Lick it...and get a surprise!

[Menard]

A one...a two...a three.

A three, says the wise old owl.

At least in the commercial for Tootsie Pops when asked how many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop.

Apparently, an abbreviated version of this commercial still runs today in what would be 38 years since it first ran. I can recall the commercial when it was new.


Of course, Tootsie Pop did not have the corner on the market for surprises.

The long running surprise in each box of Cracker Jack. A box of Cracker Jack is just not Cracker Jack unless there is some kind of toy surprise in the box. As a kid, I never cared for the peanuts in Cracker Jack, but have to have them in it as an adult; go figure.


Do you like surprises in your food?

Generally, I don't. I do not like brownies with nuts. I don't mind if there is crushed nuts or even pecans on top, as I know they are there, but I don't like biting into what I am expecting to be cake and finding something hard (just get your freaking minds out of the gutter ).


What about Twinkies?

We all know that it has cream filling, but some people can't stand cream filling and would prefer just the cake.


Some of us like surprises in our snacks, some don't.

What snack food surprises, or fillings, do you like or not?

[Sister Grace]

If you've ever been in jobcorps, hospitalized/institutionalized, or resided in any other form of a state-ran facility; you know that suprises in food are not good. Their reasoning for adding off-the-wall ingredients is surely to make food stretch farther... or is it simply so you never know what your getting just to up the paranoia factor in an isolated crowd. Who puts rice in lasagna or peas in spaghetti? you are naturally going to ask yourself...

"why is it there?"
"is this some cruel joke?"
"are we this much like cattle?"
or the usual, "what the hell were they thinking?"

Consuming food is an intimate act and an excellent way to bond with family and loved ones. Why else do so many men spend so much money at nice restaurants when we meet a potential mate.  Why do we focus so much around food when it comes to the thanksgiving and the holidays? Because the act of eating is so much more than doing something to sustain ourselves, its almost ritualistic in nature.

 So no, i don't like to have my food messed with...

There is also something about toy suprises in food that just doesn't sit well with me. Do we really need some small wrapped object of plastic hidden in something we should already enjoy anyways. I'm sure its just a sales gimmick. If you've ever been down the cereal aisle and came across a tired mother with several kids screaming, this is a gimmick that apparently works. But when the suprises are recessed inside a box of goodies geared towards adults...it makes me wonder why. Menard mentions crackerjacks, and thats a prime example. How many kids do you actually see eat the crackerjacks while adults are usually the ones that tend to lean towards them. Or as adults, do we like crackerjacks now because there is such an imprint on our mind of how we felt as children when we finally made it to the bottom of the box? Do we really like the taste or are we trying to recapture the memory of delight of being a six year old again?

[Mr. DS]

It truly depends on the food.  I do like tootsie roll pops and can't think of a better combination.  However, sometimes candies are mixed causing, for myself anyhow, a complete abomination.  For example, Nerd Ropes which is soft candy with Nerds attached to it.  I love Nerds but I dislike when they're combined to form Nerd Ropes.  I love nuts (no jokes allowed) but dislike when they're in cakes. 

I've always liked the gum with the refreshing blast of liquid (once again, no jokes) in the center. 

[JJ80]

I like surprises if they're pleasant such as a good gift in a kinder egg. 
I dislike those that entail foreign bodies appearing in food e.g hairs, fingernails, even a banana stalk in gravy on one particular occasion. 

[Jack]

One thing I hate is those Christmas chocolates with the surprise center.  You put one in your mouth, hoping it's got caramel or some sort of nuts in it, but no...it's  jellied goop.  I guess other people must dislike this also because now they have a little diagram inside the box cover showing what's in what.  Those chocolate covered cherries are bad too.  Once I bit off half of one, not knowing what was inside, and ended up with cherry running down my shirt.  Asian food can hit you with surprises as well.  I went to the buffet at an Asian restaurant once, and filled my plate with these yummy looking chicken thingies.  Took a bite out of one, and it tasted like nuts;  cashews or something.  Sorry, I like nuts but they do not belong in any sort of dish involving meat.  Those tastes do not go with each other.

