Pixifoods: Candy Bar Edition
137Well, you may have heard, the Pixifoods thing has kind of taken off. I’m not really sure what to say about that. USA Today wrote about it, the New York Times, countless culinary websites, and so on. We made tons of new friends for this blog, and I can only imagine what happened when Paris-trained chefs and foodies from around the country and the world popped on this site only to see a lot of ridiculous and oppressively long posts about Trey Hillman and Ben Folds (“Who is zis ‘MannyBManny?”).
I can only guess that no matter what I accomplish from here on out*, I will forever been known as the Pixifoods guy. I’m figuring I will get a huge book deal out of this, a couple of endorsements, an appearance or two on Good Morning America or or Oprah, maybe my own sitcom, and that will be the lead sentence in my obituary. “The man who gave a name to those childhood treats that seemed to lose their flavor and appeal in adulthood died peacefully in his home. He was 174 years old.”
*Not that there seems any threat that I will, you know, cure cancer or make American energy independent or anything really worthwhile. I mean, I’m not complaining, at this point I’m just glad that I could come up with something that might possibly, maybe, you-never-know, land me on Oprah at some point. I mean, did I mention, I am writing this book …
Coming soon, we will have Pixishows, Piximovies, Pixijokes, Pixitoys, oh yeah, we’re going to cash this thing in until I’ve got enough money to buy the Kansas City Royals, which I will do just so I can bring back the powder blue uniforms full time, just so I can hire Bill James, just so I can do a few crazy owner things (“Today, all my right-handed batters shall bat left-handed and vice versa, so it shall be written, so it shall be done), just so I can get them to sing a special version of Van Morrison’s ”Gloria“ when Joakim Soria comes to the mound (S-O-R-I-I-I-I-I, S-O-R-I-A), just so I can tell manager Trey Hillman to loosen the bleep up, just so I can rename the team (and since I will have made my fortune in Pixistuff, you can guess the name. That’s right: The Kansas City Spiders — I’m still on that name), just so I can walk into the clubhouse and eat some of their bazooka gum without asking, just so I can make the dumbest suggestions at meetings and watch everyone in the room squirm (”I was thinking that perhaps we should order the batting lineup alphabetically,“) just so I can sign some utterly overpriced free agent and then blame my general manager for it.
In the meantime, two things. One, my wife Margo (I believe) started a Facebook group called Pixifoods. So if you would like to join that and get all the yet-to-be-determined benefits, I guess it is now accepting members.
Second, it’s time for the candy bar edition of Pixifoods.
Adult candy bars
(Bars that are better for adults than they are for children)
1. Snickers. You have admire the effective persistence of the long running “Snickers satisfies” campaign (which has now gone beyond the ”Hungry? Grab a Snickers“ phase and has moved right into the “Snickers handles your hunger” guarantee). Apparently, years ago, there were some Snickers people who realized that, frankly, they had a pretty run-of-the-mill candy bar. I mean, seriously, nougat? What is nougat? The Snickers folks wisely decided they needed something, something that would help them break away from the candy bar crush, something that would allow them to move beyond 3 Musketeers and Milky Way and Mounds and the rest.
So they decided to convince people that Snickers is not just a peanuts, caramel and nougat wrapped in milk chocolate, no ma’am, Snickers is a meal all unto itself. At first, this seemed like a pretty specious claim because, you might note, Snickers is, well, a bleeping SNICKERS, you know, with the 280 calories, 14 grams of fat, 35 grams of carbs, 30 grams of sugar, 140 mg of sodium and so on. These commercials showing that man could survive in the desert for six weeks with a canteen of water and a couple of Snickers bars might have been somewhat exaggerated.
Still, if there’s one thing that you can say about advertising and America;if you can just find a way to stay on message, you can convince people of just about anything. You can convince people that Kevin Costner can act, that Tom Cruise is the quintessence of handsome, that Pepsi tastes better than Coke (what a sham), that Derek Jeter is a brilliant defensive shortstop, that 107 degrees is not that hot if it’s a dry heat. And so, they convinced us that Snickers really does satisfy, that it has some sort of substance and density that is missing in garden variety candy bars, that it is the only choice when you are famished, that it provides the nourishment that can sustain you through the long march of life.
And I say this knowing full well that I have fallen for it too, that if I’m at a vending machine making a choice, I will consciously consider the question: ”How hungry am I?“ And if I’m really hungry, then I will think: ”Hmm, I better get a Snickers.“ This stuff works. I never liked Snickers bars when I was a kid — it’s really not an especially good kid bar (though a friend says, ”It has peanuts, caramel, nougat, chocolate, it’s like a candy bar buffet). To me, Snicker are like the anti-Pixifood — or what I think we should call ”HersheyDark-food.“
2. Hershey’s Special Dark Chocolates. We try not to make many gender-ilizations on this site, but I do recall that the the only kids I ever knew who liked Hershey’s Dark Chocolates were also girls. I admit up front that this may have been a very specific trend, based only in the greater Cleveland Heights area. And it should be noted further that I didn’t know many girls even there who liked dark chocolate even there. But were it not for the three or four girls who I heard say, ”Oh, I LOVE dark chocolate,“ I can honestly say that dark chocolate would have a 0.0 percent kids approval rating.
There was no greater candy disaster than opening up that Halloween bag and seeing a whole bunch of Hershey’s Dark Chocolates in there — it was like opening up a baseball card pack only to find 12 Fred Kendalls. It happened every year, though. Apparently all the other kids got the good assorted miniatures, the good little chocolates, the Nestle Crunches, the Krackels (more on the Crunch/Krackel phenomenon in a minute), the Hershey’s Milk Chocolate. The worst part is that every Halloween you HAD to try one Special Dark, I mean it’s wrapped chocolate,right? I would try one and it would still taste like bitter tree bark, and I would think: ”Oh yeah, I forgot, I hate that stuff.“
The reason: Dark chocolate, I’m convinced, is an adult taste, and that’s why we call those foods that tasted sour/bitter/lousy as a kid but good as an adult the HersheyDark-food. Coffee is an obvious one. Maybe pickles. We’ll work on this later.
3. Butterfingers. I admit this is only a personal choice, but I cannot stand Butterfingers. I never liked the texture, I never liked the taste, I never liked the wrappers, I never liked the way they tried to hide that it was really just peanut brittle (”Break out of the ordinary,“ was one of the big slogans. Really? Is there ANYTHING more ordinary than peanut brittle?). But I cannot deny that Butterfingers have turned Pixifood inside out, though, and now you go to fine restaurants and they talk about their award-winning Butterfinger ice cream or special Butterfinger dessert concoctions. It ain’t for me, but I concede the larger point — Butterfingers outlive childhood.
4. Anything Ghiradelli. It’s the name. Kids don’t need high end chocolate … pretty much anything will do. Adults, though, seem to think that because the name is Ghiradelli that it has a little more standing than, say, a Mr. Goodbar.
5. York Peppermint Patty. As a kid, I recall these being absolutely disgusting, and most of the time I still feel the same way. HOWEVER, there is one exception. I remember going to Skyline Chili for the first time in Cincinnati, and then starting to walk out. My buddy Chardon Jimmy, a Cincinnati native, then said: “Uh, you need to have a York Peppermint Patty.” And I said, “Um, no, actually, I don’t, those are gross.” And he said, “No, you NEED to have a York Peppermint Patty.”
