Universal Yums: Snacks (and Learning!) from Around the World

One of my favorite things to do when traveling is to visit grocery stores and markets. The farther away I am from home, the more I like it. I find it absolutely fascinating to see what is for sale, how things are arranged, and what interesting stuff I can find that I wish we had at home. (Like that amazing orange juice machine in the French grocery store!) I especially love trying regional dishes and local snack foods. Food is such a huge part of culture and a great entry point for learning more about other people's traditions and customs. 

Knowing this, my mom gave our family a Universal Yums subscription for Christmas (affiliate link). It is the best gift! Each month, we get a themed box, packed with tasty snacks. This was January's box, all about Poland: 

As you can see, there's more than just snacks in the box. There's a fun info card all about Poland; the back has a Yum Scoreboard (for ranking the treats), suggestions for more Polish Yums to try, a Polish language lesson, and a scavenger hunt activity. There's a cool sticker sheet. Best of all is a 12-page pamphlet chock full of tons more fun information about Poland, a trivia game, information and nutrition facts about all the foods in the box, a list of Polish sayings, and a recipe for Zapiekanka, Poland's favorite street food. There's a QR code that leads to even more fun stuff, including bonus recipes for Poland's best foods. 

I absolutely love how educational and kid-friendly this snack box is. There's a ton of potential for learning here - between the snacking and the games and the recipes and the trivia and the language - you could plan a lot of family fun around a single box. And yet it's still fun for teens and adults. I learned a lot about Poland!

So how were the snacks? Great! Here is a sampling of what we got: 

The Monster Munch Potato Snacks, the Lemon Cream Cookies, and the Cocoa Glazed Gingerbread Sticks were our favorites. But there wasn't a single item we didn't like. 

Poland was actually our second box. We got an "Around the World" box at Christmas to tell us our gift subscription was starting. 

Like the Poland box, the Around the World box had a selection of foods, an info card with Yum Scoreboard, a sticker sheet, and a 12-page pamphlet. Rather than focusing on one country, the pamphlet talked about winter holidays around the world. The snacks in the box were from Taiwan, France, the UK, Argentina, Spain, Ukraine, and Italy. There's a trivia about countries including Peru, Norway, and Turkey, a recipe for a Swedish casserole, instructions for playing Dreidel, a game based on holiday characters including Santa Claus, Mari Lwyd, La Befana, and Gryla. It's really kid-friendly and fun to do as a family. 

Here are the foods that were in the Around the World box:

We all tried everything, of course. We loved the French macaron truffles and the Mocktail Bonbons in particular. None of us were fans of the Salted Egg Yolk Popcorn. It wasn't the worst thing I've ever had by far, but now that I've tried it, I don't need to eat it again. 

I'm really excited to get our next Universal Yums box. Thanks, Mom!