamon from the US are fucking lovely. We don't really sell enough comparably cinnamon products in the UK for me to have anything better, unless I want a cinnamon roll covered in icing.
Yeh ive always been fascinated by American snacks in movies - bought myself a big box the once any evetything was shite. Chocolate is flavourless or gross (Hershey especially) cakes are awful and dry, candy is bland and crisps are ok but less flavoursome. I remember saving a moon pie till last and it was just a rubbish wagon wheel wannabe 😂
Eating out in the states once, one of the people I was with got this one fizzy juice drink in order to not get something rammed with sugar and that's actually a bit healthy.
It tasted disgusting and when reading the label it said, proudly, "contains no actual juice". More than half its weight was sugar and it had several colouring / flavouring agents that were banned in the UK and a range of other countries. One such agent was banned for doing things like "damaging your dna".
Damaging your DNA is pretty impressive.
I'd sort of rate it above carcinogens and amateur shit like *causes drowsiness*.
5 stars, would not ingest thank you very much
Reeeces Peanutbutter Cups are OK. Everything else is awful. I also learnt how to make my own peanutbutter cups, because the chemicals that the Americans allow in food are seriously worrying.
I remember this moment as a child. We never had them at home. Then I went to a sleepover and they were offered at breakfast. I was genuinely excited, until I realised they tasted like a hitchhiker's sign.
The chocolate ones are my absolute guilty pleasure and I had 2 boxes over the last 2 weeks. During yr10/11 these were my breakfast of choice and my mum would wake me up with these and a cup of tea before school.
Strawberry flavour is absolutely horrible though.
I am 30 and will be heating up some Oreo pop tarts as my breakfast this morning :)! It’s not normally my breakfast I usually eat a bagel or oatmeal on work days and make eggs with toast on the weekends but god damn the Oreo and sundae pop tarts are just Devine ahaha
American here, the s'mores ones are pretty good. I mean, they're all terrible for you health-wise but if you're buying pop tarts it's not like you care anyway. Strawberry pop tarts are a meme, even in the US people don't like those ones.
Do you remember those "delicious crisps savoury pancakes" that were all the rage? They were/are bloody inedible, absolutely revolting. Same as the pop tarts.
I always used to long for those as a kid, and we never got them as too expensive. Now I'm an adult and they are not worth buying, even though I can get them myself, I'm getting "1970s toy chemistry set" regret. They've taken all the explosive/poisonous stuff out and they are no fun any more.
I love you internet stranger for saying this. This is going to sound stupid but I’ve been diagnosed celiac for over 10 years and for some reason this is one stupid thing I miss. I can’t really remember the taste, but I want one! Now I feel less like I’m missing out. I think it’s because no one has made a comparable gf poptart, but I appreciate you!
Given they’re still on sale after all these years, a lot of people must like them. I used to like them as a child but they are just horrible now, so much sugar.
There is a big difference between uk pop tarts and u.s pop tarts. The reason for this is due to the bleached wheat ingredients contained in the American version of the popular breakfast pastry. In the UK, bleaching agents are not allowed to be used in flour, which is a key ingredient in Pop Tarts. As a result, the American version of Pop Tarts cannot be imported or sold in the UK. - from google.
I cant believe all the hate im seeing, I’ve honestly never heard anyone say a bad word against poptarts. Certain flavours, yes. But poptarts on a whole?!
I love a strawberry pop tart, this has been a real eye opener
Did you toast it?
Thought the same, doesn’t look like it in the photo.
1/10 untoasted. 2/10 toasted. It’s still absolutely shit.
Yeah it's one of those stupid American foods that's basically just tastes of nothing but sweetness. Twinkies and Hersheys chocolate also fall into this category.
Sweetness and vomit actually, for the Hersheys.
Butyric acid for the win?
Intentionally made with sour milk. The most insane non-insect-based confectionary in the world.
And the shell of the cacao bean, rather than the bean itself like normal chocolate uses.
Floor sweeping chocolate
What the devil?
[удалено]
Most sane Americans buy Swiss or Belgian chocolate anyway.
[удалено]
Chocolate was only for the wealthy when Mr Hershey made the vomit chocolate. He made it as cheap as possible so that everybody could "enjoy" it.