So I had one — and, unbelievably, he was right. I don’t know what it is about chili (any kind will do), but the spices somehow unleash the flavors of the YPP. I’m telling you, if you have one after eating chili it tastes pretty much like someone aiming a chocolate and mint hose and spraying you down. It really did feel like it was taking me away … those commercials were right. But only after chili. I had one on another occasion, when I did not have chili, and it tasted like a mint-flavored coin purse. So go figure.
6. Almond Joy/Mounds. I’ve always wondered why the commercial needed to tell us that Almond Joy’s got nuts while Mounds, conversely, don’t. — OK, let’s see if I can do it all: ”Sometimes you feel like a nut. Sometimes you don’t. Almond Joy’s got nuts. Mounds don’t. Almond Joy’s got real milk chocolate, coconuts and munchy nuts too. Mounds got real dark chocolate and chewy coconut, ooooh. Sometimes you feel like a nut. Sometimes you don’t.“
OK, that’s fine. But my question stands: Was there any reason we should have been confused about the nut vs. no nut breakdown. The name of the candy bar is ”ALMOND Joy.“ That seems like a pretty good giveaway that it has nuts in it.
Crossover Candy Bars
(Candy bars that are delicious as children and maintain their glory into adulthood).
1. Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup. Truer words were never spoken: Two great tastes that taste great together. You have to think the person who wrote those words will occasionally wake up in the middle of the night with a big smile on his/her face and say, ”Damn, I’m good.“ And he/she is good, because chocolate and peanut butter is undoubtedly the connection of our lifetime, much more than Jack and Jackie, Brad and Jennifer, Ernie and Bert, Peyton and Marvin, Barack and Hillary, what have you. And it’s not like those two great tastes can go great with anything … I will not soon forget my trip to Sedalia, Mo., and my first ever Goober burger, which is like any other burger only it has peanut butter on it. You may ask, ”How did it taste?“ The best answer I can offer is the one provided by Royals television announcer Ryan Lefebvre who said: ”OK, you’ve had a hamburger. And you’ve had peanut butter. Now imagine having that peanut butter on your hamburger. That’s how it tastes.“
2. Hershey’s Kisses. Chocolate drops are, of course, perfect for kids. What kid can resist a Kiss? But they are also just the right size to put into the glass jar on your office desk, which gives them adult cachet.
3. Kit Kat. Let’s be honest, this is a good candy bar. But the lifelong appeal has to be the shape of the bar and the infinite number of eating possibilities. My philosophy — and I have thought about this considerably more than, say, my feelings about , say, an afterlife — is that you must break off the wafers, you must then eat around the chocolate on each wafer, and then you must try to separate the different layers off each waver so you can eat them individually. It is a lifelong quest to perfect the technique, though after all the work I feel like I am sort of the Michael Phelps of Kit Kat eating.
4. Hershey’s (with Almonds). Plain. Simple. Elegant.
Pixifood Candy Bars
(Candy bars that taste like heaven when you are a child and like chocolate-drizzled roof shingles when you get older).
1. Krackel/Nestle Crunch. OK, these are exactly the same candy bar, am I right? I mean, sure, I realize that companies are constantly trying to foist similar things on us — remember that period of time when every single movie featured an adult who turned into a kid? There was ”18 Again“ and ”Big“ and ”Vice Versa“ and that many variants of ”Freaky Friday.“ So, yeah, I think you come to expect similar products in the marketplace. There is still something a bit off-putting about two companies going after the milked chocolate with crisped rice market .. I mean, really, is crisped rice demand really that high?
In any case, had one of these recently — not sure which one it was — and it was a terribly disappointing experience. I just think we’ve come far enough in society where now, if you want to come to the candy bar table, you need to be packing a little bit more than little Rice Krispies in the chocolate.
2. Rolo. Rolo Rolo, Rolo Rolo. You can roll a Rolo to your pal. It’s chocolate covered caramel. You can roll a rolo to your chum. It’s chewy, and it’s chocolate, and it’s lots of fun! You can roll a rolo to your friend. It’s chocolate covered caramel from end to end! … I really have no more comment on that other than to say how utterly sad it is that I still have that song pinging around in my little brain. There are so many things I don’t know, so many things I will never know. If I was cryogenically sealed for 1,000 years, sort of like the awful ending of A.I., and future beings wanted to question me about the wonders of our time — how does an iPod hold digital music and how does our society built a bridge over water or even something much simpler like how does a digital watch work — I’d have to say: ”You can roll a rolo to your pal …“
3. The chocolate/peanut/caramel/fudge and perhaps some nougat bars. A couple of these (100 Thousand Dollar Bar among them) might have the inescapable crisped rice too.
Pay Day.
Oh Henry.
Mr. Goodbar.
Milky Way.
Mars
3 Musketeers
Caramello
100 Grand (100 Thousand Dollar Bar)
5th Avenue
I tend to think of all of these bars the same way I think of music today — it’s probably all fine, and I’m sure I’d like the songs if I was a kid, but at my age it all sounds the same and I can’t remember which song is which. There was a time when I could not only tell you the difference between a Milky Way and a Mars bar, I could tell you the difference between a Milky Way purchased at the Lawson’s around the corner from house and one bought at the Revco three blocks away.
Now, it’s all a blur. The only thing I really remember about the 100 Thousand Dollar Bar (now called the 100 Grand for so reason or another) is, of course, the commercial: “Chewy, chewy caramel … extra-richened caramel.” … I do remember that eating a 3 Musketeers bar was a bit like eating whipped air. There was nothing in that thing. … How about the Oh Henry bar? Not a bad chocolate bar, though let’s be honest: If it had been named the ”Oh Mickey Rivers“ bar, it probably would not have have moved much product.*
*How about those days when it was just about the ultimate athlete accomplishment to have a candy bar named after him? I don’t know, there was something innocent about that, something wonderfully childlike about it all. And of course it leads to one of the great quotes of all time, about Reggie Jackson’s Reggie! Bar (you HAVE to have the exclamation point in there). Teammate Catfish Hunter famously said, ”When you open a Reggie! Bar, it tells you how good it is.“ Then, that’s not even my favorite Catfish Hunter quote about Reggie. That one goes like this: “He’d give you the shirt off his back. Of course, he’d call a press conference to announce it.”
4. Chunky Bar. As a kid, the Chunky bar, had overwhelming potential because it was so doggone chunky (“Thicker-er,” the commercial promised). And no matter how many times you finished one off in about 1.8 seconds, you still felt like you were getting more chocolate for your money. As an adult, though, you realized that the whole thing was a scam — sure, it was the same amount of chocolate, but so what? Imagine taking a delicious corned beef or turkey or tuna fish sandwich and smushing it until it is a about the size of a ring box. Yeah, you’re probably getting the same food value, but there’s simply NO fun in it.
The rest
Candy bars that have always been lousy or have an obscurity that makes them difficult to categorize.
