Mm.. Crunch ‘n Munch. To make a short story longwinded, I was casting about trying to think of something to review for Earth Day. Something that would really speak to the heart of the matter about Us destroying the ozone and whatnot. I was going to be a real Green Hero by calling attention to the plight of Mother Earth.

Instead, as usual I caved to the pressure of cheap, preprocessed food bought at the Dollar Store. Truth be told, awhile back I stocked up on a number of different Cheap Eats items at the Dollar Store to review (the people who work there must think I’m insane buying all that random food). I guess Earth Day can wait another week. Not that I don’t think about the state of the environment.

So, about the Crunchity ‘n Munchity… I was going to insert a joke here about people having the “munchies” after ingesting the afterburn from certain plants, but since this is a family friendly website I decided against it.

I’ve been eating Crunch ‘n Munch, since the 70s or so. Made by ConAgra (who bought the rights from Franklin Nut Company?), this is pretty much in a similar vein to Cracker Jack and Fiddle Faddle. I’m not sure what it going on with the rhyming in all three of those names.

Cracker Jack is probably the most traditional and popular of the three, and for some reason I don’t think I’ve reviewed it yet. I’ll probably try get a hold of some if I can find it for cheap. Fiddle Faddle - I know it’s similar and I used to eat it that back in the day as well . For the life of me, I can’t remember how it was different than Crunch ‘n Munch - I think maybe it didn’t have any peanuts?

The Crunch ‘n Munch formula is basically clusters of sugar syrup coated popcorn with peanuts embedded in them. I got the “Caramel” variety which is different than the original flavor of Buttery Toffee. They also have an almond version of it.

I have to say that I was pretty pleasantly surprised with the flavor and quality. A side note: everyone thinks that stuff at the Dollar Store is “past it’s prime” and that’s how they can sell it for cheap. But so far, I haven’t had too many instances where the product was not fresh. This box of Crunch ‘n Munch tasted pretty fresh to me.

The popcorn itself is pretty darned decent - I didn’t find too many unpopped kernels in it and with the outer coating it had a nice crunch. The size of the popped corn is very large, much larger than what you’d find with microwave popcorn. I actually think it’s a different variety of corn - I can’t remember the specifics about it but I believe I saw it on Alton Brown’s show.

The outer syrup coating is like a thin shellac and it does have a good caramel taste and it completely coats the mix. This is sacrilege for many, but I actually found it more pleasing than Cracker Jack’s. The peanuts were a bit sparse in the mix, but tasted good embedded alongside the popcorn when you could find them. The overall taste is not overly sweet and with a slightly saltiness underneath.

I like that it doesn’t stick in your teeth that much. If they had made the coating thicker, I think I wouldn’t have liked it. I actually want to say that I remember Fiddle Faddle’s coating being much thicker and sweeter, but I don’t have it here side by side to test.

All in all, I’m pretty surprised at how good this was. Obviously, I’m not going to be eating it every day. But at a dollar a box, it’s a really good snack.

Price: $1.00 for 7.5 oz box
Found At: Dollar Store
Cheap Eats Score: 7/10