posted
Hello all- I got bored with just reading, so am attempting a topic.
Regarding the confusion that gave rise to the legend of 'Milky Way' and '3 Musketeers' chocolate bar names being swapped. Could it be partially related to the fact that they are indeed the other way round in the UK?
Ok, so we have no 3 Musketeers confection available here, but we have the Mars Bar. Our Milky Way corresponds to the description of the 3 Musketeers- fluffly nougat stuff in chocolate. (Don't know if it was ever made in other flavours tho', but to be honest it's rather boring in its present form. Appears to be marketed mostly at kiddies wishing to snack between meals.) Our Mars Bar appears to be the US Milky Way- nougat with caramel wrapped in chocolate (and IIRC developed when Mr. Mars attempted a solid version of chocolate malt drinks. Likewise for Malteasers.)
No idea why they are all topsy-turvy here- or indeed which came first (or whether Mars was making his goodies here before they were available in his home country)- but it could have contributed to the story.
-------------------- "The outrageous is the reasonable, if introduced politely." -Charles Fort "A chicken? To celebrate the birth of our Lord- a chicken?!" Posts: 11 | From: Midshires, UK | Registered: Nov 2006
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It looks like from the pictures the main difference is that the European version doesn't have the caramel (blasphemy!)
I've only had the European version once, a long time ago when a co-worker came back from the UK with these itty bitty bars in a box. Now you can find the same box in any grocery store with itty bitty versions of our bars.
-------------------- Tom, we're flying a giant robot into space! "Safe" isn't the first word that springs to mind! - Colleen, Last Hope, Vol.2 Posts: 2710 | From: Meet me in St. Louis | Registered: Mar 2004
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posted
We keep the caramel for the Mars Bars you see.
I remember having a Strawberry flavoured (European) Milky Way as a child, but haven't seen them for years.
-------------------- "The United States Government: significantly less cruel and sadistic than the Taliban." - Dara Posts: 1289 | From: Aberdeen University, Aberdeen, UK | Registered: Nov 2003
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posted
Strawberry would be less dull. But if they were to resurrect any multi-flavoured bar, it should be Fry's Five Centres.
-------------------- "The outrageous is the reasonable, if introduced politely." -Charles Fort "A chicken? To celebrate the birth of our Lord- a chicken?!" Posts: 11 | From: Midshires, UK | Registered: Nov 2006
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Our Mars Bar appears to be the US Milky Way- nougat with caramel wrapped in chocolate (and IIRC developed when Mr. Mars attempted a solid version of chocolate malt drinks. Likewise for Malteasers.)
Amars bar is made of malt, not nougat, though. So it's not quite the same as the US (unless I'm being thick and they#re the same thing. I wiki'd it but got distracted by all the sugary things...)
Do you have any wine? All of this would go a lot smoother in an altered state of reality. Posts: 779 | From: Southampton, England | Registered: Nov 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Peacockalorum: No idea why they are all topsy-turvy here- or indeed which came first (or whether Mars was making his goodies here before they were available in his home country)- but it could have contributed to the story.
It's because there were once two separate Mars companies. Frank Mars started making candy in America, and his first success was the Milky Way. Over several years, he built up a large and successful family-run company. The official stories are a little coy about what happened, but reading between the lines, it seems that Frank's eldest son, Forrest, had his own ideas about how to run the business, and that eventually Frank gave him some money and the recipes, and said, in effect, "You think you're so clever, go off and start your own business."
Forrest started up his own Mars company in England, making essentialy the same products, but changing the names around (presumably for sound marketing reasons) – Milky Way became Mars Bar, 3 Musketeers became Milky Way, and Snickers became Marathon.
Forrest's UK operation went from strength to strength, but the original Mars company in the US began to fail, and at some point Forrest bought them out. I can't find any information about what Frank thought about that!