Bit-O-Honey. Not a candy bar, but worth mentioning here because Big-O-Honey people kept trying to pass it off on us as a candy bar. You had to like the red and yellow wrapper, but the only good use for the Bit-O-Honey — as my friend Tilt-a-Whirl likes to say — is as the stuff to fill in cracks and potholes on highways.*
*These also appear to be a straight rip-off of Necco ”Mary Janes.“
Clark Bar. I have never had a Clark Bar in my entire life, and I have never known anyone who did. Well, that’s not true: One time, years ago, we were in Arizona to cover a Cincinnati Bengals-Arizona Cardinals game. Yes, you can only imagine the excitement in the air. Anyway, we were walking through Tempe, looking for a certain restaurant, and we could not find it because the person who was leading us, a person who actually attended Arizona State, a person I would prefer not to name because it might embarrass him (it was John Donovan of SI.com) got us lost. In any case, we walked for a long time, long enough that finally one guy blurted out in frustration: ”Man, I’m starving. Can’t we just stop and get a Clark bar or something?“ For whatever reason, this cracked us all up and I still remember if 15 years later.
Goobers and Raisinets. Not really candy bars, but wanted to mention them both to point out the odd but haunting version of the jingle recorded by Merv Spiegel and the Penguins.
Charleston Chew. I admired the chain-like shape of the old Charleston Chew because it made the candy seem so much bigger than it really was, sort of the opposite effect of the Chunky Bar. Shame was it didn’t taste very good. Bad name too.*
*Brilliant reader Dan points out that this was not the Charleston Chew — which is actually horrendous taffy — but instead it was the Marathon bar. The author regrets the error.
Junior Mints: Not a candy bar, but worth mentioning for the two brilliant lines in Seinfeld. First, the conversation after the Junior Mint was dropped into the patient.
Jerry: .Over the balcony, bounced off some respirator thing into the patient!
George: What do you mean into the patient?
Jerry: Into the patient, literally!
George: Into the hole?
Jerry: Yes, the hole.
George: Didn’t they notice it?
Jerry: No.
George: How could they not notice it?
Jerry: Because it’s a little mint. It’s a Junior Mint.
And Jerry’s regret …
Jerry: Why did you force that mint on me? I didn’t want the mint.
Kramer: Well, I didn’t believe you.
Jerry: How could you not believe me?
Kramer: Who’s gonna turn down a Junior Mint? It’s chocolate, it’s peppermint — it’s delicious!
Jerry: That’s true.
Kramer: It’s very refreshing!
Mallo Cups: Obscure, they’re chocolate and marshmallow cups. I’m not particularly a fan of using marshmallow in candy but you have to love a good Mallo Cup.
Skittles: Not a candy bar.
Swoops: Not around when I was a kid … these are like peanut butter and chocolate Pringles or something like that. I got Swoops one time … all of them stuck together, and they tasted awful. Boo for Swoops.
Tootsie Rolls: I believe that Tootsie Rolls serve only one purpose in society — if you forgot to go and buy Halloween candy you can always give out Tootsie Rolls. That’s because somewhere in your house right now, like it or not, there are a whole bunch of Tootsie Rolls. And here’s the thing: You can’t even get rid of them, no matter how hard you try. That’s why they give Tootsie Rolls away at banks and boring office buildings — they’re TRYING to exhaust their supply. Trouble is, no matter how many they give away, in the morning the Tootsie Roll Fairy will have come and dump a whole new supply.
Twix: Fake Kit Kats, with caramel added.
Twirl (by Cadbury): More of a British thing, but a couple of years ago Margo and I went to the Cadbury plant in Birmingham where they have kind of a Willie Wonka tour you can go on. Yeah, you bet we went across the ocean for that. I’m committed to the candy bar thing. Anyway, we got a bunch of free Twirls, and they were very tasty, much better than Twix, which is sort of the American counterpart. I guess they’re available in America now, and I highly recommend.
Whatchamacallit: It’s sort of like the Charlize Theron of candy bars — every time you see it, the thing has a whole new look. One minute it’s chocolate, then, bam, it has caramel, then peanuts, then some sort of crisp, I don’t know. Unlike Charlize Theron, the Whatchamacallit was never much good.
Zagnut: Never had one in my life. Seen them around all my life but was never even tempted. I guess it has coconut and peanut butter or whatever.
Zero: Never had one in my life. I guess it has some kind of white chocolate, which is disgusting and should have been outlawed by the U.S. Government a long time ago. This is a big issue for me as the election comes around. People seem to know who I am voting for, but I’m telling you right now that I’m undecided until someone makes a strong statement on the white chocolate issue. We are a very small but committed voting bloc.
I’m 34 years old and I first heard the Snickers Really Satisfies slogan at least 28 years ago and because of it I still will grab a snickers before any other candy bar. Now that is an effective ad campaign.
Good call on the Reese’s Peanut Butter cups. I loved those things as a toddler, and a teenager, and I still do. I rarely eat that kind of candy these days, but damn if I’m not Jonesin’ for it right now.
I have to disagree - though this may just be me - about Hershey’s Dark Chocolate, however. While I must admit that I’ve never been a huge fan of just plain chocolate in any fashion - I’ve always only really enjoyed chocolate when coupled with something else, like peanut butter, or vanilla, or caramel - I’ve always preferred Hershey’s dark chocolate to Hershey’s milk chocolate, even as a kid. I really just don’t like pure milk chocolate, unaccompanied by another flavor, and I never liked it. Now, it’s not as though I love dark chocolate, but I’ll have a small piece or two, if it’s there. Could never say the same of milk chocolate.
I’ll readily admit that I’m probably in the minority on all this, though, inasmuch as I’m not a huge chocolate fan. For some reason, I’ve always felt that chocolate works best in tandem with something else, as in a hot fudge sundae or a peanut butter cup or a chocolate chip cookie. Mmmmm.
Also, regarding the pizza poll - who voted for toppings? A truly high-quality pizza has no need for toppings. I’m a firm believer in that. There are a few places that will specialize in certain things, like a clam pie, but generally at most top-notch pizza joints I’ve been to, it’s all about the cheese, the sauce, and the crust. If you can’t make a good cheese pie, you’ve got no business making pizza, IMO.
The one exception to this is Chicago-style stuffed pizza, which is frequently just as good, if not better, with an ‘ingredient’ in it. But even there, you don’t want to overdo it - one ingredient is enough, and make it something simple, like sausage, or maybe mushrooms.
A real pizza has no need for all kinds of silly toppings. Leave that stuff to Pizza Hut.
(yeah, I’m a bit of a snob with my pizza. But I’m a New Yorker living in Chicago, so I think I’ve got a right)
I hate Facebook. But yet I will do this, because if I’m going to join the kind of stupid groups I am occasionally prodded into joining on FB, I can join this one.
The link for those who like to spend as little time as possible on FB:
http://www.new.facebook.com/group.php?gid=82177375004
Now I will go and hide from the next person from my Junior Girl Scout troop who finds me on FB and wants to make contact after all these years.
Chocolate: should be pure and unadulterated.
Wait a second. So, by my unofficial count, on the 13,074th word that Joe made up he finally got some traction? Pixifoods! Yea Joe!
TWIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIX!!!!
(come on, they rock)
I’m with Bob. Joe’s being way to hard on Twix. The Peanut Butter Twix are tasty too.
Gotta agree with Bob. Kit-Kats always seemed like Twix, without the magic ingredient.
