The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Community => Coffee Lounge => Topic started by: landroverroy on December 31, 2015, 10:38:24 am
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Ok - so it says on here that one can discuss anything and everything. So I would like to mention the most disgusting Christmas present I got this year. Hopefully it may serve as a warning to others as to what not to buy.
My step daughter in law bought me a large tin of Walkers Luxury milk chocolate nuts and fruits. The tin looked amazing and I do love chocolate covered nuts. :yum:
However, I'm not sure where the luxury comes in. The chocolate is cheap and nasty at 24% cocoa and the nuts are mostly tiny bits - like floor sweepings. After trying one or 2 and being incredibly disappointed by the poor quality of the chocolate and the fact that I couldn't work out what was inside without looking on the tin, I realised that some of them tasted distinctly non chocolatey - like they'd been dipped in a chemical. :thinking:
So I went on that trusty source of all info - Google - and discovered that someone else had found traces of weevils in their "luxury" Walkers nuts. Now, I don't normally scrutinise chocolates before I eat them. (Does anyone?!) I just pop them in my mouth and expect to enjoy. I shal never do that again. :huff: For on examining the remaining chocolates I found that many had signs of something having got to eat them before me. There were little entry marks all over the chocolate surface.
Not wishing either myself, or this forum to be threatened with a libel action I wouldn't go so far to say that some my chocolates were riddled with weevils, but they certainly gave that impression. But until Trading Standards have examined them more closely it isn't possible to confirm.
But I will state that my tin of Walkers chocolate nuts is most certainly not a luxury product and they taste disgusting :rant:
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[member=1]Dan[/member] we need a Yeuk! emotiwotsit! Eeeeoooowww! Shudder! Vomit!
I am currently foresworn off any but 70% or more cocoa chocolate, and the sweeter stuff is now really very unappealing. More so now!
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Yuk
So you've passed them on to trading standards?
Would be interesting to know their answer.
I'll check my snack foods in future!
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Wow!!
That reminds me of when my parents lived in Zambia. Apparently they always had to sift the brown flour to remove the weevils, but the white flour never had any. My Dad mentioned this at the shop one day and said 'I suppose that's because the white flour is more pure?'. The response? 'No, there isn't enough nutrition in the white flour for them to survive' :) .
BTW, you'd be shocked if you read the standards for wheat flour (http://www.grains.k-state.edu/igp/wheatflourbook/wheat-flour-book.pdf): A sample is considered “infested” if it contains 1. two or more live weevils, or 2. one live weevil and 1 other live insect injurious to stored grain, or 3. two or more live insects injurious to stored grain other than live weevils.
So one live weevil is ok then? What about dead weevils? do they not count? :roflanim: And as for this one, well, the mind boggles! :o
Light Smutty Wheat. Wheat in a 250-gram portion that has an unmistakable odor of smut or which contains smut balls, portions of smut balls, or spores of smut in excess of a quantity equal to 5 smut balls, but not in excess of a quantity equal to 30 smut balls of average size.
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:yuck:
Alright [member=10673]SallyintNorth[/member] ?
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So, when buying chocolates it's better to choose the lesser of two weeviles then! :roflanim: .
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Weevils? Weren't they the main source of protein for sailors of old? :roflanim: :yuck: :yuck: :yuck:
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So, when buying chocolates it's better to choose the lesser of two weeviles then! :roflanim: .
Brilliant pun :roflanim: May suggest it to Walkers when they ring me back on monday with their sanitised version of how chocolate develops holes as a natural cooling process or whatever they have managed to dream up in the next few days.
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Weevils? Weren't they the main source of protein for sailors of old? :roflanim: :yuck: :yuck: :yuck:
Absolutely FW. But it wasn't mentioned in the list of contents. :huff:
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I've never had their chocolates but they are much better know for their shortbread and cakes etc.
Back when I was a student I had a flat mate who had family and friends who worked in the factory. Every now and again they packaged up a box and sent it to us. Ginger bread, shortbread and biscuits aplenty, it was brilliant!
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:yuck:
Alright [member=10673]SallyintNorth[/member] ?
Bloomin' marvellous :thumbsup: Thank you Dan! :trophy:
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I love chocolate .....will pop any in my mouth, without checking to be honest, although tend to leave any with nuts in for my OH, plus any caramel ones......which sometimes I have already sucked the chocolate off before deciding its not to my liking!!! Reading this has made me think twice - I will look at what chocolate is going in my mouth!!
Hope you get a positive result about your chocolates.
Oh, and when I first saw your post I actually thought the chocolate was for ....walkers, you know, the sort who hike!!!!
