A while ago, Ian “Mac Mac Mac Mac” McIver took a voyage to foreign lands and returned with a gift beyond compare: a selection of five Czech cereal bars of various colours and flavours. What better introduction could there be to Central European cuisine?
We’ve been so excited to try them that we’ve actually spent quite some time waiting for the perfect opportunity to stage a Tasting Ceremony. You know the kind of thing: a full, formal occasion where the participants ritually dress in the colour of the food they are Ceremonially Tasting, bring similarly coloured gifts and offerings, and solemnly share in the sublime pleasure of sampling new foods. Between courses, a discussion is held about the food that has been enjoyed, and prayers are said.
Anyway, we finally managed to clear a day in our diary, and I’m pleased to present to you the full results of our first ever Corny Big feast.
Red
Strawberry flavour
You might think, if you’re given a fruit flavoured cereal bar from some far flung land, that it would have that synthetic strawberry flavour that doesn’t really taste like strawberries at all. Turns out that’s not the Corny B way. As soon as you open the wrapper your nose gets the hit of real fruit and it delivers a flavour to match.
Yellow
Banana chocolate
Banana’s not a flavour you often get in a chocolate bar in the UK, so this one felt like an exotic safari to a faraway land. The banananess is undeniable, but even in the context of a cereal bar we weren’t bowled over by the idea of banana in a junk food snack. It reminded me of the cartons of banana juice one of my primary school friends used to drink.
Green
Nuts
There’s no messing with this flavour. No ornamentation and no specific type of nuts. Just nuts. Ask no questions. No detail will be provided. It’s just got some nuts in it, end of. This one is plainer than the rest but it works well, and has the pleasing sense that you can pretend you’re eating something healthy because it’s got the slight crunch of a granola bar.
Blue
Salted Caramel
I love salted caramel – in fact I love all caramel, and one day intend to get a bowl of it big enough to dip my head in. Kate is less fussed. This one tastes good, but given the underlying cereal bar part is already very sugary, there’s not an overwhelming sense of caramelitude. Instead it’s more of a gentle caramellular feeling. It didn’t set our world alight but there were no complaints.
Brown
Chocolate
You knew there had to be a simple chocolate option, and the world of Corny Big is here to give the people what they want. Some lesser snacks have cheap chocolate that leaves an artificial sweetener sting in the back of your throat. Some give you the colour and the texture with none of the flavour. Not these guys. Sure, this thing hasn’t been dipped in Hotel Chocolat, but it’s not going to disappoint.
Our overall review of the Corny Big universe: wow. We are blown away. Thank you, Czechia, for your snacks. And thank you, Ian, for enabling us to have the Tasting Ceremony of a lifetime. What a day.
9 comments on “Hitting the Corny B’s”
The dedication to this post alone should bag you the coveted ‘Post of the Year’. I haven’t seen this many costume changes since the last time J-Lo popped into the local Greggs. Quite why she felt the need to change her clothes in a bakers I’ll never know.
Kate doesn’t often get involved in the Beans, but I think it’s fair to say that when she does, she takes the job seriously.
I might get her to have a word with Kev.
You’re gonna have to. It’s good to know that we have a replacement though if Kev completely packs it in.
How is Kate with writing Jilly Cooper-esque novels?
I reckon she’d have a stab if it was asked of her. She’s nothing if not versatile, and she’s definitely not nothing, so it’s provable fact that she actually is versatile.
Stab Kev? Well it wouldn’t really achieve anything but it may spur him into writing some more posts, probably from his hospital bed. Do you get good internet reception in hospitals or is it one of those extras they now charge for?
I don’t know. Probably the best thing to do is stab him, and then he’ll go to hospital, and then he can let us know.
You’re right. If we all stab him at the same time with blindfolds on then we’ll not know which of us did it and we can all be guilt free.
A victimless crime. It’s perfect.
That IS perfect. Why has nobody tried doing crime like that before? It’ll be like the time we went to Boyes in Bridlington, and because there were three of us nobody could tell that it was Kev who was shoplifting.
That’s exactly how it was. We exited in a line of three so nobody would know (although if the authorities ask I’ll be sure to tell them so they do know).
The rule of three. We need three.