Are those candied actual fruit, like Greek spoon sweets or glacé fruit, or a gummy candy in the shape of fruit? Google is giving me images that look like both.
Well. That sounds horrible.
Turkish cotton candy. It’s cotton candy, but it’s like carefully carded 1000-thread-count-long-staple-cotton, cleaned and packed, so the experience is very different. I also like Turkish delight. That is, I like turkish delight that isn’t rose flavoured, which happens to be the most well known flavour. I don’t like anything rose-flavoured, but Pistachio is a nice flavour.
Also, I don’t mind M&Ms. I generally prefer more expensive chocolate, but if I’m eating little bits of chocolate covered in a sugar shell, the fact that Mars chocolate is a little bit down-market from what you get in Smarties (Australia) doesn’t bother me. Warning: there are also cheap imitations from other companies, that are even cheaper than M&Ms. Some of that is nasty.
For soft-centers, I’d choose French chocolate. Soft centers were, I think, a Belgium technology, invented in Brussels, but I don’t particularly like Belgium chocolate (not bitter enough). But Cherry Liquors from Switzerland. (Even though Cherry Liquor doesn’t seem to be a particularly Swiss thing). I think it’s because they are going for the top end of the market, but the Cherry Liquors from Switzerland had, without doubt, the best cherries.
And maple-sugar candy. It’s sugar, and it’s candy. What’s not to like? It only comes from North America USA/Canada.
My experience with that “treat” is noted here. I was not a fan.
In defense of Hershey’s, it’s honestly what you’re used to. Having been literally raised on the stuff (I grew up 12 miles away from the town), no other milk chocolate tastes right to me. I freely admit, however, that their dark chocolate is to be avoided - almost any other brand does it better!
I haven’t travelled widely enough to have opinions on any other form of sweet except chocolate and licorice, so I’m reading the thread with interest.
Actual fruit.
I’ve seen packages of gummy fruit labeled with the name of the traditional sweet, but in Northern Spain that’s the kind of misuse that leads to people getting mad and refusing to buy such an insult to the Dictionary.
In Scotland, we have a variety of sweets (can’t bring myself to say “candy”) which will have your fillings retreating in horror and your dentist rubbing his hands with a mixture of dread and glee.
Tablet: Authentic Scottish Tablet - If you have a sweet-tooth you'll LOVE it!
Edinburgh rock: Everything you ever wanted to know about Edinburgh Rock | Scotsman Food and Drink
McCowan’s Highland Toffee: 8 things you (probably) didn't know about McCowan’s Highland Toffee | Scotsman Food and Drink
The output from Tunnocks: http://www.tunnock.co.uk/ including Teacakes, Caramel Wafers and Caramel Logs
I worked for a large company that was acquired by an even larger Japanese company. My job allowed me to mingle with some of the executives, including the new Japanese liaison officers. They would sometimes give me small gifts when they returned from visits to the home office.
One guy was very nice, and knew I liked gummy candy (such as gummy worms). He brought me an expensive candy from Japan once, and … I don’t know what the heck it was. It was sort of gummy, with a powdery coating, and it was in a fancy box, like a souped-up Whitman’s sampler.
This stuff was like eating sour oysters, with a slightly sweet overture. I thanked him profusely, then quietly made a deal with NASA to return the candies to their planet of origin.
My paternal grandparents were from Calabria, Italy. I remember my grandma having some awful Italian candies that when I tasted one was VERY disappointed. They were small rectangular blocks wrapped in gold foil and I seem to remember a picture of a saint or something similar on each one. Almost like a miniature prayer card. The “candy” was awful. From what I can remember it was kind of like a Bit-o-Honey - some kind of bland, chewy nougat, beige in color with some kind of nuts in it. For a people whose food is so flavorful and so much a part of their culture they sure fell down when it came to that candy!
Mackintosh toffee went away for a few years. The new version tastes the same but is lacking in the pure ‘filling removal’ stickiness of the earlier version.
Cadbury chocolate seems to be getting a fair bit of love from the natives here, but has anyone tried Galaxy? Wikipedia says it’s sold in the United Kingdom, Ireland, the Middle East, Morocco, India, Pakistan, Egypt and New Zealand, but I guess some of you may have had it while you’re in one of those countries, or maybe some specialty shops import it?
To me it’s head and shoulders above Cadbury, which is almost grainy by comparison.
Are you sure that wasn’t a Swedish Plopp?
I’ve had three different Indian sweets:
- Doughnut hole in thin syrup. - Not bad, but not really all that foreign.
- A variety of milk-based, mealy cookie-like things. - Not bad for about half a second, then you get hit with the hint of spoiled milk and goat funk. Do not love.
- Paan. - Sort of like eating perfume.
I visited Denmark almost 20 years ago and brought back some very weird candy packages from the airport. They showed a dog farting and a rat vomiting fire outside a sewer pipe on the packaging, named HUNDPRUTTEN (Dog Farts, clearly) and KLOAK SLAM.
They tasted fine and were a big hit at my office because of the logos. Too bad I didn’t get pics of them. If I Google for them now they’re still available, but with different images.
That’s torrone. My nonna, from Lombardy, had it around for special occasions. I remember a pale blue box, with some sort of religious picture on it. And the torrone had whole almonds in it, and a wafer-y outside. Do I remember it coming in different flavors, like lemon and orange?
I like that stuff. There’s an Italian restaurant near here that sells it at their cash register. I sometimes buy one after a good dinner.
Well, Mexico is BIG on sweets. I am not sure if you count Mexico as a Western country.
Candy in Mexico is low quality, super sweet, and their chocolate is pretty meh.
Yes, Spicy or super sweet.
So you have tried Vosges, Ghirardelli , Gearhart’s, Godiva, Rocky Mountain and so forth?
See the thing is more where you buy your candy as opposed to what nation you are in:
The rack up by the registers or in a small bota or convenience store- mostly crap.
The selection in the candy isle of a supermarket- you can get some decent stuff.
a dedicated chocolate store in a Mall- you get Sees or Godiva. Quite nice.
A dedicated chocolatier- great stuff, very expensive.
Now in Germany or Switzerland, you find more dedicated chocolatiers. But still their low end stuff for kids is crap. Even in Germany their cheap chocolate is like the cheap stuff we sometimes get for Easter- waxy and little taste.
It is easier to find a dedicated chocolatier in some nations but their 'appeal to the masses" stuff is just as bad.