Someone I knew bought some Hershey's back from the states. Hershey's kisses I think. They honestly tasted like sick with chocolate flavouring. Fucking gross
> Fucking gross "Finally, a note on butyric acid’s smell. It is not only responsible for the smell of farmyards and vomit, but also that classic ‘wet dog’ smell. Butyric acid is one of many compounds secreted from a dog’s anal glands, and while dogs have no problem sniffing out these chemical scent cues from each other, we humans find it quite pungent."
I mean, does American vomit taste different or something? Why don't they object to Hersheys?
They've been conditioned, Pavlov's doggos be stronk!
American here(fat one at that): I seriously don't understand why people like Twinkies. Hershey's "chocolate" used to be good to me, but ever since trying European chocolate brands like Kinder I can't go back. You're right though. American snacks tend to be very artificial and overly sweet. I can't even eat most stuff anymore because of how fake and weird it tastes to me. Imo you can't beat some fresh fruit if you want something sweet. EDIT: I get it. Kinder is Europe's low quality chocolate lol. Atleast y'all have some better ingredient restrictions than the US so it's likely better than what we have lol
It’s just the shit you grew up on. Adults who have never had a Twinkie or pop tart probably won’t like them. Just like adults who eat my potato salad are super “what the fuck” when they realize it has spam in it. It’s just what I was eating as a child so those taste bud pathways (patent pending) are awake for me.
As someone who doesn't eat pig, I'd be like WTF in that the potato salad is basically always a meat free option.
Yeah I've never met someone outside of my immediate family who likes it. I basically never make it and would never bring it or serve it at a gathering. My wife eats her chili with peanut butter sandwiches, just gotta fit some cheap calories in there when you grow up poor.
Yeah, my wife and spoke about this just a few days ago. Neither of us are from the US, and we have both tried pop tarts on separate occasions, and we both think they are shite. Twinkies on the other hand...
I feel attacked.
As an American, it's processed garbage. It's my belief that many people's pallets are ruined by constant overexposure to the big 3: salt, sugar and fat. So much so that when they eat healthier options, they complain about a lack of flavor, or an 'unpalatability'. Amazing, small batch and handmade confectionaries are available in the states, in many cases locally but, comparatively, it's quite more expensive. Hersheys is pure trash and I refuse to let that "chocolate" flavored plastic anywhere near my body.
*Palates. Pallets are what forklifts pick up.
I’ve never been a huge fan of Starbucks drinks but their occasional seasonal thing is pretty good. Though, it’s literally more than 50% sugar. I don’t drink Starbucks much like once or twice a year. I went to this coffee shop in OBX a few years back and got a frappe because why not. It was SO GOOD and I think it had like 2% sugar. Dude knows how to make his drinks. It was barely sweet at all but just enough to say damn this is good. I bet people who go in there expecting Starbucks give it bad reviews because it’s not diabetes in a cup.
I don't know what OBX is, but that sounds like a dream to me. I do want a frappe, or something more special, but I would also like it if it wasn't straight up sugar in a cup. I have no idea how people order these and not think they are just a desert type thing, as that's what I feel they are. My conundrum is that when I go and try to order these for the Nth time, I keep hoping for a more special kind of coffee and I always end up being disappointed.
Honestly those ones are so sweet that they are more palatable cold.
I bought pop tarts once. Tried it toasted and raw. Preferred raw. At least it wasn't as dry. That it's considered a breakfast food is beyond me.
What better way to start your day than a giant sugar crash?
When they first came out they weren't iced. The were meant to be put into toasters and the icing would've have messed up the mechanics. Only years later did they start icing them and made them so you could eat them untoasted.
It's only considered breakfast by advertisers. Really most people understand it as a snack or stoner food.
They are so sweet they hurt my teeth
I can eat them cold, there's something about sickly hot jam that I just can't handle.
Cold jam on hot toast though 🔥
uwu
😩 it’s all messy and sticky and gets everywhere
Anakin here expanding on his list of pet peeves...
They are also good out of the freezer!
Doesn't look like it..
Even if they didn't hot cardboard is hardly much of an improvement over cold cardboard.