Interestingly, everything I can find says that Forrest introduced M&Ms in 1940, after having seen "something similar in Spain". No mention is made of the remarkably similar product called Smarties which were first produced by Rowntree Mackintosh (now owned by Nestlé) in the UK in 1937, and which Forrest, based in the UK, must surely have been aware of.
-------------------- I'd rather be with you people than the finest people in the world! Posts: 1010 | From: North Tyneside, UK | Registered: Jun 2001
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quote:Originally posted by Gavida: To bring in even more confusion:
"Three Musketeers" in german is "Drei Musketiere" and that was the name of a candy bar like "Curly Wurly"
Gavida
The American equivalent of which was called "Marathon".
It just gets worse and worse.
-------------------- I'd rather be with you people than the finest people in the world! Posts: 1010 | From: North Tyneside, UK | Registered: Jun 2001
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posted
Was Snickers in the USA originally marketed as 'Milky Way with nuts'? There is a line in one of the early Police Acadamy films which alludes to this (exteremy confusing to us brits as milky way with nuts would still be nothing like a snickers). There is/was recently a product here called 'milky wsy stars' which was star shaped aerated nought covered in chocolate and you could get a strawberry version
Posts: 135 | From: UK | Registered: Jan 2006
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posted
Thankyou VeebleFetzer- you obviously know your confectionary.
So the US has no Smarties?
There was once a (vile) bright pink chewing-gum Curly Wurly variant, wasn't there...? This of course was back when all Curly Wurlies were 3ft long.
snopes- could it be a new Lost Legend, wherein 'Musketeers' is actually a mistranslation of 'musk deers', since they rode said deers and used them to squirt their enemies, or something. Perhaps the chocolate could be worked in somewhere (nougat is really flavoured with deer glands, and so on).
-------------------- "The outrageous is the reasonable, if introduced politely." -Charles Fort "A chicken? To celebrate the birth of our Lord- a chicken?!" Posts: 11 | From: Midshires, UK | Registered: Nov 2006
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Yes the US has Smarties, but you may be very surprised about them. Hmmm, trying to link Wiki but the bb keeps telling me it won't allow parenthesis in url tags...there are none in the link I'm trying to post. Trust me, go to Wiki and search for "Smarties" it gives you a U.S. version. *sigh* link?
P&LL, Syl
Edited to add link after I figured out what my problem was. You have to click the Ce De Candies link to see the U.S. version.
-------------------- Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. — Voltaire Posts: 1944 | From: Michigan | Registered: Jun 2001
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quote:Never mind the candy -- why are the Three Musketeers always pictured holding rapiers?
Because Rambo trademarked posing with a machinegun.
I agree, it's strange. One would expect posing with a musket.
When the Musketeers were first formed, they *were* issued brand new shiny muskets. However, at the time muskets were heavy, slow, inaccurate and unreliable, and so the Musketeers went back to the much easier-to-use swords, but kept the name. (The things I've learned form Imponderables books. )
-------------------- "My sandwich choice is uncertain, until I actually order. It's like Schrodinger's Sandwich." "Is plutonium involved in this sandwich in any way?" "Maybe." Posts: 496 | From: Whitby, ON, Canada | Registered: Sep 2006
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posted
I remember spending serveral hours on wikipedia working out the US/UK chocolate bar confusions. (I believe I brought my analysis of the confusion to here, but the thread is probably long long)
Incidently, we have something very similar to your smarties which we call refreshers. (There is also the refresher bar, which is something different entirely, a chewy outer casing (Not sure what it is, it isn't toffee, harder and an artificial yellow colour) with a sherbert centre.
On, and I believe the initial appearence of the 'milky way with nuts' used almonds, rather than peanuts. According to wikipedia:
quote:The Mars Bar formerly sold in the USA (renamed "Snickers Almond") was slightly different from the Mars Bar still sold in other countries, which does not contain almonds. It has been sold elsewhere as "Mars Almond". ... The Mars Bar was introduced in the United States in 1936. It contained nougat and almonds topped with caramel and covered with milk chocolate. It remained on the market until 2000 when it was renamed the Snickers Almond bar.
