It wasn't until I became an adult that I realized many people ate a different type of peanut butter and jelly sandwich than I did growing up as a child. In our family, grape was the preferred flavor of jelly. In fact, I cannot remember ever eating a peanut butter and strawberry jelly sandwich as a child...although I may have had peanut butter and honey (especially on crackers) on more than one occasion. I do remember that Welch's grape jelly came in glass jars that frequently had cartoon characters imprinted on the side, and that we used these as drink glasses for years afterwards...until Archie, Betty and Veronica had faded away from countless dishwashing. But I digress...
I'll have to confirm with my own kids, now adults, but something tells me that I passed on the family tradition by making them peanut butter and grape jelly sandwiches as well. At the time, Smucker's Uncrustables...which are crust-less sandwiches found in the freezer aisle...didn't even exist. They didn't exist when I was a kid either, but it would have been interesting to have had access to both strawberry and grape sandwiches depending upon the mood. Uncrustables keep both camps happy; M&M's, on the other hand, does not. Or does it?
From the color of the wrapper, tan and red, you might assume that these candies are strawberry flavored. I wish I could tell you that you are right...or wrong...but that's the problem. I have no idea! There is a peanut butter flavor, albeit nowhere near as strong as the peanut butter M&M's and lacking the crunch of peanut M&M's, but it is paired with an ambiguous sweetness. I thought if I dissected these things I'd be able to tell what it was but there is nothing visible other than the shell, the chocolate and the peanut butter inside. I'm guessing the flavor might be in the chocolate, rather than the peanut butter, but I honestly couldn't make that determination either!
If these candies tasted good I would have simply shrugged and continue eating them. After all, there are plenty of other things in life which I enjoy even though I don't understand exactly how they work: OLED displays, trying to move an image inside of a Word document without messing up the formatting, carburetors, etc. But I did not enjoy these at all! The peanut butter flavor was too subdued, and whether the "jelly" flavor was supposed to approximate strawberry or grape, it tastes like neither. These M&M's left me with an unpleasant aftertaste and made me wonder if, like peanut butter and "whatever" jelly sandwiches, maybe I've outgrown M&M's as an adult.
Nah...
RATING: 2 / 5