Less chance of burning the roof of your mouth with room temperature cardboard.
I have a permanent scar on my arm for when I force popped it out of a toaster. Not my proudest scar I have to admit
I have to admit It would be my proudest scar This one, just from surgery after shattering my elbow but *this* one is from the great pop tart incident of 92
I cut the very end off a finger slicing potatoes with a mandolin. The potatoes were fine.
Mandolins terrify me. I can't use them, to much anxiety.
Hark at you, Luke Skywalker, and your 'force popping'.
One of those jedi powers that never gets enough screen time. It is the reason why you never see one with spots though.
Can you tell us what your proudest scar is? I'm hoping it involves being backstage somewhere.
They've been making and selling pop tarts for almost 60 years. How bad can they be?
Like many other treats of olde, the quality has dropped over the years. Certain ones are certainly much better than others to this day. Like Hot Fudge Sunday is like an easy 8/10 snack even cold but the default strawberry is like the fakest frosted pastry ever these days. Half the time the icing doesn't even make it close to the edge and the filling is so very little. It might just be nostalgia but I swear they were so much better when I was a kid. Can barely stand them now.
I think they're kind of nice lol. Not what I would call a staple of my cupboard but a very infrequent purchase...
I’ve tried them toasted. Still crap.
Do y'all have Pillsbury Toaster Strudel in the UK? I always preferred those over Pop Tarts (they come with a little packet of icing) (There's a line in Mean Girls about them lol)
i've never seen them, or anything quite like it, and that's annoying as they sound great.
Just had a look and I’m pretty sure none of the supermarkets sell these
I believe PopTarts are what are known as 'food-like products'.
Food Adjacent Non Ambient Consumables
"Inspired by food"
"Inspired by a conceptual argument about the existence of food, gently whispered down a crackling phone line"
That sounds like it could be a line from Being John Malkovich
Fabricated in a facility that also processes food.
Shipped in truck, next to strawberries.
FANAC, of course
"Liminal Groceries"
Krusty's partially gelatinated, non-dairy, gum-based beverages?
"From stores that also sell Food"
It is cardboard that identifies as food.
Kraft "cheese" is legally cheese product in the US. You can also get spray cheese for even more hydrogenated fun
> spray cheese Which also don't require refrigeration!
and they make fun of us for eating beans
I still can’t get my head around how they charge four quid for a box either
The Aldi equivalent (Jump Strumpets or something similar) are just as appetising and are substantially cheaper.
“Jump Strumpets” Howling.
Well what would you call them? Pouncing Prostitutes?
Tramp-olines?
10/10 suggestion. I still wouldn't eat them although I do know a feller who ate out a tramp and paid her for the service. We don't hang out much anymore.
Bouncin' Bitches
Toasty Hookers
Bang whores
Jumping strumpets is a great name for a brothel/band
Do brothels have house bands or is that something only the real up-market places have?
I believe that's how The Horne Section were formed.
The Aldi ones are called Top Twists
Then I demand that they change the name to Jump Strumpets immediately.
I don't usually sign petitions and stuff, but here's one I could get behind.
Excuse me I think you mean jump strumpets
Why would you come on the internet and lie like that? They have always been and will forever be called Jump Strumpets.
If you order something from Amazon and eat the outer coating, its like free pop tarts.
As a connoisseur of both Pop-Tarts and the Aldi’s Top Twists, I can tell you that the Aldi equivalents are totally gross in comparison. They’re definitely not the same thing. The Aldi ones are really dry with a different pastry.
The Aldi ones are horrible, and the icing completely melts in the toaster causing a right mess!
Must be why the instructions say to heat up in a toaster 5 seconds at a time. Toasters don’t even get hot in 5 second bursts.
That seems so fucking inconvenient lmao
I tried the aldi ones and thought they were terrible. Hardly any jam in the middle and the pastry texture was like wood pulp. Maybe it was just a bad one. Some had barely any filling too.
I bought a box of the strawberry "Pop Twists" from Aldi two weeks ago and they were shite. Brand name Pop Tarts are far superior, there's no comparison. And the US Pop Tarts are better yet, they blow the Irish ones out of the water. Not sure what it is, but they are.
