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Related anecdote: When I worked an offshore rotation with people from all over the world, I made an effort to bring candy that I'd never seen outside of Scandinavia. It was always amusing to see people sampling candy I liked when they weren't used to the ammonium chloride branch of flavors.
And once I brought this:
Everybody who weren't Norwegian, Swedish, or Finnish (sadly we had no Danes on board) absolutely hated it. Especially the Americans and Brits.
Everyone except Mario, that is; a Croatian geophysicist. He loved them. His voice still lives rent free in my head over ten years later, saying "Sweet candy is for kids"
A few trips later I brought one of my favorites for basically the same result, but this time with Jim (from Illinois, iirc) complaining that it made his mouth physically hurt:
Mario loved that one even More.
The only thing everyone on board liked was the obscene amount of chocolate my navigator brought every trip.But to answer the question: Twizzlers. I bought some when visiting the US a couple of years ago. It tasted like oily sweetener (as in, clearly not actual sugar). That's when I learned that American and European wine gum are flavored very differently.
Footnote: Durian and durian chocolate is quite alright once you get used to the slight farty smell from each packet you open.
i cant stand the smell of durian candy, its way to pungent.
I will defend my rubber flavoured twizzlers til the day I die. Do they taste like you shouldn't be eating them? Absolutely. Will I still eat an entire bag of twizzlers at the movie theater every single time? You betcha.
Take a bag of those pebers and dump them in a bottle of vodka. Let them dissolve overnight. Bring to a party and you will be instant friend of any scandinavian.
I did this with my friends when we went to Thailand. We were enjoying the delicious taste on a beach, two Australian guys were wanted to try it. They both spat it out instantly and the other one got so mad we thought he's actually going to attack us.
After he calmed down a bit he demanded to see us drink it to be sure we hadn't tricked him to drink poison. So we downed the entire 1 litre bottle to appease him. It was the start of a great day that lasted for few days.
Substitute vodka for some quality moonshine for extra bonus points from us northern scandinavians.
Stop this. This is how poison like Malort is made. We dont need to create its successor.
Yeah, American candy has about the lowest standards. Canada isn't much better, but there's a noticeable difference in the quality of chocolate in common chocolate bars. We once did a side-by-side comparison of KitKats (we live right on the border) and the difference was stunning.
milk chocolate by any of the big chains, are just trash. at WF, they sell gourmet chocolate imported from outside the US, or they make the ones that are bougie and expensive. dark chocolate, not so sweet is the best. white chocolate seems to have a chemical smell and aftertaste to it, super synthetic, that has no chocolate i never liked the taste.
If you like KitKat, try and see if you can find this one:
.
It's similar, but better.One American candy I actually like is Reeses peanut butter cups.
Reese’s is one of my favorites too, but objectively it’s horrible, down there with hersheys chocolate. They successfully made it addictive, rather than taste like peanut butter or chocolate. Try something like a Trader Joe’s peanut butter cup and it’s a world of difference.
It won’t keep me from my Reese’s but at least I’m aware of it
Reese's tasted a whole lot better 20+ years ago. Now it's just gritty sugar with peanut butter flavored 'essence' added. Same goes for Cadbury eggs which are completely inedible now.
alot of cookies and cakes are like that, you can feel the granular sugar, because they put so much.
I always wondered about that but I don’t eat frequently enough to notice when it changed
Eating them infrequently is exactly how I noticed the change especially with the Cadbury eggs. It used to have a creamy center that has been replaced with what tastes like a spoonful of gritty Betty Crocker sugar frosting. Reese's are less obvious but also just taste like sugar (or HFCS) to me now and they were my absolute favorite as a kid as someone who's not really into candy.
Will do once I'm in the US, although I need to figure out an explanation for the vast collection of JD Vance memes on my phone first.
I try to be as anti-Nestle as possible, which meant giving up KitKat, my favorite candy. I found these a few years ago on norwegianfoodstore.com and they're soooo much better.
Damn, I wish that site existed when I lived abroad.
I love this site! I only order from them once a year because it's expensive (I usually ask for a gift card for Christmas), but they have so much awesome stuff. The paprika Pringles are to die for.
We once did a side-by-side comparison of KitKats (we live right on the border) and the difference was stunning.
Bad comparison on that one. KitKat brand in the USA is an entirely different company that the rest of the world. So they aren't even the pretending to be the same recipe.
At least the US KitKats aren't Nestle.
I won't say I'm boycotting Nestle per se, but I try to avoid their stuff. There's a bag of strawberry cheesecake KitKats from Japan on my desk, lol. They're pretty good.
I'm a brit and have loved tyrkisk peber and other "salty" liquorice etc. sweets for a long time. I had a big bag of the hot and sour flavour and was rather sad when I ran out.
If you feel like DMing your name and address to an internet stranger who may or may not send you anthrax spores, I can (claim to) mail you a resupply stash on Monday.
sweet candy is for kids
I vibe w Mario. I haven't had either you mentioned, but they seem my speed. I go for the saltiest licorice you crazy Scandinavians can come up with.
(am an American who warns people off my candy stash, but they still try it and think I'm pranking them)
Sometimes it's a hit. I was going somewhere with an Uber in Houston once, and the driver needed to stop for gas. I took the opportunity to head inside the gas station for some supplies, and while I was queueing and minding my own business while the guy in front of me had his stuff scanned by the cashier, and he suddenly said "Oh, and his stuff too", offering out of the blue to pay for my stuff. (Seriously, does that happen sometimes? I've never heard of it before nor after. He must've been in a good mood). I wasn't holding much stuff, so sure why not, once my initial WTF-factor had worn off.
I gave the guy a tin of Tyrkisk Pepper as a token thank you (I happened to have some I bought at my home airport that I planned on leaving at the head office). When he asked what it was I just said "Scandinavian candy, be careful". He actually liked them.
Same in Canada. Everything is fake. You'll see transmission fluid before you'll see any real sugar in the ingredients.