Well, as long as we’re over-analizing the candy we hate, how about the stuff we love?
I love gummy bears.
But not just any run-of-the-mill buck ninteen bag of candy colored corn syrup and constipation. I love the wierd German made Black Forest ones. They’re just so… Not American.
They’re stiff and chewy, without bieng stale. The color scheme is more muted. Yellow ocre and burnt orange and dull green, like a 1970’s era kitchen.
With the exception of the lemon and and orange, it’s hard to pin down the exact flavor of European gummy bears. Unlike their less cultured American cousins, Black Forest gummies dont follow the " Green=lime Red=Cherry Yellow=Lemon " equasion.
Sure, the green gummies have a limey, citrus vibe about them, but they also have a mysterious herbal undertone. It’s the kind of lime that would sit around a dark Paris cafe, drinking strong coffee, smoking hand rolled cigarettes and quoting Sartre. A world-weary, nilistic lime.
The red gummies know that we are conditioned to expect a cherry or strawberry flavor from them. They sneer at our expectations! They will give us only whatever tart, berry-ish flavor they choose to offer. If you don’t like it, thats your problem.
And the orange! The Black Forest orange gummy flavor isn’t merely something synthetic from a vat. It’s a dark, moody orange. An orange running from it’s past. An orange with a grim smile and haunted eyes who at any moment might grab you by your lapels and say to you…
“I’ve seen things…”
“…seen things you little people wouldn’t believe.”
“Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion bright as magnesium.
I rode on the back decks of a blinker and watched c-beams glitter in the dark near the Tanhauser Gate…”
Er, got off the subject there, but you get the idea. They are not the happy, jolly, bouncy, Crayola colored gummies that are everywhere in America. These were designed by Willy Wonka after a failed love affair.
Inky