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Professional chocolatiers say that if you cannot taste the filling first when you bite into the chocolate then it is a bad chocolate. I am sorry to hear about your experience landdovery, it really is completely and utterly unacceptable, I am surprised they have gotten away with it up until now. When i first saw the post I immediately thought it was crisp walkers, but I recalled a friend telling me about shortbread walkers. Pity about that I love their shortbread as well. ::) I hope everything comes out alright. :thumbsup:
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Walkers of Aberlour are one of the most popular and highly regarded shortbread manufacturers - both in and out of Scotland. They have various products that contain chocolate - are you sure this is the same company? I've done various google searches and can't find these chocolates anywhere
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I got a large box of montezuma's chocolates for Christmas and can vouch for them being delicious without the addition of weevils.
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This is nothing to do with the shortbread maker from Aberlour.
These chocolate nuts are produced by 'Walkers of London' - see website here:
http://www.walkerschocolates.co.uk/ (http://www.walkerschocolates.co.uk/)
Sue
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Womble, I grew up in the tropics. Before baking we used to weigh out our flour and spread it out on a baking sheet. It was then put out in the sun for 15 mins. The weevils would squirm away from the sun, leaving their little trails in the flour.........!
And I'm sure you know smuts are fungal infections ;)
My experiences of Walkers have been positive. I have warm memories of the Walkers bakery in Grantown from my summer grouse beating at Dorback & Revack.
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My experiences of Walkers have been positive. I have warm memories of the Walkers bakery in Grantown from my summer grouse beating at Dorback & Revack.
I'm sure the chocolate people, as mentioned by Factotum, are nothing to do with any bakery, or shortbread, or crisp people. The product I bought was made in a factory in Birmingham.
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Oh well, that'll be it then :innocent: .
And I'm sure you know smuts are fungal infections ;)
No, I had no idea. I love this forum! ;D
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Ooow how disappointing LRR,
perhaps the little holes in the chocs were just air bubbles or something.....If there is nothing visible you could hold them to your ear......I'm thinking see no weevil, hear no weevil..... :roflanim:
;D :excited: ;D Ho ho! I'm entertaining myself here...... :innocent:
Sorry I couldn't resist and Cosmore had bagged the lesser of two weevils which was beautifully lined up by the way.
Tell us what the results of the food test were. ;)
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This is what happens when ingredients are bought in bulk and loaded into machines automatically. If they had been made by a lady in a flowery pinafore she would have noticed. Quality control needs a shake up, methinks.
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Why worry about weevils - my father who was a POW under the Japs after the capitulation of Singapore in WW2, in common with all the POW's was given a meagre daily portion of rice which was full of weevils. On complaining to their medics they were given the advice that they should cook the rice properly, shut their eyes and eat it - weevils and all as it was a source of protein that their diets were missing. Also, all the local dogs and cats, rotting fish that had been thrown away by the Japs all ended up in a 'stew' resembling pig swill and eaten as a much needed dietry supplement. Large local snails and maggots were gathered and kept on flour for a few days to 'clean them out' before including in the 'stew'. One trick used was when out on working parties, they would throw stones at the monkeys in the coconut palms, the monkeys responded by pelting them with coconuts which were also included in the 'stews'. Some brave souls shinned up the palms suffering nasty ant bites to collect the green palm cabbage like centres at the tops for vegetables. Just goes to show what can be achieved when needs must!
By the way, can anyone remember Magnus Pyke on TV, extolling the virtues of eating earthworms as they are full of protein?
So, eat your Weevils and enjoy, Lol!
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The problem with having weevils in chocolate suggests that their hygiene is not up to scratch and it also suggests that there could be more than just weevils in them, faeces for example?
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Mid-1970's a friend had a Summer job at Peak Bakery in Derby. One of his tasks was to clean the flour filters after every delivery, at which time he was up to his knees in them and taking them out with a bucket. Hopefully the production standards have improved since then, but as a result I never bought one of their loaves.
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This is what happens when ingredients are bought in bulk and loaded into machines automatically. If they had been made by a lady in a flowery pinafore she would have noticed. Quality control needs a shake up, methinks.
Would a man in a flowery pinafore not have noticed? Just asking! :thinking:
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Actually, I've spent the past three months working at a cake factory. For some reason the people weighing out the ingredients into the mixers are all men. Further down the line where they do the assembly and decoration, it's roughly half men and half women.
None of them wear flowery pinafores though. Perhaps that's the problem?
P.S. Chris - they do sieve the flour before using it (as well as putting it through magnetic filters to catch nuts and bolts etc). I've seen a couple of bits of plastic in there, but not yet a weevil, so maybe things have improved over the last 40 years!?
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I wouldn't give a damm obout eating weevils, they will be well and truly cooked after all!
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First make a jelly pyramid, then place the chocolates atop the jelly. Any that fall to the bottom have no weevils because we all know.......
Weevils wobble but they don't fall down!
Younger members probably won't get this!!!
:roflanim: :roflanim: :roflanim:
Giving myself away as a not so young member.