Some notes:
3 Musketeers is pixifood. Chunky however is the opposite. I never ate those as a kid. Now, I buy them occasionally.
Rolo is definitely not a pixifood. Easily one of the top 10 candy bars.
You live in KC and no mention of the Cherry Mash? A great local delicacy.
My top 10:
Circus Peanuts (the bestest candy ever invented, sheer manna from heaven)
Peanut Nut Roll (is this a candy bar? anyway, it’s in the top 10)
Reeses Peanut Butter Cups (though not a good buy for your money)
Hershey’s Special Dark
Milky Way midnight
Mint M&Ms (they sold these for a while, then discontinued them, then brought them back briefly, as I discovered at a Target, where I managed to grab the very last back they had, then left the back with the M&Ms in the parking lot. Easily my worst mistake of the past two years).
Cherry Mash
Junior Mints
Mounds
Chewy Jolly Ranchers (hard to find, but wonderful).
And I forgot Rolo after putting it in my top 10. Swap out Milky Way Midnight.
Instead of “Gloria” can you use “Victoria?”
I like that song better. You’d have to do some weird calisthenics with his first name, though, since Victoria is one syllable more than needed but Joakim Soria is two more than you need.
Maybe you should stick with Gloria.
Snickers advertising has been so effective, that it is the first and only candy bar that pops into my head. It is there even before the Hershey Bar, which is like the definition of a bar of candy. But no, Snickers has surpassed it as delectable candy bar goodness. It has so surpassed the competition, that it has replaced the original as the standard. I guess it’s sort of like the New York Yankees passing the Cincinnati Reds as the flag-bearers of Major League Baseball. Yeah, the Reds were first, and the Reds have been really good at times, but the Yankees are, well, the Yankees.
Also, I haven’t even finished the post yet (second comment, still haven’t finished), but I feel very strongly about dark chocolate.
When I was a (male…still male) child, I loved Special Dark. I don’t really remember whether other kids did or not, though I know that my mother, at her current age, does not like it. Now? I think Special Dark, like the rest of the Hershey’s lineup, stinks. It’s waxy and half-assed. If I want dark chocolate (which is most of the time I bother to eat chocoloate), I want _real_ dark chocolate. Not that waxy hersheys stuff. In fact, I think hersheys kinda stinks in general. Maybe hersheys is a pixifood in general. Or maybe I’ve become a chocolate snob, just like I’ve become a coffee snob and a beer snob. Or maybe my generation (I’m in my 20s) has so many more high-quality options than generations before that we are able to develop more sophisticated taste. I’m fully aware that I’m entering my taste prime for the foodie revolution. There’s more gourmet foodstuffs available than ever. So maybe the fact that good-tasting stuff is available for relatively cheap prices has to do with it.
I’m rambling. All I know is, Special Dark is a mediocre substitute for good chocolate. At best.
Can we have a link to the original Pixifoods blog entry(ies)? I remember it, but not clearly.
Never mind. I just found it in your “pop culture” section.
This site is gettin’ complex.
Bah, Twix are fantastic, way better than Kit Kats. Milky Ways also remain very good. What do you have against caramel, Joe? I’m on the fence about a lot of these. I think you’re right about the Snickers, but I rarely ever see an adult pick up a Mounds or an Almond Joy. Whoppers are big for adults.
Reese’s are amazing, although I don’t understand how they blew it badly on the Reese’s Pieces. Pieces are ok, not bad, but not great either (I would categorize those as a Pixifood, I definitely liked them MUCH more as a kid). And then M&M’s came along with their Peanut Butter M&M, and it was immediately 847 times better than Reese’s Pieces. Somehow, Pieces remains more popular, even though PBM&M’s are so much better. I don’t get it.
Not exactly a candy bar per se, but I felt compelled to mention the Sugar Daddy. Last Holloween I was at a friend’s house and he had a gigantic bowl of candy his daughter collected trick-or-treating (she wasn’t going to eat it all). I generally don’t eat candy these days, but nostalgia compelled me to try some of the more obscure candies, one of which was the Sugar Daddy. The taste wasn’t terrible, but it was like trying to chew vulcanized rubber. I honestly have no idea who might enjoy these other than dentists. I feel as though the Sugar Daddy might be the candy equivalent of the fruit cake, purchased around a holiday and always given away, never consumed by the purchaser.
Spot-on, Joe. I love Snickers, Butterfingers, and Kit Kats. And Krackels/Crunch bars are disgusting. Can’t say I agree with you on the Rolos, though my generation never saw those ads still stuck in your head, so maybe I’m not so angry about them. When I was in the UK, I also got turned on to Yorkies, which can be distinguished by their ‘Not For Girls’ tagline. (Very PC, I know.) It’s thick and rich pure chocolate, and a nice alternative to a Hershey’s. Speaking of Hershey, that’s where I saw Bruce play Van Morrison’s Gloria…
Oh, and congrats on all the love for this word. It really is a great concept, and it couldn’t've happened to a finer wordsmith.
First off, frozen Charleston Chews are fantastic. Non-frozen are terrible.
Secondly, what about Werther’s Originals? I actually loved those as a kid, even though the commercials would have you believe that you need to be roughly as old as Methuselah (or Jamie Moyer) to enjoy them.
The Nestle Crunch bar is a good candy bar. I will not argue about this. And the Payday is another good one. Totally agree on the Reese’s and the Hershey’s Dark Chocolate though! I remember those variety packs that inevitably wound up filled with about 20 Dark Chocolates that my mom would finish off.
The first time I ever held a pile of peanuts in my hand as a child, I remember the stark sense of misery and disappointment that washed over me as I closed my hand and opened it and a Snickers bar failed to appear.
Gimme a break… GIM-me a break… Breeakkk me off a piece of that KIT KAT BAR
it’s surprising how even a marginally catchy tune can stay in a child’s mind…. forever
as for the pixifood…. well, it’s not really the taste that makes me eat chocolate sparingly nowadays (granola bars excluded). it’s the whole feeling sick after i’ve eaten a bunch of it. and the “bad for your health” thing
Agreed on the Kit-Kat. But Twix is a great choice on its own.
Also, the AERO bar from Canada is excellent! Really, the Brits and the Canadians have far superior Chocolate Bars overall.
Not a candy bar, but how about gummy bears. I felt a certain part of myself die on the day I realized gummy bears weren’t delicious anymore.
I’m jumping in with the two commenters above: as a male child (uhhh, that’s be “boy”), I loved Special Dark. I’d say it was my favorite candy bar by the time I was 12 or 13.
Then again, I never had much of a sweet tooth, and I pretty lost it by the time I was in my mid-to-late teens. Maybe that explains it.
The only good way to deal with the Krackel/Nestles Crunch bar is to break off a piece and let the chocolate completely melt away in your mouth. You can than either crunch the puffed rice thingys, or spit them out of the car window while driving across Oklahoma like sunflower seed shells. I say while driving across Oklahoma because that’s the only time a Krackel/Nestle Crunch could possibly be good. It’s a whole juxtaposition thing. Anything is better than driving across Oklahoma.
Zero rules!
Joe I live in England and let me twll you, Twix is nothing like Twirl. F.A.C.T. Twix is biscuit and caramel, while a Twirl is just choclate (like a flake really if you had to make a comparison).