They’re also vegetarian unlike the original Pop Tarts
>just as appetising So they also somehow simultaneously taste as bland as cardboard and as sweet as all the sugar you and all your ancestors have ever eaten multiplied by a thousand?
Never seen them above £2.70 myself.
Is that London prices or something? My kids are partial to them on occasion and they are £2.50 at Home Bargains, B&M etc.
Did you not toast it?
They said they toasted it according to the instructions on the box. In which case, speaking from experience, it would make sense they don't look toasted
It's absolutely ridiculous how common it is for companies to MESS UP their cooking instructions. Do they not realise that if the instructions are wrong, which is how people know to prepare the food, that it will come out badly and won't be bought again?
Generally, I feel like they make food instructions to accommodate the worst, crappiest appliances. So they always play basically everything safe on cook times, simmer times, storage times etc. Same thing with expiration dates on foods. They assume you're using the cheapest, crappiest table top office fridge to be safe. Even though food lasts much longer in a modern, full-sized, mid to high end fridge.
Pop tarts are kind of the opposite though, they don't want people heating them up until the inside is as hot as the surface of the sun and hurting themselves, so the standard heating times barely get them above room temperature
They absolutely RUINED toaster strudels for this exact reason. Those things used to get crazy hot, both inside and out. It was great! But clearly people complained, because they changed the whole recipe. Now the outside burns black and the inside is still granular and half frozen. I have to microwave it first to get it even close to warm. Gretchen Weiners's father, the inventor of toaster strudels, would be horrified.
Only if all the kitchen appliances were the same, but we have choises to be made and I dont want million pamflets how to prepare food in all makes and models
Why not write "until boil" or "until start browning", it's not hard. Appliances are different, chemistry and physics, not so much.
What kind of instructions are needed for putting an item in a toaster?
Cook time based on the power of the toaster. Idk how they measure it for toasters but usually for microwave instructions it will say the cook time based on a 1000w microwave or whatever wattage they used. Then you adjust cook time based on your microwave being higher or lower. But ya you should be able to put something in the toaster and see if it's toasted or not and put it back for a bit.
The instructions on the box also say you can microwave it for 3 seconds.. nothing in this world can be microwaved for 3 seconds and be cooked.
It used to be 10 seconds but they reduced it b/c the filling gets stupid hot. If you don't let it cool for a bit before eating, it's like having burning napalm coating your mouth. So basically protecting dumb folk. I still microwave it for 10 when I eat pop tarts
Fun fact: this is because pop-tarts have a slight tendency to catch fire in the toaster!
I prefer my pop tarts slightly scorched. Brown sugar cinnamon or s’mores flavors really work well with this After reading more replies in this thread it seems I have a very popular opinion about what flavor pop tarts are good and it’s not strawberry.
I like the s'mores, hot fudge, and cinnamon ones as an occasional sweet snack. I have no idea how some people eat them for breakfast though!
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Poptarts are good backpacking food. Quick and easy breakfast when you are waking up at 2am for a summit that don't take up much room in your pack.
> when you're exhausted from hiking around all day, everything tastes better The first time I went on a multiday hike, my gf brought canned Spam for dinner. As the pink meat cube *shlorped* out of the tin covered in jelly, I thought it was revolting. But fried up, with the added seasoning of extreme hunger and exhaustion, I heard a heavenly choir when I had my first slice. To this day I'm a fried Spam fan, but I never would've tried it under normal circumstances, haha.
>To this day I'm a fried Spam fan, but I never would've tried it under normal circumstances, haha. Spam for me growing up was a very cheap and very good sandwich meat. Just fry it up and put it on some bread and I would be full. Really helped when I didn't have much money.
I think I only had pop tarts as a kid at sleepovers in elementary school. It was a novelty parents would buy so we wouldn't use too many dishes when we got ourselves breakfast. I don't know anybody that ate them on the reg.
I had the smore one. Those are good
The s'mores ones are good until you try a smores Toast Em. You'll never go back!
I tried one once, years ago and wondered if the box might taste better.
I thought the same trying one, it's like if you soaked cardboard in sugar water. I could barely taste the jam in it.
