Weird foods: Dog food, vomit, rotten egg, mouldy cheese, nappies, baby wipes, centipede and bogey flavoured jelly beans
THE EXPRESSION on my face says it all; eyes bulging and mouth foaming like a rabid dog. My taste buds are being assaulted and I’m not talking a gentle happy slapping. More the brutal, set-upon-by-thugs wielding razor blades in an alley type beating.
Bean Boozled: A Game of Chance
First there’s the sour tang, a punch of pepper, a waft of cheese then the noxious taste of rotten egg. All these flavours have been hidden in a tiny sweet – a yellow bullet that can make you gag with one shot.
But for Jelly Belly, this rotten-egg-flavoured bean is a success. The California-based company prides itself on creating authentic-tasting sweets. So the weird flavours that make up Bean Boozled – mouldy cheese, centipede, nappies and dog food – are no exception.
Bean Boozled is more than just a box of sweets, it’s a game. Players must spin the wheel to choose which coloured sweet they must eat. But for each delicious-tasting bean there’s a disgusting counterpart. Will the green bean taste of pear or bogies? Is the maroon bean Centipede or Strawberry Jam?
Flavoured jelly beans were invented in 1976 when food scientists added fruit pastes to the sweet mixture. As the years passed, the flavours became more adventurous. Buttered popcorn became the Marmite of the Jelly Bean world – people either loved or hated it – Very Cherry became the most popular UK flavour, while Bubblegum, Candy Floss and Root Beer flavours reigned supreme Stateside.
Ronald Reagan had blueberry-flavoured Jelly Belly beans at his presidential inauguration in 1981 and two years later the sweets were considered literally out of this world when astronauts took them on the space shuttle Challenger. Currently, the brand boasts Stella McCartney, Jonathan Ross and Gwyneth Paltrow as reported fans.
In 2007, when the world was still gripped by Harry Potter mania. Jelly Belly grabbed onto Hedgewig’s tail feathers and decided to make weird flavoured jelly beans, echoing the books’ Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans.
Staff at Jelly Belly were asked to brainstorm ideas for strange flavours. Food scientists then put a sample of a food through a machine that separated its components, then added different amounts of each component into the sweet mixture until they created an authentic flavour.
There have been some happy accidents during the process. Combining components from orange and pear made peach flavour. A four-cheese-flavoured bean that went wrong became vomit flavour!
Once the beans were created, a taster rated each sweet on its flavour, colour and appearance, comparing it to the real thing. When you’re testing pomegranate Cosmopolitans and peach Bellinis it’s fun. When it’s dog food flavour? Not so much.
Sweet nightmares: Is a vomit flavoured jelly bean lurking in the mix?
Speaking of which… Holding the brown, glossy, innocent-looking jelly bean in my hand, I sniff it tentatively. Nothing but a faint sugary smell. It’s either chocolate pudding or dog food flavour. Taste buds straining, they’re hoping for chocolatey salvation…
But…a pervading taste of pepper, a meaty tang. If this is what dog food tastes like, Fido can keep it!
Centipede tastes earthy and gritty. I work my way through six acidic, revolting vomit-flavoured beans before I reach the sweet relief of Peach, it’s counterpart. Baby wipe flavour isn’t so bad, tasting like parma-violet – a palate cleanser if you will!
Jelly Belly hope that each bean will activate the taste buds, sending messages to the brain, triggering distant memories from our childhood or emotional moments, but while Bean Boozled is a fun game, hanging over a toilet bowl retching is not a memory I want to relive.
So, I reach for a Pina-Colada-flavoured bean and within minutes I’m transported to a sunny, Spanish beach. At last my taste buds are celebrating. After everything they’ve been through they deserve a holiday.
Weird Foods 
I read this feeling sick after a huge Toby Carvey – didn’t make me feel much better haha! Great descriptions, don’t think I’ll be trying them any time soon though!
I’ve had there normal flavours liked buttered popcorn and peanut butter, and I think that’s wear ill leave it.
Hmmm, sounds delish. Not sure what you’re complaining about.
Haha! These are sweets to give to enemies. Vomit-flavoured beans…eww, just think of the poor jellybean tasters of this product while they were researching the perfect flavour.