I remember when Snickers used to be called Marathon bars over here too. When they changed the name to Snickers me and my brother thought it was a silly name. I’m not sure if it ever used to be Marathon in the USA, maybe someone can fill me in.
Also I think a Cadburys Picnic bar could also be a anti pixiefood like Snickers. It is essentially the same sort of bar only better.
Don’t see how you can hate on the great taste of Charleston Chew. It sponsors our freedom day!
Truthfully Charleston Chew isn’t that great. Even in the freezer. Why would you want to break your teeth on stuff that tastes like a rock?
I refuse to believe that my devotion to the Snickers bar (always my first choice) is because I was duped by the marketing. I think the marketing followed the FACT that Snickers truly are the most “satisfying” candy bar. It hits the sweet spot and the peanuts add a measure of heft that’s missing from other snacks. Just compare the weight in your hand when you pick up a Snickers vs. a 3 Musketeers. Snickers simply rule.
On the occasions when Snickers is not my choice, here’s the rest of my top 10:
2. PayDay. Yes, I like peanuts. What the PayDay offers is a saltiness that hits the tongue first before mingling with the sweet. Awesome. The best non-chocolate bar ever.
3. Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. Maybe I like peanuts more than I even knew.
4. Peppermint Patties. Joe, you really are missing out on this one. And Junior Mints are fantastic as well. And mint chocolate chip ice cream. And thin mint Girl Scout cookies. You put mint and choclate together and I will eat it.
5. Smores. One of the few recent additions to the candy bar universe that was actually worth trying more than once.
6. Milky Way. If it had peanuts in it, it would be higher up the list. Of course, it would then be a Snickers.
7. Baby Ruth. Not really the best peanut-chocolate bar effort (the nuts always seem stale), but as a fan of Caddyshack it holds a special place in my heart and is our “doo-dee” to support every now and then.
8. Twix. For some reason this is the only candy bar I buy when in the UK. Do they not sell Snickers over there? It always tastes better there than in the states (maybe this is relative to the rest of the food).
9. Zero. I can see your point on the white chocolate lobby, but this really is a good-tasting bar in moderation.
10. Snickers. It’s so good, it’s worth two places in my top 10.
Dark chocolate is indeed repulsive. Dark must have lurid pictures of milk that it uses to compel the industry to keep making it. Blech!
Joe, I’m surprised that you are unaware of the great Mars/Snickers Almond debacle.
For years, Mars bars were my favorite candy bar. It’s like a Snickers, but with almonds instead of peanuts. Delicious.
Then, a few years ago, Snickers decided it wanted the Mars action, so, in a hostile takeover, the Mars bar became the Snickers Almond bar. Overnight, all those delicious Mars bars were gone, and replaced with Snickers in cream-colored wrappers.
The candy bar is the same, but somehow it just doesn’t taste the same.
It is fascinating to me that I have the exact opposite reactions to most of the candy mentioned here. Examples:
1) Two favorite candy bars as a kid: Mounds and Peppermint Pattys. Still love the Patty.
2) I’ve never known anyone under the age of 20 who’s eaten a PayDay, an Oh Henry, or a Mr. Goodbar (except as a miniature, and Goodbar is definitely the Tony Pena, Jr. of the Hershey miniature assortment).
3) Loved Bit-O-Honey and Charleston Chew (especially frozen) when I was a kid. Now the Chew breaks my teeth, and Bit-O-Honey reminds me of eating a crayon with worse texture.
I’ll give you this, Joe — you sure as hell know the right way to eat a KitKat.
Peanut Butter Snickers (may it rest in peace)… Best. Candy Bar. Ever.
As for Twix,
George: They were all Twix, it was a set-up!
Jerry: How is that a set-up?
Ahh, the candy-bar line-up… my favorite Seinfeld moment.
Rollo’s rule, nothing better at trying to suck out your fillings.
Maybe I’m just different, but when I was a kid I loved dark chocolate, coffee, and pickles.
What, no love for the Cadbury cream egg? You have to wait all year for a small, month-long window to snag a few of these and then be immediately hurled into a sugar coma. Nobody else I know enjoys these things, but I actually stockpile them because they disappear from the stores too quickly.
Two separate Seinfeld references in one post (including comments) shows the whole candy bar debate is a real and worth topic.
Paydays were my favorite as a kid. I’m still annoyed that Hershey Krackels really never tried to take any of that Crunch business. Nestle stuff is too sweet. And this from a guy who prefers Pepsi to Coke to the point where I will not get soda from restaurants that only have Coke products. Now I might be the only one who liked Fresca as a kid too.
I’ve never been a big fan of nuts in my chocolate; Snicker’s bars were always the exception to the rule. They’re even better frozen. Also love Twix, and Skor (which is just a Heath Bar with a fancy name).
There’s a place here in Brooklyn called “The Chip Shop”, which will batter and deep-fry any kind of candy bar you want (in addition to Twinkies, Fruit Pies, and Oreos). You’ve never tasted anything as good as a fried Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup.
In terms of non-bars, Peanut Butter Malt Balls, and those goo-filled Cadbury Eggs are the best. I eat myself sick every Easter when those things come out.
SCOTTY and JAYHAWKOWENSJUNIOR:
I couldn’t agree more with both of your points about Paydays. I’ve never seen a child eating one, I think because kids in general aren’t big peanut fans (which is why Snickers is the ultimate anti-pixifood), though they are peanut butter fans.
And the salty-before-sweet aspect makes Payday my favorite candy bar, too.
Most chocolate bars are better chilled or even frozen. Nothing better then a frozen pile of Girl Scout Thin Mints to watch a ball game with.
Zagnut = Butterfinger - chocolate + toasted coconut.
They are AWESOME.
That is all.
How in Hell, Michigan does the Mars Candy Company get away with discontinuing the Mars Bar? That was one fine piece of candy.
For years, Mars bars were my favorite candy bar. It’s like a Snickers, but with almonds instead of peanuts. Delicious.
I believe the nougat in a Mars bar was different from a Snickers. The Mars bar was fluffier (I can’t believe I used the word ‘fluffier’) than the Snickers. Which made them tastier when you froze them.
Wait a second - you think people have been convinced that Pepsi tastes better than Coke? Pepsi wins blind taste tests - but as Malcolm Gladwell convincingly suggests in Blink, it does so primarily because it’s sweeter, enabling it to do better in small samples. But when people go to the store to bring home a 2-liter, more of them buy Coke.
I love the Junior Mint Seinfeld. Top 5 episode for sure. The thing about the candy lineup episode that I didn’t get is that George set up the lineup to get back at the guy who stole his Twix, yet he refrains from actually eating any himself, which is all he wanted to do in the first place. And how did he get all of those Twix candy bars if the vending macine was out??
I have this weird thing about Krakel. I dont’ know why…maybe it was a dream I had or something; I can’t get the picture out of my head of a large gathering in Berlin in 1939 with Hitler shouting something at the crowd along the lines of:
“In der Zukunft werden wir alle frei essen der KRAKEL!!!”
Any candy bar that reminds me of Hitler gets an automatic disqualification, obviously.