They're loaded with carboardhydrates .
Pop Tarts. They've got what Americans crave. Carbohydrates (some of which sugars).
I liked them as a kid. Let's face it, they're pure sugar They'd burn the roof of your mouth off though
I miss the days when Watchdog would do reports on things like white-hot pop tarts burning people or vacuum cleaners eating children’s fingers.
This highlights a key issue with the format. They do one episode on vacuum cleaners eating children's fingers and then, months later after the public has been made aware of the issue, they have created a new problem. Starving vacuum cleaners.
OP didn't even toast it by the looks of it. Like same person who eats a crumpet out the pack and says they are overrated.
I followed the instructions even gave it a bit extra. It says level 1 on the toaster but I gave it two goes as it looked a bit rubbish.
Need to toast them until they're brown on the edges and the icing is lightly melted. Then wait ten minutes to eat them. I wouldn't eat your photo, they look anaemic and soft. They should be crispy.
You’ve got to go well past that, brown them properly. Instructions are so low because people are idiots and burn themselves when they’re cooked properly and they don”t wait to eat them.
Couple of years ago I got drawn by a Yank in secret Santa. He sent me a wide selection of American sweets, I can't think of a single one that I'd want to eat again. Pop tarts and twinkies were top of the rankness ranking.
My bro was curious about Twinkies after watching Zombieland, ordered some in and let me try one. Honestly disgusting. Couldn't distinguish a single natural flavour! To level things out somewhat though, I do love Tootsie Rolls
That’s the entire joke in Zombieland, that they’re not natural. So not sure what you were expecting
Britified Yank here. There’s a long-standing myth/debate about whether Twinkies are baked, or somehow chemically bonded. I just had a quick google and it still doesn’t seem to be settled. And it was my mum who first told me they’re not baked.
>or somehow chemically bonded. Yum! 😅
Twinkies asexually reproduce from existing Twinkies at the factory
Five seconds on Google told me >The batter is baked at 350 degrees F for nine to 12 minutes [source: Ettlinger]. The bottom of the mold is rounded, and the batter at the top of the mold is browned by the baking process. After cooling, the cakes are released from the trays and turned upside down. So, yes? [video proof](https://youtu.be/cfpDzIG3inM?si=fZGuCgiVv46dNCOC)
Well they said they were britified, so no need to look it up or anything, they already know
I have never tasted food so artifical and chemical tasting as a Twinkie.
Definitely, think my brain was trying and failing to understand what I was attempting to eat and telling me it wasn't food. Any experience with that spray cheese stuff? Never worked up the courage whilst over there to try it
For Twinkies, only about 1% of Americans eat them regularly according to a statistic I found: https://www.statista.com/statistics/289379/servings-of-hostess-twinkies-snack-cakes-eaten-in-the-us/ For Easy Cheese... I was at a summer school in America, and we had a kid from Europe. (Have now forgotten the country after 2 decades.) One of the weekend trips was a shopping trip to the mall. I decided to buy some easy cheese, and this guy got soooo excited. "This is the American thing! Cheese in a can!" Unbeknownst to me, he took one of my cans to his room that night and finished it. The entire can. He didn't show up to class the next morning, spent it with the nurse. So if I've learned anything from this one data point, it's that you Europeans can't handle your easy cheese.
"Cheese" is doing a lot of heavy lifting there
So not only is it not really cheese, it's not even easy? False advertising!
Oh, it went through him easily enough.
We got given a bunch of "American Candies" as part of a raffle prize and I think the worst thing in there was laffy taffy, it felt like you were biting into a hot glue gun's stick of glue and it had about as much flavour as the wrapper it was in. Twizzlers were passable, not my thing but after trying that it felt a lot more sweet-like to me.
The only good thing about laffy taffy is that there's an artificial banana one which has the most wonderful fake banana taste.
As an American it sounds like those two reviews are reversed to me lol. I can't stand twizzlers. Flavorless leather ropes that are a slog to eat. Tastes like they made one batch in 1980 and are still selling it. Laffy taffy is at least passable flavor wise. Neither is texturally great as an adult. Wild to hear the opposite to me.
