I only saw one mention of Sen-sens in this entire thread. Don’t know if that means that most folks have never run accross these vile creations, or were pre-warned by those more experienced. Strongly reminiscent of black licorise and Zest soap.
My vote goes for ‘Ribbon Candy’. Those nasty curls of hard candy, flavored with wintergreen, that stuck together in a sucrose still-life in Grandmother’s candy dish. They were abundant back in the fifties and sixties.
A toddler’s version of fly-paper, the child is attracted to the ‘treat’ by it’s shiny appearance and the ‘pretty’ red and green stripes. After one innocent lick; your hair stuck to it, your fingers stuck together, and you remained held fast to the first unmovable object you encountered.
I thought the dusty wax fruit arrangement on Grandmother’s coffee table tasted better.
You people have no taste!
I love black licorice, mmmmmm Good n Plenty mmmmmm
Peeps, wonderful marshmellowness (better when stale)
Bit-o-Honey yum, beside juju beads and raisinettes the ultimate movie theater candy.
Just so you know Sen-Sen is more of a breath mint than a candy, it more for mature tastes.
Just for the record… candy cigarettes still exist. But now they call them candy stix and they don’t have the pink on one end that was supposed to be the “cherry”.
Good heavens; I thought I’d successfully repressed that memory! Those were just horrid! They were so unpopular that my grandma’s bowl of them remained untouched year after year, knick-knack-like. Except for occasional dusting, everyone sort of forgot they were there until I came along and tasted them during the mid-seventies. I agree that the plastic fruit was much more palatable. (Your grandma’s name wasn’t Jenette, was it?)
Another awful treat was the candy my piano teacher and his wife were always forcing on me. I guess they bought a case of this stuff because it was cheap, then realized they couldn’t even give it away. It was called “Now N Later”: about 5 flat squares that resembled the yet-to-be-invented Starburst. Now N Later was the sort of thing you were supposed to chew, yet this was impossible: the best you could do was to dent it a little with your teeth. After a minute or two of that, the jaw and tooth pain was debilitating. They were much harder to chew than even Bit O’ Honey. The texture was like ancient, dried-out Silly Putty, yet it didn’t taste anywhere near that good.
I’m not so sure about that. I bought some candy cigarettes at the “Candy Man” store in Wisconsin for my nephew about 5 months ago. I can’t honestly say if the word “cigarette” was on the package because i don’t remember, but the package did look exactly like a real cigarette, and the candy did have the pink on the tip. I remember the pink tip because i recall my nephew saying how that was supposed to be the “fire”, as he put it.
At least in America, we have a choice. Since the Taliban took over in Afghanistan, the Kandahar Candy Shop has only been allowed to sell black licorice and carob-covered yak innards (sinews, intestines, organs), because pleasure is deemed an evil abomination.
Take a three section puch, one with a candy stick, and two other puches with flavored kool-aid mix or jell-o powder, you decide.
You lick the stick and dip into the powder, then lick it off the stick. Eventually the stick is consumed as well.I ate this stuff in my youth. I don’t know if they still make it, but I swear I see it out of the corner of my eye like some remembered childhood horror.
First, another vote for Peeps. I’m not that crazy about real marshmallows, anyway, but those things are revolting.
And licorice certainly invites passionate feelings–no one is neutral about licorice. I’m firmly in favor.
Glad to see someone else had a grandmother’s candy dish that consisted of a single solid ball of stuck-together ribbon candy.
But here’s a new one…
cherry cordials. Those chocolate-covered cherry things that come in boxes of assorted chocolates. Picking one of those (instead of a yummy caramel) was like losing the lottery…only worse. Like a lottery where if you lose, they beat you up.
C. Howard’s violet mints are still being manufactured. love 'em. Here in Massachusetts you can still buy them at Newbury Comics and (God knows why) Plymouth Plantation. C.Howard’s also makes violet-flavored gum, and has apparently recently branched out into other flavors. We have a roll (actually, they’re square with rounded corners) of lemon candy from them.
My vote for worst candy: Necco wafers. I hate them.