Thursday, June 12, 2014

Smart(ies) Pants

 Hey, what's happened to the "M" on these candies?!
 Are they defective?
Why no, they're Smarties, the British counterpart to the classic M&M. As it turns out, Smarties predate M&Ms by some 50 years.

They actually do taste different. The Smarties coating has a bit of a flavor to it, while the M&M coating is basically just sugar. Here is one person's comparison of the two.

I confess to preferring M&Ms, while B.--who grew up in Europe and has an English mum--prefers Smarties. I guess that childhood nostalgia thing is hard to overcome! Now, let's talk Reese's peanut butter cups vs. Trader Joe's...THAT'S a tough contest!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

British Smarties still come in the tubes; Canadian ones, apparently not. While it's true that I prefer Smarties, I also lerv M&Ms! /B/

Jolien said...

Smarties also always have had more colors than M&M's!

Grew up in Holland and there they actually sell both, smarties & M&M's. Seeing that Smarties always had those tiny boxes (with approx 13 chocolates each, I counted many times!) and fun colors, I think they were going mainly for the kid-market, while the M&M's are more adult-y.

I think M&M's have better/more chocolate in them though, that is, if not produced in Poland. Being on the other side of Europe now, we fall into the Poland-factory market instead of the Dutch-factory-market for all Mars brands and there they forgot to add cocoa and tipped over the sugar bowl...

I might be knitpicky, but there IS a difference in taste... I really dislike those things. Just like Fanta is sweeter in almost every European country... (compared to the Netherlands)

Annette said...

I haven't tried Trader Joes peanut butter cups...guess I will have to as they are a fav of mine. The smarties are so colorful!!!!