Scorched Almonds Anybody?

One Antipodean treat(?) I’ve never developed a liking for is Scorched Almonds.
In fact, before I moved to New Zealand 10 years ago, I’d never even heard of them.

Now, let’s get one thing clear. They are not, as the name suggests, a little bit burnt.

However, maybe their unfortunate name is one of the reasons I can’t bring myself to like them.

Maybe it’s because it brings to mind the smell of a cotton shirt which has had the iron passed over it rather too slowly.

Or maybe it’s because it recalls the distant memory of a holiday camp strong-man act I once saw as a young child, who jokingly promised the audience he wouldn’t be performing his once famous finale: “Jumping over an upright welding torch in just a loin cloth singing ‘Goodness gracious, great balls of fire.’”

No. Slightly burnt nuts they are not.
They are in fact almonds, each individually coated in a generous layer of chocolate.

I remember mum, who is a big fan of chocolate box assortments, always used to see any nut coated in chocolate as a manufacturer’s excuse not to give us the extra chocolate. Luckily for mum, your average box of chocolates would only have one or two of these brazen little devils.

Whenever she found one, in disgust, she would always nibble the chocolate from around the nut and return the offending sucked kernel to its tray compartment.

So maybe that’s it. A box of Scorched Almonds is, to me, a box consisting entirely of mum’s least favourite chocolates!

The reason I’ve chosen to write about them now, is that they are more evident than ever at this time of year.

The supermarket shelves have scores of the little, rectangular boxes because, in households other than mine, they’re really quite popular.

This affordable box of unsucked nuts seems to be an incredibly versatile item too.

Not only are they the perfect Christmas gift for grandparents or people you don’t know that well, they also often provide an answer to that age old question: “What do you buy someone who has everything?”

Invited to a friend’s house for dinner and looking for the perfect accompaniment to that bottle of Merlot? Scorched Almonds.

Need to say “Thank you” to a school teacher for spending more time with your little darling than you did this year? Scorched Almonds.

OK. So I don’t like them myself, but would never be rude enough to mention this when on the receiving end of this traditional, seasonal New Zealand offering.

However, imagine my disgust when my partner, upon receiving my beautifully giftwrapped but similarly sized box of expensive and delicate Swiss chocolates for her birthday, shook the still-wrapped parcel vigorously and said “Oh goody. Scorched Almonds.”

I almost snatched them right back!

So there you have it. Scorched Almonds, the Owen Wilson of the confectionery world: Not particularly attractive to look at and nutty, yet inexplicably popular and not that welcome in my house.

On the other hand, a red carpet awaits the first Christmas visitor bearing a Terry’s Chocolate Orange.