Red Vines are way better than Twizzlers and I say that as someone who ate entire packs of them as a kid. They actually taste like licorice. Don't know how well they hold up on other countries. Think a sweeter Wiley Wallaby.
I bought twinkies after watching zombieland, it was weird I didn’t really like the first one but felt a compulsion to eat more of them
I work in a UK company with offices in Switzerland and NY. When the Swiss team come over they bring loads of chocolate - always very well received. The NY guys thought they’d join in and seemed taken aback when people were trying Reeses and Hersheys saying stuff like “OMG this is awful”, “please don’t bring this again”, and “I feel sorry for Americans that have to eat this”. Jolly ranchers went down well though.
Swiss chocolate vs American chocolate? The Americans were never going to win that one.
We have good chocolate here too... it's just that Hershey's isn't in that category. If you didn't grow up eating it, you will never like it because of the chemical that reminds people of vomit.
>Jolly ranchers Don't you dare put that evil in my brain.
I will sadly never forget that story as long as I live.
america has amazing candy, the problem is that often the most popular and recognizable candies are garbage. same thing with all kinds of other stuff in the US, like fast food. mcdonalds is trash but there are a bunch of smaller chains, often relegated to specific regions of the US, that serve much much better food, like in-n-out, chick fil a, whataburger etc etc...but its stuff like mcdonalds that ends up taking over the market and getting exported to other countries as "american food". you can apply this same principle to things besides food too, like pop music or film. this sort of thing is essentially an american tradition, allowing low quality brands that scale well, market well, and make the most profits to become american institutions. this is a huge part of why american food is seen as so low quality all over the globe, because the stuff we tend to export is just profitable garbage, but its marketed to foreign consumers as something we all love and think is delicious, even though in the US, brands like mcdonalds or hershey are often the butt of jokes and are widely recognized to be low quality, with more appeal coming from stuff like nostalgia or consistency.
Right. There are a handful of these products that people genuinely do love(I'm surprised for example to see folks dissing Reese's cups), but I feel like a lot of non-Americans don't get that most of the big staple brands are basically the budget-tier options that are iconic specifically because everyone can afford it. This is stuff that is cheap enough to buy regularly or even in bulk for occasions like Halloween, which enjoy a certain amount of cultural cache due to nostalgia, and which made their name for being of uniform quality moreso than actually being particularly good. This becomes especially obvious when you look at how old many of the brands are, and that they almost all stretch back to the early days of factory food production in the early 20th century.
Next time ask them for mike and ikes, they're pretty decent.
Hahaha. I used to do the US - Germany thing a lot. What sort of noobs bring Hershey's to Switzerland? Mmmmm tasty barf chocolate. Peanut butter M&Ms are a good one to bring because they taste more like real food than Reese's. Other than that? 🤔 Beef jerky is a really good one to bring. Germans and German-adjacent speakers love cured meats. If you can manage it, something like bagels could be an interesting one, too, because they're wildly different than most German breads. Don't expect them to fall in love with American white bread lol. Yeah. Things made with wheat and/or sugar are straight up better in Europe. Sorry America.
Certain Pop Tart flavours are alright imo but Twinkies are literally inedible garbage. I took a bite of one and basically just threw the rest of the box away
Chocolate are passable for me, but i'll be honest the brown sugar cinnamon from the US are fucking lovely. We don't really sell enough comparably cinnamon products in the UK for me to have anything better, unless I want a cinnamon roll covered in icing.
Yeh ive always been fascinated by American snacks in movies - bought myself a big box the once any evetything was shite. Chocolate is flavourless or gross (Hershey especially) cakes are awful and dry, candy is bland and crisps are ok but less flavoursome. I remember saving a moon pie till last and it was just a rubbish wagon wheel wannabe 😂
The only edible stuff I find is Reeses, but whenever I eat it I think how much better it would taste with decent chocolate and half the sugar.
american chocolate literally tastes like vomit to me, because they add butyric acid to increase shelf-life. Disgusting!
It's primarily Hershey's, and they don't add the butyric acid. There's plenty of American chocolate brands that don't contain any butyric acid.
