Foreign Candy
9 October 2009
Michelle passed through Iceland recently and brought me back some Opal candies. These are pretty good, like hard gummy licorice with menthol; they make your mouth feel fresh and if you eat carrots afterwards the carrots taste great. Then this morning somehow I came across a stranger’s blog post about this cafe in Japan where you get what the person ahead of you ordered — which sounds fun, but what attracted me even more than the idea of this strange cafe was the photo of Japanese candy about halfway through the post. (The person ahead of this blogger had ordered candy, so he, the blogger, got the candy. And photographed it.) I want very much to eat this candy. I don’t care about American candy but I am deeply attracted to foreign candy. Japanese candy is probably the most compelling, then the candy of various European nations, ideally small nations not known for their candy. So like Swiss candy, who cares, but Romanian candy, yes please. I’m not sure I’d be interested in Australian candy. African candy and South American candy, I don’t know if I’ve ever seen them. I do want Indian candy. Lore Sjöberg used to rate foreign candy sometimes, among other things.
One of the most disgusting things I’ve ever had in my mouth was some candy from the Netherlands, I’m not sure what it was but I remember it as incredibly salty licorice. Even though it was so disgusting I still sort of want it now, I would keep tasting it and retching, tasting and retching.
Comments (1)
Maybe the really disgusting things you’re thinking of is salmiakki. My friend’s mom brought it to me from Finland, and it is about as disgusting as you describe it, and similarly flavoured.