Speaking of surprises, I was walking through the shop at work one day and a guy I barely knew was uncharacteristically friendly and offered me some cake.  There were a couple pieces of cake sitting there, yellow with chocolate frosting.  I picked one up, but it was unusually light for cake.  Unbelievably light actually.  I looked at it a bit closer, and it was yellow Styrofoam with chocolate frosting.  I guess I passed the idiot test that day    One of the supervisors didn't though.  He apparently didn't enjoy the delicate mingling of flavors between the chocolate frosting and the extruded polystyrene cake.

[Menard]

One thing I hate is those Christmas chocolates with the surprise center.  You put one in your mouth, hoping it's got caramel or some sort of nuts in it, but no...it's  jellied goop.  I guess other people must dislike this also because now they have a little diagram inside the box cover showing what's in what.  Those chocolate covered cherries are bad too.  Once I bit off half of one, not knowing what was inside, and ended up with cherry running down my shirt.  Asian food can hit you with surprises as well.  I went to the buffet at an Asian restaurant once, and filled my plate with these yummy looking chicken thingies.  Took a bite out of one, and it tasted like nuts;  cashews or something.  Sorry, I like nuts but they do not belong in any sort of dish involving meat.  Those tastes do not go with each other.

Speaking of surprises, I was walking through the shop at work one day and a guy I barely knew was uncharacteristically friendly and offered me some cake.  There were a couple pieces of cake sitting there, yellow with chocolate frosting.  I picked one up, but it was unusually light for cake.  Unbelievably light actually.  I looked at it a bit closer, and it was yellow Styrofoam with chocolate frosting.  I guess I passed the idiot test that day    One of the supervisors didn't though.  He apparently didn't enjoy the delicate mingling of flavors between the chocolate frosting and the extruded polystyrene cake.

That reminds me of when I used to photograph weddings. I was second photographer, so there was always another photographer with me, who would end up being the taste tester at receptions due to caterers finding the damndest things to put inside of something.

I am a vegetarian and have had one too many occasions at receptions to bite into something that should have not contained meat, only to find that someone had put meat in it.

Anchovies inside of mini-quiches!?! Who's dumb idea was that?

[Ash]

I've always liked the gum with the refreshing blast of liquid (once again, no jokes) in the center. 

Reminds me of Freshen-Up gum.  Do they still sell that anymore?  I haven't seen it around here in years.


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And speaking of styrofoam cake...

A few years ago we were all over at a friend's house drinking and playing cards when a buddy of mine came upstairs and said, "Watch me eat this insulation!"
There was some pink fiberglass insulation laying in a pile in the basement (the basement was being redone) and we all said, "No dude!  Don't eat that!"
Too late...
As soon as we said that, he stuffed a huge wad of it in his mouth and chewed it up.  
We all pretty much said, "Aw dude!!  Gross!  You're gonna get cancer!"
Then he produced a plastic can full of cotton candy he had bought earlier.

[Sister Grace]

Fake food can be funny sometimes though, my mother always kept a basket of plastic but realistic looking fruit on her kitchen table, you know the kinds with the rubber grapes.. When my daughter was around a year and a half old, my mom realized we had to put it up after almost having to make a trip to the emergency room over a choking incident. Till Isabela was about four, she still picked up fruit, squeezed it, and gave us a pleading look before placing it in her mouth as if we were trying to fool her.

[RCMerchant]

Ok...I dunno how this fits in with the post....

This happened in about 1981. Me and Johnny,my neighbor,were sitting around drinking beer. Pabst BlueeRibbon...which comes in the long neck brown bottles. Well,I used to chew tobbacco. Skoal. And I would have a spit bottle. Anyway,Johnny sat his beer down,went to use the bathroom,and came back and picked up my spit bottle...which was about half full of nasty tobbacco spit...some of it days old. He took a big swig and immeaditly started power puking all over my living room floor. I tried to get an empty chicken bucket in front of him to puke in,but he missed it.

It was really nasty.