Also, bit upps to Rolo Tony (if anybody in here knows what I’m talking about)
Also, Clark bars are great. They’re similar to 5th Avenue, if that’s at all helpful. They’re also like Butterfinger, only imagine that the entire filling part doesn’t get stuck in every tooth you have. That’s the great advantage of a Clark bar.
Two things:
1 - How can you put Butterfinger and Fifth Avenue in different categories? They’re basically the same candy bar. Both have this hard flaky stuff that tastes like peanut butter surrounded by chocolate. As a kid, they were almost interchangeable for me, though I did admittedly prefer the Fifth Avenue for some reason.
2 - I’d like to nominate the Heath Bar for the adult food section. I could never understand it as a kid, and now I find myself eating it in ice cream, in blizzards (DQ anybody?), or even on its own.
I agree with everyone that has pointed out that candy bars are better frozen. A frozen Milky Way is my favorite candy bar. But I HATE Milky Ways at room temperature. I don’t like it when the caramel is too gooey.
I started laughing really hard when the person above mentioned the candy bar lineup from Seinfeld. That may be the best episode.
Joe, I agree with the posters who say you underrate the Twix bar, but the best candy bar ever was the now-defunct Summit bar, which was sort of a Twix with peanut bits added. Seriously, a candy bar without peanuts is just not acceptable.
And, white chocolate rules. I’ve eaten so many white chocolate Kit Kats now that I cannot eat a regular chocolate Kit Kat. Can’t even look at em.
As a quasi-adult, I’ve enjoyed one candy bar more than any other - the Take 5. It’s just candy bar perfection. If your candy bar had peanuts, chocolate, caramel, and peanut butter, you’d have made a fine bar. Sounds delicious, and I’m sure it would sell. But it’d be a Take 4. When you throw a pretzel on the bottom, stack all that stuff on top of it and cover it with chocolate, you’ve created something that is literally unparalleled, and you should be commended for such a creation.
Well done, Hershey’s. Well done indeed.
Joe, how about an honorable mention for “Smarties”. Not sure which category they’d fall in except to say that I knew no kids who liked them and only 1 adult who does now. The only thing more depressing than opening my Halloween bag and seeing dark chocolates and Clark miniatures were those damn Smarties.
I always thought Skor bars were pretty classy as a kid.
WINDIER E. MEGATONS
While I left the retail food industry years ago and therefore might be delivering out of date information, Pepsi consistently outsold Coke in the grocery store. It was part of the reason for “New Coke.”
Coke was a much larger company, but a large part of that is because Coke completely and utterly dominated the restaurant industry.
I’ve got to say this. You guys eat entirely too many candy bars. I can’t remember the last time I had one.
I agree with most of the list, though I do wish to defend the reputation of Twix and the Crunch bar, which were delicious both as a child and as an adult.
But no mention of Whoppers? Malted milk balls are an addiction of mine, and I couldn’t stand those things as a kid. I don’t know when it changed, but one day I flipped from no malt to malt. Same with milkshakes. Now its always with malt.
As an erstwhile professional candy connoisseur, I feel compelled to point out to Big Dave 29 and all others that Skor and Heath Bar are most assuredly very different creations. Or at least were the last time I had a Skor (12 years ago?) The Heath Bar is far better, and the competition is not even close. The toffee is crunchy and piquant (probably has a bit of salt, as all good caramel and toffee must) and the chocolate is fine and wonderful. One of my all-time favorites. The Skor toffee is crumbly, uninspired and overly sweet (no saltiness to balance it out) and the chocolate is chalky and drab. There’s a reason I haven’t had one in so long.
Whew, enough about that… this is one of the best posts ever, I could go on and on. I could respond to every single opinion and post some of my own (e.g. were the manna from heaven the inspiration for or inspired by Jelly Bellys? Discuss.)
All I’m going to say is, even though I respect your opinion on just about everything, Joe, and your apparent passion for the topic, you are dead, dead wrong about Twix. The *cookie* in Twix is in no way similar to the *wafer* in Kit Kat - there is no fakery or flimflammery here, only two very fine confections. And what’s with the apparent disdain for almost all things caramel?
[Colombo voice] Oh, and one more thing… my current (29yo) tastes in candy are virtually unchanged from those of my youth. I guess I have no pixifoods when it comes to candy. I like almost everything sweet (except wintergreen NECCO wafers, yuck!) now just as much as I did as a youth.
There’s one thing that isn’t being adressed here.
Skyline does not make chili. And neither does it’s retarded brother Goldstar, or whatever it’s called. It’s basically taco bell meat with added grease.
Just because someone calls something chili doesn’t make it so. It’s terrible, awful food. For those who don’t know they take this meat like substance and chesse and put it on small disgusting hot dogs and call them “three ways” or something to that effect. And then they have the nerve to declare themselves the “Chili Capital of the World”. It’s offensive is what it is.
And apparently Joe has been sucked in and brainwashed into thinking this stuff is somehow good. The reason that this isn’t common knowledge is because people from Cinci kill all dissenters. Seriously, go to Cincinnati and say “Skyline Sucks” and see if you make it out alive. It’s like Children of the Corn down there.
I’m taking my life into my own hands by bringing this up. My wife is a Xavier grad so I’ll have to sleep with one eye open from now on. God forbid she sees this blog and recognizes me. But, something needs to be done about this. I hope you people appreciate it.
As to whether a peppermint patty tastes good after Skyline…I have no reason to doubt that. I’d imagine a steaming pile of dung tastes good after Skyline.
And I know it’s not a candy bar, but I suspect there is no food anywhere that epitomizes the pixifood concept anywhere more than Good Humor ice cream bars. Bad chocolate, terrible ice cream… My mother (a relatively sensible person) still loves them, I imagine only because they are from her youth.
And, Aaron M.: it is you, sir, who is eating entirely too few candy bars.
That is all.
The ultimate pixiefood is Airheads. They are basically just pure sugar. Loved them as a kid, no way I could stand more than a bite now.
I’d put the percentage of kids who like dark chocolate at just slightly higher than the percentage who like black licorice. I never understood either group…
But the licorice lovers were handy to have around — when you were splitting up the jelly beans, you could share with them while keeping more of the good ones for yourself…
I’m with STEVE S on the Take 5. Sheer perfection.
I love everything named on every list you put there. Candy is awesome. Shut up.
If you had lived in Pittsburgh in the 80s/90s you would have some appreciation of the Clark Bar. One of the manufacturing lines was in the ‘burgh area and everytime some new corporate owner threatened to close down or move the production facility, it would be a big cause in the local news. They would show images of the workers about to be put out of work: all of whom were old hungarian/slovak women wearing shower caps on their head. The Clark Bar also was a nice bar/restaurant hidden away under overpasses near old 3 Rivers Stadium. For a while it was owned or associated with Mike Lavaliere. Who could resist Spanky’s place?
My thanks to Elmore Leonard for turning me on to a great drink….Fresca and Jack Daniels….wayyy better than any of those “lemonade” type drinks.
- I LOVE Snickers. And maybe I’m just imagining it, but if I’m hungry and I eat a Twix or a Mars or whatever, I’m still hungry. And if I eat a Snickers, I’m not hungry for awhile. The Power of Belief can do amazing things. (Like certain ‘people’ in the BBWAA believing that K-Rod is the MVP…)
- All women love dark chocolate. I think it speaks to the bitterness inside them… (I keed, I keed!!!!)
