Maltesers Small Box - 110g

Maltesers sit in that small club of British sweets where everyone has a method. Some people suck off the chocolate first and save the crunch. Some bite straight through. Some insist on rolling one round the box first, for reasons they cannot explain.

If you grew up in Britain, they were simply there: on the newsagent's counter, in the petrol station, in the bag passed along the back seat. Living in Canada, you start to notice when something like that has gone missing, and the red box is the one people go looking for.

The small box is 110g of rattling chocolate in a sturdy cardboard box that survives a handbag, a glovebox or a desk drawer. Keep it somewhere cool and out of the sun, like any chocolate, and it sits happily in the cupboard until film night. Whether it survives that long is another question.

People tend to buy a box alongside the other British basics they have been missing: a bar of Dairy Milk, a packet of proper crisps, a box of tea bags for the kettle. It is that sort of order.