I'm going to tell you the story of the rum flavor in Romanian chocolate. During the Ceaușescu dictatorship, Romanians went through great difficulties regarding food. We were literally a starving people. Everything that was of quality was exported to be able to pay the national debt of 5 billion dollars. An adult can endure material deprivation, but with children it is more difficult. The food industry invented these small chocolate bars (mostly of poor quality) and to cover the lack of real chocolate flavor they used Cuban rum (with Cuba we had good trade relations being part of the same socialist system). Being a nation of poor people, any child could afford to buy a small bar of chocolate. Slowly, slowly, Romanians got used to this flavor and although we are not big producers of rum, we now use the extract in our products. The rum essence now has full flavor but 0 alcohol. We have lived through hard times, something absolutely unimaginable for an American who comes from a consumer culture and society.
Actually they used rum to hide the low quality in many more things than chocolate. You could find it in cakes, biscuits all sorts of baked goods, icecream and some medicine. Hell, they even poured it in tea. And it worked, some of us developed a taste for it. For myself, I love it - was too young to experience the communist era, but the rum "tradition" was there through all my childhood. To this day, I can't say no to some of that chocolate. My mouth waters just watching you. Try it some coffee next time, it might change your mind.
i find the way you crack open sunflower seeds interesting, we don't really put them in our mouths, but hold one with our fingers and crack them with our front teeth and keep the shells in our hand, they rarely enter our mouth, and that way we get the salt on our lips which we lick off to complement the flavour of the seed itself, also kinda wild that you swallow the shells ngl xD
Salt snaks Gusto are among our favorites because they do not contain dangerous dyes or flavors so they are very healthy, honestly we Romanians like rum bars a lot but if you don't like the flavor of rum these chocolate bars come in various flavors, the Lotto snaks flavored of cheese or peanuts are similar to the American ones and yes that in general is good, I really like the beer Ursus but I like it in a glass bottle any beer much better in a glass bottle another beer that I like is the beer Ciucaș that has a deer on it😂 we put these animals on the packaging because we consider them majestic and we also have many types of beer such as Bucur beer it's very nice but unfortunately the other products that 7 days those pretzels at the end or Chio chips are not Romanian we have our products but we also import from other countries almost all countries in Europe do this on the one hand we import from other countries and on the other hand we export different things.
Love 💕 your explanation for pufuleti. 😊 When I was a kid they used to also have a touch of milk powder on them which gave them a bit more flavour, but indeed, they used to melt in the mouth. Used to eat the whole bags when I was a child.
Oh my gosh, you guys cracked me up. I was laughing out loud. There is one thing for sure, you shouldn’t have run out of snacks. 😂😂😂 Merry Christmas you two. 🎄❤️
In fact Romania's national animal is the linx (râs). About rum, I have a bottle of Cuban rum which I mostly use in baking, because it's better than the essence, not so strong.
I like watching you soo much, you bring smiles and joy!! Thank you for another great test :) Are you planning to visit Gdańsk (Poland)? It would be wonderful!
We are so so happy to hear that!! That is why we do what we do! We hope to visit there someday soon! Hopefully in the summer or next Christmas :) cheers friend♥️
next time you come to romania, drop me a message ill show you everything you need to see, and ill get you to taste and eat everything that needs to be eaten
it's so funny when someone doesn't like the rum essence flavor, most of us love it ,it's used a lot in some cakes too, that and sour cherry liquor, that's the trifecta of essences along with vanilla extract. Rom bar ,Eugenia and the Gusto type puffs are the quintessential Romanian snacks of the communist era and the 90s. You should try Tortitzi with salt and Bake Rolls with garlic. Oh and I guess u could go to a well rated cake shop(cofetarie) and look for the typical cakes like Amandina/Boema, Savarina(both of french origin), etc.
You're right guys; Canadian ketchup chips are big NO. The best chips for me are Miss Vicki. But I think they're are American... you made me hungry again😂. Greetings from Ottawa❤❤❤
Don’t worry, I don’t like the taste of rum in sweets either. When I was a child in the 90s everything that had chocolate had a rum flavor to it, even birthday cakes. Today, if you buy cheap cakes you will find that it has that rum extract taste. Just the smell of it gives me a headache nowadays.
Haha we just don't have that in our country or many countries we have traveled to! It is not weird just something we don't experience often :) we love all the food and snacks in Romania so much!
The Pufuleti are just salt, cornmeal and sunflower oil. All of it is made in Romania. No preservatives no nothing. Healthy snacks. The Lotto stuff is full of preservatives 😅. Sorry you didn't like the ROM we love Rum flavoured things here. Part of the reason is that it used to be one of the cheapest flavourings during communist times so those of us born before 1989 are more fond of it than the younger generation. Back then if you could get a tiny bar of chocolate (like the one you had) once a week you would be living the dream. It's not even made with real Rum as that would be too expensive it's made with "Rum essence" think "Cheese product" instead of cheese in the USA :). Also, don't swallow the seed shells. That's how your appendix gets blocked and you get appendicitis.
I was about to say: "Jenny, Jenny, Jenny, Romania's National animal is the lynx, duuh!", but then I wanted to make sure they didn't lie in school and I found out the brown bear, the zimbru (buffalo) and the lynx are all considered iconic, but We haven't chose one officially. Bummer! At least I know the oak is still considered to be the National tree.
