Same here. And I was there early days. I saw them in a tiny venue (The After Dark, in Reading), having them been supporting every band playing locally for six months. I’d seen creep on late night TV. Got a signed copy of Everyone can play guitar, got the album. They were ok. Run of the mill indie band.
Then everyone loved them. Adored them. I listened to that album. I just didn’t get it. Suddenly the biggest band in the world. I still know every song on the Bends but still don’t get it.
Well, British sweets (aka “candy” as the US calls it). It’s a complicated subject.
Let’s get one thing straight, Jelly babies are in no way related to Jelly beans. Totally different things. They’re actually pretty ok, but have gone a bit out of fashion. Wine gums, well, they’re kind of crappy and part of what I’d call historical sweets. There’s also Fruit gums, which are quite dissimilar to Wine gums, so there’s overlaps in naming too.
There’s lots of these. There used to be sweet shops with jars full of different sweets of all kinds, sold by the 1/4lb. They’ve died out but produced a lot of sweets which I suspect were unique to the UK. Cola Cubes. Milk mice. Bonbons. Flying saucers. Chewing nuts (did not contain nuts, just shaped like them). I can remember a few I can’t even remember the name of. This tends to be where Jelly babies and Wine gums came from. They bagged and branded them later, but a lot tended to buy this generic by the jar product in paper bags.
Also there was historical sweets, which often were a bit sour, or not as nice as other sweets. Frys chocolate cream. Often they came from parts of the empire (I remember a Jamaica chocolate brand which I’ve not seen for years). As the generification of the worlds products continues (Marathon became Snickers for instance, and I’m struggling to remember what Starburst were originally named over here). Niche sweets disappeared and went out of fashion. This is what happened to Wine Gums, and kind of Jelly babies too.
Also, there’s a British tradition of getting a bag or box of mixed sweet types at Christmas, called a Selection pack/box. This often contained sweets which never sold very well elsewhere (Spangles for instance, and Frys chocolate cream), so kids often knew and ate the older stuff because of this. Suffered them, if you will, but they weren’t actually that bad, just different. Some were great but went out of fashion for some reason (I still adore Caramac bars for instance).
It’s only in the last 20 odd years where US chocolate really appears over here, and some, like Hersheys, won’t ever make it big (it’s just not to our taste). So there’s lots different. But nostalgic sweet shops over here are often pushing nostalgic US sweets more than the UK ones, so you’d probably never find them.
However, Jelly babies in themselves were a nostalgic reference by an older man on British telly in the 80s. They were past their time even then. Mothers and Grandmothers tended to eat them.
This is the danger when you watch other peoples culture and absorb their product placement. I’ve wasted a meal in White Castle. And sought out Twinkies in the US. It wasn’t worth it. Took me a good 20 years to eat a Taco Bell (only recently arrived here in force, never was many to find in the US downtowns where I visited), and it was not worth it.
There are shops like that in the US. I’ve seen them in malls and in tourist sites like Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco.
I always wondered what inspired this:
It’s one of those things I’m not sure you have in the US.
I assume giving a woman a box of chocolates is normal. It can’t not be, though the concept is a bit dated. Various kinds of manufacturers produced boxes with very similar varieties. Terrys all gold. Milk Tray. The latter had a James Bond esque character sneaking in like a pervert to leave a box in a ladies room, which seemed to impress her.
It’s based on that. Half of the chocolates in those boxes weren’t actually very good. Pretty much a satire of that.
(Also there’s a lot of very british “biscuits” US people would call cookies, and unsure how many of those made it out the country. Shortbread seemed to. Rich tea biscuits? Digestives? Bourbons? Jammy Dodgers? Hobnobs?)
Quality Street!
I’m a guy, and I would love to receive a box of chocolates. As it is, my sister insists on giving me unsalted nuts, chocolate-covered pretzels (which I hate), and gift cards to places I never go to. A box of chocolates I could enjoy–I’d like a box of Pot of Gold or Black Magic chocolates. But I cannot enjoy what she typically gives me–I sell the gift cards, and toss the rest.
