Well, just because you don’t like bad coffee, it doesn’t mean you don’t like all coffee. Allsorts and GoodNPlenty IMO are the bad coffee of licorice. Around here, the best licorice I can buy comes from Australia. Again, IMO – de gustibus and all that
From my youth, I remember a spongy, gelatinous candy called “Aplets & Cotlets” that was pretty tasty & I always imagined was close to Turkish Delight. Can those who’ve tasted both weigh in on how close it comes?
I haven’t seen it for sale in a long time, but Google assures me it is still manufactured:
I never understood rock candy - it’s just really, really hard sugar, people! My grandparents always had a bowlful on a table in their living room.
My Brit-born better half and my in-laws love Licorice Allsorts. I think nostalgia may be a big part of it since they all left England over fifty years ago.
Would that be Grandma B’s, on Hwy 35 overlooking Little Bay? We were there for ice cream on my FIL’s birthday a couple of weeks ago. I like the old fashioned citrus slices candy they sell. They have a bit of lemon or orange tartness to them.
I haven’t had either, but the video mentioned that many of the British recipes for “Turkish Delight” include gelatin, which makes it chewy. That is not the texture a proper Turkish Delight should have (Like I said, the British attempts to recreate it screwed it up). A proper Turkish Delight should pretty much just melt on your tongue.
I love those too. If you go to Liberty Orchards direct website they sell not only Aplets and Cotlets but 9 different fruit candies, including Turkish Delight.
Definition: “Rock candy is a type of confectionery made from large, purified sugar crystals formed by cooling a supersaturated sugar and water solution, often grown on a stick or string over several days.”
I bought several varieties of Turkish delight from a sweets store in Selçuk and they all had a somewhat chewy texture. I guess the Turks don’t know how to make proper Turkish delight.
I found it fun, as a child on holiday, to visit a shop that made its own rock to watch the machinery combining the layers of colour, putting in the lettering for the town’s name, and then stretching and squashing it into sticks. You can get rock simulations of all sorts of things, like a fried breakfast. But in its most usual format in the UK is in a simple stick with the name of the town running all the way through it: a simple stick about 6" long and 1" in diameter with a plain pink outer layer. Hence the song:
That would definitely apply to the Fry’s chocolate rose one, which is truly vile. I would eat pretty much any sweets as a kid, but not them. However, I’ve also had some that a former boss brought back from visting family in Turkey, which he gave everyone ‘to try the real thing!’- the lemon flavour ones were OK, I had a few but I still wasn’t a fan, the rose ones were still just nasty and I ate one then gave the rest to a housemate.
Talking of nasty British unpleasantly-perfume-flavoured-sweets, I’m surprised no-one’s mentioned Parma Violets yet. Weird little purple sugar tablets with an overpoweringly floral violet flavour. I will eat them (they often come in the mixes they sell for halloween sweets), but I’m never sure if I’m enjoying the experience.
Seriously? In the states, at least in my hometown in MA, it was just an M&M sized baggie with chunks of crystalized sugar in it. Nothing fancy like that!
I think what you’re calling Blackpool rock is different from rock candy. Wikipedia says that Blackpool rock is like a hardened candy cane, while rock candy is literally crystallized sugar (which I find interesting as a crystal).
Which misled me back in the ‘70s when there was no internet and I listened to Queen’s “Brighton Rock.” I knew Brighton was a seaside resort, so I pictured a large offshore rock sticking out of the water. Like the Wight Needles or something. It was only recently I found out that Brighton Rock is candy. (Albeit in the song, “rock” self-refers to rock music.) It’s ridiculous how much you miss out on by being born in America.
Ah, must have mentally avoided that. Just as I should the actual item. I don’t think I’ve met anyone who actually likes the stuff, though I have also seen a parma violet gin for sale in some local bars.
Maybe the whole audience is just people buying it to horrify international visitors- I think that’s the only reason I’ve ever bought it.
Darn it, you beat me to mentioning Choward’s Violet Mints. Around here, it must be the preferred candy (or gum – there’s also a gum version) of alcoholics, as the only place I ever see those things is liquor stores. I actually quite like them, but I also like rose water and flowery stuff like that.
