WHAT CAME FIRST? THE RAPPER OR THE SWEETS? (M&M's Peanut)

Member Name: stuleg

Product:	M&M's Peanut
Date:	29/09/04 (362 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Plenty

Disadvantages: None - It`s chocolate

The sweetie shelf in Tesco is fraught with hazard for me; nine times out of ten I manage to shoot down it quickly while keeping my eyes front and my senses switched off. There is however that one in ten occurrence when I have to slow down to dodge a Wurthers original buying pensioner or young child deciding what to spend his pocket money on. And that is when a product inadvertently catches my eye – and I crumble, I turn into a big kid in a sweet shop, nudging all others out of the way as I grab a bag of this, a tub of that and very often a packet of the other as well. My latest selection included a couple of 250g bags of peanut M&M`s – which is why you find yourselves reading this review.

Now, I could have sworn that M&M`s were a relatively new sweet, I can’t remember them much before about five years ago. Imagine my shock then when I discover they were first around during the Spanish civil war! They were actually first made for the public in the early 1940`s so that American soldiers could enjoy chocolate that wouldn’t melt when they went to war. So popular were they that by the late 1940`s the American soldiers who had enjoyed them during the war wanted to enjoy them now that the war was over, and so Mars made them for the general public and they have been a favourite ever since. I bet you found that brief history of M&M`s really fascinating! But I always like to find out about of the various sweets and food I throw into my mouth. And the fact that I have a couple of bags of the peanut variety at my disposal means that these are a treat that I’m a big fan of.

The bags I have are golden yellow in colour and have M&M`s written large on the front. As is common with food products the back of the 250g bag is given over to nutritional, Ingredient and consumer satisfaction details with this particular product giving those details in an assortment of languages. As one would expect these M&M`s are not designed for those on a healthy diet with sugar and milk fat amongst the most used ingredients. Each Peanut M&M is a whole peanut covered with milk chocolate inside a sugar shell with the peanut making up 22% of the sweet and the chocolate making up another 48%. Rather alarmingly a 250g bag contains a whopping 1260 calories and close to 70g of fat and of course it goes without saying that those allergic to nuts should not go near them. But with crispy and chocolate M&M`s also available those with such an allergy should not feel too left out.

So to the sweets themselves and opening the bag reveals an assortment of differently coloured treats. But wait! I must have a duff batch! Everyone of my M&M`s has the letter W on it instead of the trademark M! What should I do! Oh hang on – I was holding them upside down! I try not to let this small fact disturb me too much as I pop one of the treats in my mouth and savour the flavour. The sugar coating takes a bit of sucking to disperse before the chocolate flavour envelopes my taste buds, in time the chocolate melts in the heat of my mouth and I am left with a peanut which is crisps and flavoursome when bitten. My next mouthful gets chewed to a pulp and the delightful way in which the flavours of the sugar shell, the milk chocolate and the peanut compliment each other is a divine taste sensation – each flavour not drowning out the others but helping to make the overall eating experience a great one. I’m not quite sad enough to count how many M&M`s are in the bag but suffice to say a 250g bag is more than enough for me.

A nice treat then that combines chocolate, nuts and sugar to produce a sweet that should appeal to young and old, delicious sucked or chewed. For me these are very much the best variation of M&M`s - the chocolate ones seem a little nothingy to me while the crispy version leaves an artificial flavour in my mouth. No, it has to be the peanut version for me and as such I give them four stars out of five.

http://uk.mms.com/mms/uk/default.htm

Summary: