I’ve said it before (across roughly 47,000 words in my book, The Joy of Snacks) and I’ll say it again: snacks are the best, snacks are forever, snacks are life. The joy of gathering around a table for a multi-course fandango with your loved ones is not lost on me, but it’s already quite well documented. Snacks on the other hand – people are still a little stressed about them. We eat them all the time, but quietly. There are not so many books about snacks (*dusts shoulders*).
If you grew up through the 1990s like me, well, commiserations. That was categorically not a good time to be learning how the world works. Foodwise, the tide was turning on things previously considered healthy, such as pasta and jacket potatoes (cheers Mr Atkins), and the diets our mums and aunties followed left no room for afternoon snacks. Or evening snacks. Or the freedom to trust and believe your own appetite.
And so it has gone: managing to get from one balanced meal to another without eating anything in between has widely been considered a marker of great success. A good day is a controlled day. A good dinner is one that has broccoli in it and uses up the mackerel that’s about to go off. But have you ever experienced the singular joy of throwing caution to the wind and making your way through half a fresh baguette, spreading slice after slice of it with salty French butter, even though it’s nearly dinnertime? Have you ever shopped for chocolate biscuits in a country that isn’t your own? Have you ever put a pickle straight in your mouth? Have you ever lived?
These days it’s particularly easy to forget we are actually allowed to have joy. And rest. And a little cuddle with the dog. And another episode of your favourite TV show. And a slice of brioche slathered in caramelised apple spread at 11pm.
In my book there are snacks a-go-go, but there is also a list of SNACKETTES. These are just combos you can snatch from your kitchen cupboard or fridge at a moment’s notice (the corner of a block of cheddar with a smidge of chutney, a bit of mozzarella pressed up against an anchovy). I have sometimes heard people talking about this style of snacking as a kind of mindfulness. You stop right in the middle of your chaotic life, stand at your kitchen counter, plant your feet on the floor, close your eyes (if you are so inclined) and eat, for instance, a biscuit with hazelnut chocolate spread on it.
I love to think of snacking this way because I think it’s honest. It isn’t always the absentminded on-the-go failure the world would like you to think it is. Sometimes it’s just what you need; a minute to stand and enjoy a simple and delicious thing.
And if a digestive with cream cheese and jam is an instant cheesecake, then the new Bonne Maman spreads are all of that and then some. Each jar contains the essence of great recipes – the Caramelised Apple Spread on a petit beurre biscuit, for example, is the greatest instant dessert I have come across in a long time – think baked apple tarte tatin, but it’s 10am Monday and you haven’t had to turn on the oven.
The Hazelnut Chocolate Spread is a smooth, luxurious, gianduja-esque concoction of glory, like the inside of an expensive, foil-wrapped truffle. And the Chocolate & Orange one is like a richer, darker, more luxurious jaffa cake that has been melted into a ridiculous ganache puddle and … spread on a biscuit? These are Deluxe Snackettes, Snackettes on Stilts, and we are – are we not? – ready to stand at our kitchen counter and put them straight into our mouths, even if it’s nearly dinnertime.
For snacks that hit the spot any time of the day, take a look at Bonne Maman’s new range of delicious spreads
