Food In The Fort

This two-headed  lollipop by Luxus is one of our favorites. Rompope is a sort of Mexican eggnog and a real winner as a lollipop flavor. It goes especially well with the mild, chalky chocolate that was at the other end. One note of caution: these lollipops are Formica counter top hard. Those with soft enamel or otherwise bad dentiture would be wise to lick, not bite.

This post was part of our Mexican Candy Shootout! series. You can find all the posts in this series here.

We have no idea what this is, but it’s wonderful. Except for the pits, which are most of it. It’s kind of like eating a pomegranate - a lot of work for little payoff. The fruit (we guess it’s fruit) is sweet and slightly spicy; hazmat procedures might be called for with this baby; it sticks to everything. Just like the Rollo Coco, good luck removing the wrapper. But don’t let our warnings dissuade you. It’s a delicious, if sticky, treat.

Update: After some fast googling we find that this is, indeed, simply tamarind pulp.

Quick trivia: Tamarind is an essential ingredient in Worcestershire sauce.

This post was part of our Mexican Candy Shootout! series. You can find all the posts in this series here.

Coconut rolls are a sweet staple of Mexican candy. You’ll find them in a dizzying array of shapes and colors much like the ubiquitous gummi. There’s no particular reason why we selected the two we did for comparison and we recommend that you try them all because they’re quite tasty treats.

Delicias del Triunfo has concocted a marvelous confection of shredded coconut, sugar and oil in a handy stick. What more could you want? A perfect candy except for the thoughtless wrapper design. The plastic wrapper is sort of tucked into the ends of the roll in such a way that makes detaching it from the candy problematic; little bits of plastic easily get stuck to the candy. Still, if you can avoid ingesting the wrapper bits - and what’s a little cellophane among friends? - this one’s a real winner.

La Coculense has managed against all odds to squeeze several extra helpings of sugar, artificial flavoring and yellow food dye into this compact coconut bar. While coconut lovers will like this one, we think Rollo Coco has the edge in the tight coconut roll market. Catherine does give props to the wrapper; unlike the Rollo Coco covering, this one came off without putting up a fight and leaving shreds of plastic.

This post was part of our Mexican Candy Shootout! series. You can find all the posts in this series here.

There’s very little we can say about this product from Lorena. We bought it because the colorful, grimacing cartoon fruit amused us and we thought it was candy. However, it turned out to be a condiment. Although it was interesting to have a little bit of spice on the candies, we remain unconvinced that fruit routinely needs to be seasoned. Perhaps we will come around in time, but until then the cartoon fruit on the Pico Sitos cannister mocks us from the rear of the spice rack.

We bought this Lucas product because it looked cool; unfortunately, our package was quite stale and disappointing. We wanted to like it, but since the “spaghetti” had the texture of real pasta which had had the misfortune of being overcooked and then left out for hours, it was hard to arrive at a favorable opinion. Although we should say that Catherine enjoyed the slightly sweet, slightly spicy sauce, Leo didn’t find anything redeeming about it. Perhaps if we had gotten a fresher package things would have turned out better but, as it was, it was a sweet and salty choking hazard.

This post was part of our Mexican Candy Shootout! series. You can find all the posts in this series here.

This Nestle product tastes and smells like Swiss Miss instant hot chocolate mix or the really cheap chocolate “flavored” Easter bunnies. If you’re craving chocolate, you would be hard-pressed to do worse. Needless to say, we didn’t like this one, which is kind of sad since Carlos looks like such a jovial monarch. We can only conclude that he has been corrupted by the high-pressure world of candy endorsements and forgotten his people. Viva la revolucion!

 This post was part of our Mexican Candy Shootout! series. You can find all the posts in this series here

These little pecan flavored toffees by Canel, while very tasty in a sort of old-fashionedy way, were not what you might expect. They are very hard and the pecan flavor is not strong at all. However, we liked them a lot and, if you’re not concerned about chipping the enamel on your teeth, you will too!

This post was part of our Mexican Candy Shootout! series. You can find all the posts in this series here.

If the long name and curiously Hispanic looking Bruce Lee don’t intimidate you, then the La Brea Tar Pits-like texture and chemically enhanced lemonosity will. Safety precautions are recommended as we needed to stab the package with a sharp knife to get it open. Once opened, the dog seemed to fear he would be sucked in, trapped and preserved for all eternity. He refused to have anything to do with the green jelly, instead retreating to the corner of the kitchen to eye us warily. As for the taste… Catherine described it as lemon-flavored Vegemite while Leo was reminded of a trip to the dental hygienist. Admittedly, the name is fun to say but you are advised to stay away. Stay far, far, away.

This post was part of our Mexican Candy Shootout! series. You can find all the posts in this series here.

This incredibly crumbly and cloyingly sweet, peanuty, marzipan-like treat is made by De la Rosa, a major Mexican candy manufacturer. Leo likes this stuff, as does my daughter (although she’s never actually eaten a whole one because it is so intensely sugary), but I find its sweetness overwhelming and its texture off-putting. Nevertheless, I must be in the minority since you can find it wherever Mexican candy is sold.

This post was part of our Mexican Candy Shootout! series. You can find all the posts in this series here.

A couple of weeks ago Catherine and I paid a visit to Dulceria Fiesta. You’re going to have to wait a little bit for our profile of this wonderful little Mexican candy store on Calhoun Street but while we were there we bought a giant bag of candy that we’ve been bravely working through all this time. And why would we subject ourselves to such a grueling regimen? Why, it’s all for you, dear reader so that you too can be prepared to sample the strange world of Mexican candy.

While the rest of the world gets by with boring old milk chocolate, caramel, nougat, berry flavors and gummi (soon to be listed as a new element on the periodic table my scientist friends tell me), Mexican candy dares to be different. When you enter a Mexican candy store, you enter a world where tamarind, mango, coconut, chili, and tabasco rule. Yes, you will find chocolate too but you might not recognize it as such. In fact, there will be plenty of unrecognizable ingredients. But that’s OK, because if you’re bold you’ll discover a whole new range of tastes that will be well worth traveling outside your comfort zone.

So follow along with us for the next few days for our Mexican Candy Shootout! Read the rest of this entry »