- I can’t stand peanut butter & chocolate. This makes me utterly unamerican, I know. It’s like the terrorists have already won if you don’t like PB & Chocolate.
- I eat my Kit Kat bar the same way you do. I’m still hungry after I eat it though.
- Hershey’s makes bad tasting chocolate. I don’t know how they manage it but they do. If you want excellent tasting chocolate, try a Ritter Sport. Or a Milka.
- You forgot the Toblerone! Whose only redeeming feature is that you can break off the funky triangles and chew on them forever since they have 13 pounds of that extra chewy nougat In them. Definite pixifood.
In conclusion, I think I’m still a kid.
More love for the true Pixifood, the Cadbury Cream Egg. They’re available for a little longer in their home country of England, where Mars Bars are actually Milky Ways.
In high school, I always ate Twix for the following reason: if I didn’t want one, I could say, “would you like a twick?” Never did, though.
The Charleston Chew was not a chain-like shape. You’re thinking of the Marathon Bar, 24 inches of braided caramel covered in the world’s lowest quality chocolate. I assume you’ll be turning in your credentials over this error.
I suggest you go to a rural gas station and snap up a Zagnut bar. On a recent road trip, I found it quite tasty. My wife, however, made me roll down the windows because she said it smelled like I was “eating a turd.”
re: The Great Mr. Goodbar bait-and-switch
The only way I ever experienced a Mr. Goodbar growing up was in miniature form on Halloween. They were always a favorite and would be set aside in the “good” pile (as opposed to the “bad” pile, reserved for Almond Joys, Mounds and their ilk or the “Ammunition” pile, reserved for Tootsie RolIs). I loved the mixture of chopped peanuts and milk chocolate, but for some reason I never bought them in the full size.
Fast forward about 10 years: I’m in college and, while skimming a Mini-Mart rack, I come across a full sized Mr. Goodbar. “Why have I never bought one of these before?” I think, “I freaking love Mr Goodbars!” So I buy it and with great anticipation unwrap it. A full sized Mr Goodbar! Hooray! All those delicious chopped…what the hell? What is this? This can’t be right. This is just a Hershey Bar with about 5 full-sized peanuts jammed in haphazardly. This SUCKS!
Can anyone think of another candy bar where the mini-size bears is NOTHING like the regular size? I mean is there a bigger lie out there than minature Mr. Goodbars?
Anyway, it makes me think there should be some kind of sub-pixie food category where the miniature Halloween version is awesome, but the full sized version is terrible. I recall Sugar Daddies being this way, where the small version was just about right and the large version was about 12 pounds of inedible caramel on a stick. Oh, and Jolly Ranchers too. The little ones were great (and still are), but they manufactured those thin, full-sized bars that took forever to eat and just turned into a magnet for debris after about 15 minutes. “Sorry, I can’t go to the movies guys. I’ve got to finish my dust covered cherry stick.”
bears“people from Cinci kill all dissenters. Seriously, go to Cincinnati and say “Skyline Sucks” and see if you make it out alive. It’s like Children of the Corn down there.”
Surprisingly, the words “Dusty Baker Sucks” evoke no ire of any kind, rather a general agreement.
Back on candy bars, I don’t like my candy bars frozen, but I do love putting all my chocolate in the fridge. I’m not a big fan of room temperature chocolate.
The thing about the candy lineup episode that I didn’t get is that George set up the lineup to get back at the guy who stole his Twix, yet he refrains from actually eating any himself, which is all he wanted to do in the first place. And how did he get all of those Twix candy bars if the vending macine was out??
Good call, Bellweather. The high era Seinfeld episodes had plots that fit together like watches while the latter episodes (this was one of the last) were often mired with internal inconsistencies and questionable motivations. I hate to be a wet blanket, but I have to strongly disagree with those who were nominating this episode as one of the best ever.
Oh, where to start?
Pepsi rules.Coca-Cola makes my teeth feel filthy and disgusting. I’d just as soon drink my own urine.
Reeses Peanut Butter Cups are the best candy, ever, but that stuff ain’t peanut butter. It’s delicious, but it doesn’t bear even a passing resemblance to peanut butter.
Nestle Crunch is still awsome, and dark chocolate was always awsome. Twix is better than Kit-kat, because tha cookie beats the hell out of the chewy-stale wafer.
The mere mention of the Cadbury Cream Egg turns my stomach. That crap is truly not fit for human consumption.
Also, I like most candy bars frozen, but they’re best refridgerated.
I’ve never really been one to need a candy bar on a weekly, or monthly, basis. But I’ve been living in Cairo for two weeks now (I’ll be here a year) and every time I’ve passed a shop that has any kind of American candy bar, my mouth waters like crazy and I have to buy it.
I’ve been trying my hardest to stay away from American food here, but it’s really not too hard when it’s all pixifood (McDonald’s, Hardees, Pizza Hut, KFC). The only thing I’ve had to give in to is my odd desire for a candy bar. So far I’ve found a Twix, a Kit Kat, and a Cadbury “Dairy Milk”, the latter of which was a desperate move I regret. The only good British chocolate bar is the Yorkie.
I can’t wait to find a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup!
One of the top whatever weird things I found out when I moved from Britain to the US is that Mars bars aren’t Mars bars.
Mars is so ubiquitous in Britain - perpetual huge ad campaigns, the most prominent candy bar in any store - and, for some reason, always felt *exactly* as American as Coke, so it was a huge shock to discover that what we’re calling Mars is unknown by the same name over here. I *think* our Mars is your Milky Way… is that true?
Anyway: best British candy bars that you don’t get in America - Double Decker, Curly Wurly (just the name, even), Fry’s chocolate cream.
Best American candy bars you don’t get in Britain - anything Reese’s, Charleston Chew, Baby Ruth.
These things are all true.
Hershey bars and McDonald’s burgers — when I was a kid, they were cheap, delicious treats. Not anymore… last couple of times I had a Hershey bar, it was too much like taking a bite out of a bar of soap, both in flavor and texture.
However, the Reesey Cup (as is was called where I grew up) is still as great as ever. The new Reese’s Crispy Crunchy bar is mighty fine, too.
Never understood how people who claimed to be Coke fans couldn’t telling the difference between Coke and Pepsi in the Pepsi Challenge. It’s not like they were asking the difference between Pepsi and RC or Pepsi and any store brand cola. That might have been more difficult.
The Heath Bar is totally unique. Practically from another planet. It’s what Butterfinger hopes to be when it grows up. Firmer than Jennifer Aniston’s ____ on a cold day! Impossible to turn down.
Sorry, I stand by my candy-bar lineup opinion. I think if one wishes to discuss minor plot failings and questionable character motivation, perhaps one should look outside the realm of, ya know, sitcoms.
Anyway, am I the only one who will sing the praises of the peanut butter snickers???? anyone? anyone?
I second the Toblerone comment.
Also, Ritter Sport has some great stuff, most notably this one bar (is that correct? squares? grids?) made of milk chocolate and corn flakes. It is unbelievably fantastic. I cannot believe an American company couldn’t tap into these twin paragons of kiddie food delights first.
