Gruene Beans

I'll explain the title of the blog post in a minute or two.  Although this is an agricultural blog and beans are an agricultural crop, this post is a little... eccentric, maybe.  It's not about beans you grow.  Do you like jelly beans?  I do.  I'm fortunate in that I love black jelly beans. It seems no one else in our family likes them, so they are the ones left after people pick out the red ones. I remember that jelly beans were President Ronald Reagan's favorite candy and he kept a candy jar full of them on his desk in the Oval Office.  Although very expensive, I like the Jelly Belly brand jelly beans because they have exotic flavors that taste exactly like the real thing, with flavors like: A&W Root Beer, Cantaloupe, Toasted Marshmallow, Buttered Popcorn, Blueberry, Bubblegum, just to mention a few.

Well, the family took a quick vacation this past week.  It was the last hurrah prior to college and home school starting up.  We motored over to the Texas Hill Country and stayed in Austin and New Braunfels and tubed down the Guadalupe and Comal Rivers.  The water was cool and clear.  We relaxed, ate like kings and had fun.  While in the area, we went to a favorite place that Tricia and I enjoyed going to years and years ago.  It's a little town called Gruene, Texas. Gruene is a German name and rhymes with bean.  Now let me tell you about the beans in Gruene.

Gruene is a neat little town with the oldest dance hall in Texas, a neat restaurant called the Grist Mill that is in an old mill on the side of the Guadalupe River and it has a lot of little shops, antique stores, and an old General Store.  While browsing around in the General Store in Gruene, Benjamin stumbled across some Jelly Belly jelly beans in a box called "Bean Boozled."  They cost $2.99 for a small box of about 40 small jelly beans (WOW!!), but looked very interesting.  I'll tell you a bit more about the flavors in a minute, because there is a demented game that goes along with eating them - a game I won't participate in again.

First thing you do is pour them all out on a table:

Behold the Beans

Then you group them according to color:

Color coordinating

Then you assemble the partakers of the beans for the festivities that will shortly ensue:

Jelly Bean aficionados assemble 

Here is how it works (or how we did it at least).  There are several flavors in the box - some good - some bad.  No, let me correct that.  Some are absolutely the foulest, most awful thing you've ever put in your mouth.  Here are the flavors:

• A speckled one might be Tutti Fruitti or it might be stinky socks,
• A green one might be Lawn Clippings or it might be lime,
• A white and yellow one might be Rotten Egg or Buttered Popcorn,
• Toothpaste OR Berry Blue
• Barf or Peach
• Canned Dog Food or Chocolate Pudding
• Booger or Juicy Pear
• Moldy Cheese or Caramel Corn
• Baby Wipes or Coconut
• Skunk Spray or Licorice

Savor the Flavor!

The trouble is, you don't know which is which by looking at them, so each participant grabs a bean of the same color.

Here we go!

It is like Russian Roulette of candy eating.  You may get Chocolate Pudding or you may get Canned Dog Food!

Ready, Set, Go!

We popped them in our mouths and chewed and watched each other's expressions. Suddenly, those that chose the "mean bean from Gruene" took off running to the bathroom to spit out the corruption that was assaulting our taste buds.  Here I am mid-spit after getting a Skunk Spray flavored jelly bean.  I thought I was going to get licorice! 

Nasty tasting skunk!

Here is Russ gagging after consuming Canned Dog Food Flavored jelly bean when he was hoping to get Chocolate Pudding!  You can see Benjamin laughing at him.

Russ does not like Alpo

The taste was absolutely horrible and the smell was just as repugnant.  I don't know how they do it, but as good as they make some of their beans taste, they are able to make some of them taste horrible.  Eating Skunk Spray, Rotten Egg, Barf and Canned Dog Food Flavored Jelly Beans were life changing experiences and one we won't forget for a long, long time.  But that's what family vacations are all about, huh?  What's a family vacation without eating dog food or smelling that odious, noxious smell coming from the back seat.