Traveling Without Actually Going Anywhere: Universal Yums from France
Our February 2024 box came from France, and we were quite surprised because we had a trip planned to go to Paris in March 2024! Perfect timing! The first treat in our French Universal Yums box were Pure Butter Sables, which was a thin butter biscuit cookie. I thought they were okay, but David, my husband, loved them. The cookies say “1888” on them, which is when they started being made. Sable is the French word for ‘sand,’ and they were named this because the biscuits look like sand. Next up were Goat Cheese and Espelette Chili Potato Chips that had a slight cheese flavor and a spicy aftertaste. Espelette is a type of pepper grown in France!
We then tasted Strawberry BonBons Chewy Candy. They were really hard to chew because it was too hard and it got caught in my teeth. I even had to stop eating it and brush my teeth to get it all out! They had a dusting of sugar and strawberry flavoring on the outside. I did not like these at all! Then, we ate a Raspberry Roll Cake that looked like a Swiss roll! It was a spongey cake rolled around raspberry filling; it was quite flavorful and delicious.
Next, we tried Chocolate Chip Cookie Truffles, which were delightful; it was a crunchy chocolate chip cookie covered in smooth powdered chocolate. We then ate Caramels that were chewy, but not as bad as the Strawberry Chews. The Caramels had a slight saltiness to them, but really good. Lastly, we ate Popcorn Truffles that had lots of chocolate and barely any popcorn. I was disappointed in the packaging, as there was one small truffle in each package.
We also learned some fun facts such as how the Eiffel Tower was almost destroyed in 1909 but kept up to be used for radio transmitters. Also, the city of Versailles was once the center of political power from 1682 to 1789. Apparently, farmland covers more than half of France, where there are fields of wheat, oats, and lavender. This was a good box to get us excited for our trip to Paris and Versailles in March 2024!
