We return to part two of a three Wacky Snacks series to focus on the food of Sweden, because as it turns out, as I said last week, there's a treasure trove of wacky stuff right under our noses at IKEA's Swedish Food Market. This week?
Name: Jelly Rats
Origin: Sweden
Found at: IKEA, Costa Mesa
Cost: $1.69
Ingredients:
Sugar, glucose syrup (wheat based), water, gelatine [sic], acid (citric acid), flavorings, preservative (sodium benzoate), colors (carmine, betacarotine, cholorophyllin), confectioners glaze (coconut oil and beeswax).
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Tasting Notes: If Gummy Worms tasted like Jelly Rats, I'd eat more Gummy Worms. There's actually more to the Jelly Rats than meets the eye. Inside, there exists two layers of candy. The center of the rat, the innards as it were, is a softer, squishy, almost liquid confection. The outer shell is a chewier, firmer stock similar to American gummy. And on the whole it's more little tart, not as cloying as Gummy Worms and much more interesting than boring old Swedish fish.
Before becoming an award-winning restaurant critic for OC Weekly in 2007, Edwin Goei went by the alias “elmomonster” on his blog Monster Munching, in which he once wrote a whole review in haiku.