Which makes as much marketing sense as implying that shampoo gives you orgasms. But that's marketing for you. (Ie. Why name it Mars almond when it is more closely related to your milky way, unless its all down to the nougart.)
ETA: Seems a peanut snickers is now availible and is incidently called 'Snickers.' Also, I urge UK snopesters to seek out the almond snickers. Its not officialy on sale in the UK, but I've found foreign versions (Possibly Turkish) availible is some of the UK's more bizzare shops. (Usually ones where everything is dirt cheap because it goes of in three hours time and the instructions are all written in a made up language in the hope that everyone will just assume they are imported.)
posted
Is it sad that I spent 1/2 an hour reading about M&Ms, Smarties, and the fact that Billy West voiced the Red M&M?
-------------------- "For me, religion is like a rhinoceros: I don't have one, and I'd really prefer not to be trampled by yours. But it is impressive, and even beautiful, and, to be honest, the world would be slightly worse off if there weren't any." -Silas Sparkhammer Posts: 3239 | From: Ontario, Canada | Registered: Sep 2003
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posted
I'm still wondering about the relationship between Moon Pies (USA) and Wagon Wheels (UK)
Posts: 39 | From: London, England | Registered: Sep 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Peacockalorum: So the US has no Smarties?
From the picture in Wikipedia, the UK version of Smarties looks identical to a candy in the US called Spree.
All this talk about candy is making me crave taffy and peanut butter cups!
No, smarties are almost identical to M&Ms. They have no fruit flavour (Appart from the orange smarties) and differ from M&Ms only in shape. Smarties have a larger diameter (About 1cm) and are flatter than M&Ms, they also have a slightly thinner sugar shell. There is also a slight difference in flavour and mouth feel. Smarties are more melt in the mouth, and the chocolate flavour is more dominant. In my opinion M&Ms also have a slightly odd taste along with them which is absent in smarties, I think this is the thicker sugar shell. Smarties, like M&Ms can't be described as chewy, yet do still have a distinctly different texture.
posted
Gibbie very kindly sent me some 'M and M's and they are very similar to Smarties. The peanut 'M and M's do not have a Smartie equivalent, however - unless someone has invented peanut Smarties and not told me.
-------------------- Andrew, Ware, England Posts: 1709 | From: Ware, England | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
Andrew, if you are desperate for a fix of Peanut M&Ms then you can buy them in the UK fairly easily, I'd say they're only slightly less hard to find then smarties. Mars even has a UK Website.
However I think the biscuit M&Ms are nicest, only they're quite hard to find.
quote:Originally posted by James G.: There is also a slight difference in flavour and mouth feel. Smarties are more melt in the mouth, and the chocolate flavour is more dominant. In my opinion M&Ms also have a slightly odd taste along with them which is absent in smarties, I think this is the thicker sugar shell.
I wonder if the difference in taste is due to the fact that many people think that American milk chocolate has a slightly sour taste. When I'm in Ireland next year I'll have to pack some M&Ms and do a taste test.
I don't really care for plain M&Ms (Peanut M&Ms are my favorite), but I've recently discovered dark chocolate M&Ms (without peanuts) and they are just absolutely wonderful - like chocolate chips with a candy shell, yum.
-------------------- I'm not a beautiful and unique snowflake! I am the all-singing all-dancing crap of the world. Posts: 111 | From: Tennessee | Registered: Aug 2005
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posted
There used to be a pre-M&M peanut M&M equivalent (if you can follow the tautology)under yhe name of Peanut Treats; they were however larger (thicker chocolate) and had a non-peanut partner; Chocolate Treats now known as Minstrels. Unfortunately my brain is now too old to remember if whether they were multi-coloured or not (for US readers Minstrels are much larger than M&Ms, around 1 inch diameter and the outer shell is brown)
Posts: 135 | From: UK | Registered: Jan 2006
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