And Reeses Peanut Butter Cup miniatures have a better proportion of chocolate to peanut butter than their larger counterparts. And they are sublime when frozen. With milk. Dang, I’ve got to go on a chocolate run now …
I can’t believe that I have spent this much time and effort reading this entry and every comment on the board.
But since I have I will add 2 things.
1. As many have said, Twix is a great candy bar.
2. How can Caramelo not get any love from anyone? I get that Joe must have a distrust of caramel but how can no one else even step up to defend this simple, elegant candy of fine cadbury chocolate and liquid caramel. The trick is really in how you eat it. It requires a technique similar to the Kit Kat but with the added challenge of not spilling the liquid caramel inside.
OK one more thing: Of course Reeses are the best but I’m not sure they are a candy bar. It seems funny that at one point they had to even advertise Reese’s (two great tastes that taste great together…”You got peanut butter on my chocolate” ” And you got chocolate in my peanut butter”.
Oh and one more thing, Motherscratcher had me rolling. We have a place like that in KC called Fritz’s its not chilli it greasy meat although you can order it with or with out the added grease.
One more thing: Three Musketeers had the slogan “Fluffy, not stuffy,” and naturally, in our college Strat league, Cleveland’s shortstop (and Duane Kuiper’s DP partner) became Frank “Fluffy, Not Stuffy” Duffy…
Darn it, how could I come to the candy bar discussion so late? It’s like Picasso not being invited to the art class at the rec center, (OK maybe more like the Trekkie who locks his formal Klingon regalia in his room at the Motel 6 right before the convention.)
Joe, normally I agree with you on just about everything pop culture-related (like how to eat a Kit-Kat - Wow, I thought I was the only one who ate the chocolate edges first!), but I can’t believe you are so down on so many great chocolate bars. 3 Musketeers, Twix, these are staples of my afternoon vending machine run. Junior Mints, so refreshing (although a mint candy needs to have just the right amount of mint filling - I think the York Peppermint Patty crosses over the line)
Couple of points - I remember the Charleston Chew taught me one of my first economics lessons about inflation, I remember going to the Candy store in the late seventies, and every two weeks the bar, which started out as the longest candy bar (great value, my young brain thought), got shorter and shorter
Also, t seems no one has mentioned possibly the greatest candy bar ever, the Crunchie from Cadbury, (for some reason unavailable in the US until recently). I remember when cousins would visit from Ireland, sometimes they would bring these bars, filled with a golden honeycomb nougat that was vaguely like a Butterfingers, but comparing a Crunchie to a Butterfinger was like comparing a Picasso to the effort from the rec center art class. I had an opportunity to try one recently. Pixiefood? NEVER!
McGatman-
I think the Cadbury Crunchie must be an acquired taste or something you had to like as a kid to enjoy now. I went to London in May and was specifically told by a British friend to try a Crunchie because it “is the best candy bar ever.”
Maybe it’s just me, but I thought it tasted like asbestos covered in chocolate and honey. I thought for sure that if it was the best, that I’d at least be able to eat the whole thing, but I just couldn’t do it.
Of course, I was also told by the same friend that Smarties are better than M&M’s but that turned out to be false as well.
Fantastic post Joe, but I must disagree on this one thing:
“Twix: Fake Kit Kats, with caramel added”
It’s not often I disagree with Joe, but I’m sorry, that is just criminally underrating Twix. That’s like saying Adam Dunn is Dave Kingman with a better on-base percentage. (how’s that for a tortured similie?) To say the Twix is just a modified KitKat does a disservice to both those fine candy bars. The cookie cruch that Twix possesses is totally different from the crispy wafers of the KitKat.
Ok, now that I’ve taken time to read some responses, I see that my defense of the Twix is not solitary.
I also have to echo Steve S’s admiration for the Take 5 bar. Of the “new” candybars, it’s quite heavenly. The pretzel on the bottom is sheer genius.
Peanut-butter Snickers!!! I haven’t thought of them in years! The best, hands-down!!
Others not mentioned (or briefly):
Peanut Butter Twix - 5-stars… Better than the original.
Cookies ‘n Creme Hersheys bars - I don’t like (much) white chocolate, but these were awesome…
Take 5 - A new candy bar that was disgusting the first time I tried it, but somehow, a couple years later I had another onwe and loved it! Chocolate and peanut butter with a pretzal(!). What’ll they think of next?
Chocolate Oranges - Awesome food. I prefer the bark variety, but either are great. The Raspberries were just as good.
Heath/Skor/chocolate-covered-toffee - Not just for Christmas-time anymore!
Reece’s Pieces - not bad, but not as good as Peanut Butter M&M’s
I’m sure I’ll think of more later, but that’s enough for now.
Man, I ate a lot of junk food as a kid!
What the hell did I do, change around all the keys on my keyboard?!? Sorry for all the typos… “I prefer the DARK variety”
Just back to say that I never knew anyone else who ate a Kit Kat the same way I do… until now.
Are Goldenberg’s Peanut Chews (which you used to only be able to get in the movie theater and can now get at the grocery store) an East Coast only thing?
If not, shame for not mentioning them.
OK - its not a candy bar, but I remember the most HORRIBLE Halloween candy ever were those indescribable peanut butter caramel thingies that came in the black and orange wrappers. I don’t think anyone likes them, but for some reason old people thought kids should love them. NASTY.
How did JoeBlog fail to mention the Baby Ruth!?
I think we need a poll … Twix vs. Kit Kat. I’m guessing Twix easily wins.
Loves as a kid, in the 60s:
3 Musketeers (ick, WAY too sweet now)
Payday (yeah, I was weird)
Bit O Honey
Good ‘n Plenty (licorice rules)
Now, I’ve mostly lost my sweet tooth, but good dark chocolate is the best. Preferably with black coffee.
How dare you dis Twix, which is simply the second best candy bar on the planet to Snickers? And that’s over and above its Seinfeld connection, which is in the midst of a far funnier episode.
A few catch-up points:
– Twix are good. KitKats are too, this is not either/or
– I’ve always liked dark chocolate - never had an overwhelming sweet tooth
– Take 5 and that new Crunch-cookie-thing maybe the best of the newer bars.
– My mother ate Clark bars. I don’t know why.
And now the important point:
I MISS THE REGGIE! BAR!!!
Yeah, it’s probably Pixifood in that if you handed me one today that had somehow avoided the ravages of time, I’d probably lose my lunch, but nothing quite matched it. I’ve never found a total substitute, and mind you, I hate the Yankees, and never liked Reggie himself that much either….
The Mario bar was pretty close.
No mention of Twin Bings? Chocolate & crushed peanuts around two cherry nougats. But even more than the taste, I love Twin Bings for their bosom shape, for having fans despite no advertising (none that I’ve ever seen), and for packaging that probably hasn’t changed since the 1920s.
I work at a convenience store. Occasionally, a customer from out of town comes through & buys 10 or 20 Twin Bings (if not the box), smiling while telling me that he or she “can’t find these anywhere!” That’s something that I haven’t seen for any other candy bar.
Also, I used to like Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, but they have pushed their luck with all their disgusting spin-offs: White Chocolate Reese’s, Caramel Reese’s, Reese’s Fast Break, Limited Edition Banana Cream Elvis Reese’s. Ugh.