Well, mostly. Earlier this week, we attended a snacking adventure at our local library, which consisted of a box of eleven distinct treats from Universal Yums from one of their country boxes – in this case, Taiwan.
This was our first tasting adventure at the library and our first chance to try Universal Yums, though we’ve been aware of the concept for a while now. The library event was described as “Yum Club”; we didn’t know the theme was Taiwan until we arrived. This was clearly not the first iteration of Yum Club at the library, and many of the attendees were familiar with the process. It was our first, hopefully of many, Yum Club exploration.
The library provided information booklets – from Universal Yums – to each participant. The cover features the theme and a map of Taiwan, highlighting some important places with a tidbit of information about each on the map. The second page has “The Yum Scoreboard,” which includes a spot to rate or record comments about each snack, suggested ratings (essentially Wow, OK, and Yuck), and a spot to guess at which four of the eleven treats will be your favorites. We were warned going in that each person would be asked their top and bottom choices at the end, so I ranked the treats as I went. Of the four that I guessed for my top choices, two made it, and a third treat only missed by one.
The third, fourth, and fifth pages have images, names, an abbreviated description, and then a detailed description and some context for each item. For example, the first item we tried was the Triko Foods Taro Cookies, described briefly as Crispy Cream-Filled Cookies. (Unfortunately, there weren’t enough of these for everyone, so we broke them while still in the package, which resulted in one person trying the center of the cookies – which was cream-filled – and the other person tried the crumbly exterior. I suspect I would have rated these higher if I had gotten some of the cream filling.)
The last page of the booklet is the important one for those of us with food allergies: the ingredient list for all included items. Having arrived a few minutes early, I was able to verify that all of the treats were safe for me before we started snacking.
My guesses at top four were (in no particular order) Taiwan Choco Ball (Creamy Peanut Filled Mochi), Cadina Crunchy Corn Layers Snacks (Butter & Garlic Flavored), Nice Choice Peanut-Brittle Candy (Crunchy Roasted Peanuts), and Triko Foods Taro Cookies (Crispy Cream-Filled Cookies).
My actual top four were (in order, starting at my top choice) Nice Choice Peanut-Brittle Candy (Crunchy Roasted Peanuts), Koloko Crispy Pea Snacks (Lemon & Pink Salt Flavored), Nice Choice Yogurt-Flavored Biscuits (Crispy Animal-Shaped Crackers), and Taiwan Choco Ball (Creamy Peanut Filled Mochi).
I was an odd one out listing the mochi fairly high; several people listed it as their least favorite when we went around the room because of the consistency. That said, more people – myself included – listed the Khong Guan Smoked Candy (Plum Flavored) as the one they liked the least, mainly because of the smoked part of the flavor.
If you’ve tried Universal Yums or something similar, drop a comment and let me know what you thought. I think it’s a neat way to catch glimpses of other cultures.