The original Hershey’s chocolate is an acquired taste, most people around the world would call it sour chocolate and wonder what it is that Americans see in it.
In my opinion it is best when eaten as a Hershey’s bar with almonds. Then the chocolate doesn’t overwhelm the almond.
As consumed by Cadet White (Gary Cooper) about 30 minutes into the silent film “Wings”.
This always struck me as extremely weird. If you go into stores specializing in British stuff you can find boxes of “Digestive Biscuits”, and the name always seemed very, very strange. Of course you want biscuits you can digest. But nobody would label a box as “edible biscuits”, even though they are, presumably, edible. Calling them “digestive” makes them sound as if they’re needed for digestion, like some sort of medicine. And no one likes taking medicine. Next thing you know they’ll be labelling them as “non-poisonous biscuits” or “un-nauseating biscuits” or “non-lethal biscuits”.
Never heard of “RICH Tea Biscuits”* or “Bourbons” or “Jammy Dodgers” or “Hobnobs”. Even in said British Food Shops.
Eh? I last went to one a week ago, what do you mean they’ve died out? I mean, they’re not in every village any more, but sweet shops with lots of big jars of assorted sugary goodness, weighed out at the counter into little paper bags are still decidedly extant, even if the sign outside does say ‘Ye Olde’ now. They still sell pretty much everything you’ve listed there- in fact, some of them; wine gums, jelly babies and fry’s chocolate cream are available at a lot of petrol stations. I think the only sweet you’ve listed that’s no longer available is Spangles.
Starburst were Opal fruits, incidentally- they’ve recently done a limited run of them under the old name, aimed at the nostalgia crowd.
Ok. You live somewhere they had one. I have lived/visited: Glasgow, Greenock, Largs, Paisley, Wolverhampton, Reading, Birmingham, Coventry, Leatherhead, (East) London, Cambridge, Stevenage, Faversham, Tewkesbury, Wigan, Manchester, and I’ve not seen one since the 90s. So it’s nice you have one, but they’re certainly not common or ubiquitous like a chip shop…
Bourbons get a name check with Alexei Sayle in The Young Ones from the 80s.
Yeah, pretty much all of those places have at least one or two of them. I’ve moved round a fair bit- I’ve lived in 3 counties this year, and I’ve always had one reasonably local. Maybe I’m just better at finding them?
I only chuckled once during that terrible show. “Henceforth, all the toilets in Britain will be known as Johns”. That was it.
Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace
[mic drop]
One nostalgia sweet shop only opened in the last four years and only one in 20 miles, is hardly the same thing. Oh and I very much doubt children would be rich enough to be a customer.
But whatever.
Move to Japan where the concept of giri choco exists. It won’t help with your sister but you’ll score something.
On Valentine’s Day in Japan, giri choco is inexpensive chocolate that women give to male co-workers and friends to show appreciation and respect as opposed to honmei choco , chocolate that is given to romantic partners.[1]
He consumed half of it and never came back for the other half. I remember thinking when he put it down, Lookit all the almonds! – there were a lot more than the single row in today’s bars.
People eat “health food” all the time. Willingly. Digestives were part of the same sort of health fad that gave your lot the Graham cracker and Kelloggs corn flakes. They are an aid to digestion.
Do you have a similar problem with apéritifs and digestifs ?
Aperitifs are appetizers, and don’t cause any problems. But, yes, digestifs are also digestives.
And “health food” is just food that’s healthy. Why would it sit in the same pew with things you take to help you digest?
No, it’s not. It’s a marketing category of food claimed to have health benefits over and above just normal nutrition. And “restoring” proper digestive function was one of the claimed benefits of the early health foods pushed by Graham and Kellogg.
That and preventing masturbation…