Wednesday, September 4, 2013

Candy Crush

Clearly, my promise was worth nil and yet another week goes by where I fail at this blogging thing. I can only try and justify it by saying that my life nowadays is pretty unexciting. I had to make attend a conference in Bergen, and as I sat through presentation after presentation, the one drier than the next, I started getting really bad cravings. Cravings for crunchy Cheetos and white cheddar popcorn, neither of which we have here in Norway. If there is one thing that I believe you Americans don’t appreciate enough, it’s your vast assortment of junk food. It’s probably one of those things it’s really hard to appreciate when you’ve never known anything else. Like how kids nowadays can never truly appreciate being on the phone and the internet at the same time.

When I grew up, we only got candy and sweets on Saturdays and birthdays. Like any kid, I hungered for all things sweet and I remember occasionally stealing spoonfuls of brown sugar from the cupboard with some of my braver friends, because the weekly ration of five gummy bears and three squares of chocolate would not suffice. (If you’re reading this mum: I’m just making this up so my new friends will think I’m cool, promise!) Come to think of it, I’m pretty sure my parents scammed us kids out of basically all the good things in life. When my sister was 9 and I was 7, we went a year without eating any candy at all. The prize we got: An electric toothbrush that we had to share with our younger brothers. I’m pretty sure kids aren’t supposed to work for the right to brush their teeth effectively. (We didn’t have to share the brush, only the thing that made them move. I felt I had to clarify that, they might have been cheapos, but my parents did have some sense of basic hygiene.)

With this history of sugar denial, it might not come as a surprise that the smallest amount will send me into a sugar high that I imagine can only be compared to a squirrel on crack. And with the wide assortments of sugary products available in the US, I’m surprised I even survived. For those of you unaware, in America they have something called toaster pastries: flat, pie-like foodstuffs, filled with sugar camouflaged with an artificial flavor and frosted with sugar that you can heat in your toaster (Yum!). These are categorized as breakfast food, together with treats such as donuts, waffles, and pancakes! In America, most desserts can be camouflaged as breakfast some way or another. (Cupcake= dessert. Cupcake - frosting = muffin = breakfast!)

Being used to fruit salads being served with a splash of orange juice as a dressing if you were lucky, imagine my surprise when I all the fruit I was served was covered in syrup, marshmallows fluff, or caramel. It was heaven! I’m pretty sure I spent the majority of my first semester wandering around the junk food section of the local grocery store (all of it, minus the produce section). Crayola colored cheese in cans (unintentional alliteration, high-five me!) and puddings with flavorings varying from the basic chocolate to cake batter, so many were the wonders of Wal-Mart.

I would love to go on about all the other deliciousness I now have to live without, but that will have to wait. I'm feeling peckish for some reason, if you need me, I'll be by the fridge.

Bon appétit!

4 comments :

  1. Haha! Freshman 15? If you´re from Norway, where we don´t have any junk food at all (tiny lie), it´s more like freshman 30. And that´s in kg, not pounds.

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  2. Ah, America is good for the fatty food. But it tastes so good, you almost don't mind the muffin top it gives you. Mmm, muffins...

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