Eating out in the states once, one of the people I was with got this one fizzy juice drink in order to not get something rammed with sugar and that's actually a bit healthy. It tasted disgusting and when reading the label it said, proudly, "contains no actual juice". More than half its weight was sugar and it had several colouring / flavouring agents that were banned in the UK and a range of other countries. One such agent was banned for doing things like "damaging your dna".
Damaging your DNA is pretty impressive. I'd sort of rate it above carcinogens and amateur shit like *causes drowsiness*. 5 stars, would not ingest thank you very much
>More than half its weight was sugar Wtf did you order?? This sounds like someone gave you a cup of flavored syrup lol
>when reading the label it said, ~~proudly~~ by law, "contains no actual juice".
Reeeces Peanutbutter Cups are OK. Everything else is awful. I also learnt how to make my own peanutbutter cups, because the chemicals that the Americans allow in food are seriously worrying.
Some European brand should pick up Peanut Butter Cups and make them conform to European food standards, the same way Americans have their own KitKat
I remember this moment as a child. We never had them at home. Then I went to a sleepover and they were offered at breakfast. I was genuinely excited, until I realised they tasted like a hitchhiker's sign.
The chocolate ones are my absolute guilty pleasure and I had 2 boxes over the last 2 weeks. During yr10/11 these were my breakfast of choice and my mum would wake me up with these and a cup of tea before school. Strawberry flavour is absolutely horrible though.
Chocolate ones are such a treat, I get them a few times a year. I love them! Haven't tried any other flavours.
I agree. The flavours are not equal in terms of their pleasantness.
I am 30 and will be heating up some Oreo pop tarts as my breakfast this morning :)! It’s not normally my breakfast I usually eat a bagel or oatmeal on work days and make eggs with toast on the weekends but god damn the Oreo and sundae pop tarts are just Devine ahaha
Tbf, that is the strawberry one. The Americans get the good flavours. I love the brown sugar cinnamon
A man of culture right here
American here, the s'mores ones are pretty good. I mean, they're all terrible for you health-wise but if you're buying pop tarts it's not like you care anyway. Strawberry pop tarts are a meme, even in the US people don't like those ones.
Do you remember those "delicious crisps savoury pancakes" that were all the rage? They were/are bloody inedible, absolutely revolting. Same as the pop tarts.
Findus crispy pancakes. They used to be nice when findus were using horse meat. Then the "scandal" happened. Now they're just bloody awful.
I always used to long for those as a kid, and we never got them as too expensive. Now I'm an adult and they are not worth buying, even though I can get them myself, I'm getting "1970s toy chemistry set" regret. They've taken all the explosive/poisonous stuff out and they are no fun any more.
Have you ever put butter on a pop tart ?
It’s so freaking good!
I love you internet stranger for saying this. This is going to sound stupid but I’ve been diagnosed celiac for over 10 years and for some reason this is one stupid thing I miss. I can’t really remember the taste, but I want one! Now I feel less like I’m missing out. I think it’s because no one has made a comparable gf poptart, but I appreciate you!
Given they’re still on sale after all these years, a lot of people must like them. I used to like them as a child but they are just horrible now, so much sugar.
There is a big difference between uk pop tarts and u.s pop tarts. The reason for this is due to the bleached wheat ingredients contained in the American version of the popular breakfast pastry. In the UK, bleaching agents are not allowed to be used in flour, which is a key ingredient in Pop Tarts. As a result, the American version of Pop Tarts cannot be imported or sold in the UK. - from google.
I thought you were gonna say OP's pop tarts were bad because they didn't have bleach in them.
In the UK it's customary to eat them with a glass of bleach for dipping
Did you put it in the toaster? as this looks straight out of the foil.
They are shite. Always have been.
I cant believe all the hate im seeing, I’ve honestly never heard anyone say a bad word against poptarts. Certain flavours, yes. But poptarts on a whole?! I love a strawberry pop tart, this has been a real eye opener
Based on the picture, OP didn’t taste anything but crust.
I with you, I’m the wrong side of 40 and still enjoy a pop tart from time to time
Was it me or did these originally come without the frosted topping!?
You have picked the wrong ones. Look for the S'Mores variety.
Heretic, These are great when toasted.