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Who can know what lurks in the hearts of men?
Apparently, the Shadow can.
Sadly, he's not on speaking terms with me. Not since I pointed out to him that the weed of crime does not bear bitter fruit. That, in fact, it bears no fruit at all, as it's purely metaphorical and has no independently recognised horticultural validity.
Sadly, Lamont Cranston takes no subject more seriously than that of gardening and he left in a sulk.
And he took his wheelbarrow with him.
Fortunately, I'm not going to need him - nor his wheelbarrow - to tell me what lurks in my readers' hearts because, with any luck, they're about to tell me.
It can only mean one thing.
The jaw-dropping return of the feature in which our visitors get to reveal what's in their hearts.
And they do it in the comments section below.
Therefore, if you have something to get off your chest, be sure to make use of that facility. And I shall oversee subsequent events, from my eyrie on the 51st floor of a skyscraper that, officially, only has one storey.
Posts
120 comments:
When my brother & myself, in childhood, visited my Auntie Alice, she always gave us a chocolate Neopolitan. Now, as an adult, my memory of her doesn't stretch much beyond that. Likewise, a few years later, my Uncle Harry, when we visited, gave us both a Prize bar. At Christmas, those old school choc X-mas stockings, made with 'netting', had a Mars, a Milky Way, and a Marathon, along with a packet of sweets (Minstrels, maybe?), plus a Topic bar – my least favourite! At the baths, my father once got me a Frys Chocolate Cream, out of the vending machine. Texans may have been my favourite chocolate bar, though!
In juniors, at one point, if we'd been 'good', we got 'Friday sweets' – a small allocation of change, to spend on penny sweets (candy), from the shop counter. Sherbet Fountains, Black Jacks, Mojos, Fruit Salad – all the usual types – but my favourite was the Toffee Dainty – a big toffee, enclosed in a tartan wrapper!
As well as Custard Creams, and Hob-nobs, a favourite non-choc biscuit, from my past, was the Coconut Cream!
Which chocolate bars, sweets (candy), and non-choc biscuits, evoke memories for you?
Phillip
Phillip- a very tasteful topic! Speaking as a member of the US contingent of SDC, may I observe the very colorful/descriptive names your treats are given! It reminds me of the Beatles' "White Album" track "Savoy Truffle". Makes me want to visit one of your sweet shops. And just what is a Sherbet Fountain? As for Black Jacks, I'm guessing its a licorice of some sort? Growing up 'over here' we could buy packs of chewing gum with the name "Black Jack"; which was a licorice-flavored stick . My Dad loved 'em...
As for my candy memories: numerous; here's a few:,
As a youngster, whenever we went to the grocery, my Mom would let us fill a bag with Brach's candies from the big display. Many different kinds were available, but my usual choices were "Chocolate Stars" (star-shaped chocolate), "Royals" (foil-wrapped caramels surrounding a fruit flavored cream), '"Fudgies" (small cubes of fudge), and the little individually-wrapped gumdrop bars whose name escapes me. Perhaps Charlie or b.t. might recall...
Later in high school, another candy figured prominently for me. My first class after lunch was US Government. We had open lunch hours, so I would stop by a convenience store each day and buy a roll of "Life Savers". I would take them to Government class, where the teacher was hooked on them. I'd give him several, and he would then look the other way as I spent the classtime drawing in my sketch book.
Finally, most everyone I knew in college was aware of my addiction to "Reese's Peanut Butter Cups". For one project in Photography class, a girl asked me to eat a bunch of them for her to photograph as a photo essay. She brought two bags of them to the shoot; I ate about one bag's worth. By the end of the evening I was so sick I couldn't look at another Reese Cup for six months...
Sorry, the above comment was me. Forgot to sign back in. Ooopsie....
Oh boy. Lots of memories of sweets and relatives!
My Hungarian grandma, who lived at 3919 Ivy Street in East Chicago IN, always (and only) had one quart of neopolitan ice cream, a box of Salerno Almond Crescent cookies (and one can of Pabst Blue Ribbon for my dad in the fridge).
The almond crescents were heavily coated in powder sugar which, when you bit into it, would create a thick layer of powder sugar on the roof of your mouth that would last for several minutes!
CH
Redartz - As regards the variety of UK confectionery, I've barely scratched the surface! A Sherbet Fountain was a paper tube, filled with sherbet, plus a liquorice stick, which you'd lick. Then, you'd dab the liquorice stick in the sherbet, which would stick to it - then you'd suck/lick the sherbet off the liquorice stick! Strangely, Black Jacks weren't liquorice, but they'd make your tongue turn black! Regarding lifesavers, we had fruit polos - which weren't that different!
Phillip
And, when overnight, my Hungarian grandmother would walk us to the corner store and we could each buy 1 Hostess treat. I usually got the apple pie, occasionally the Suzie Q! As you can imagine for a kid, it all about volume gentlemen… max volume!
CH
CHARLESTON CHEW was my standby in my teens. chocolate-flavored hydrogenated oil and corn syrup for only $.15. Best deal around for stuffing one’s gut! But, no finesse.
Red, what is US Government class?? We had nothing like that in my school!
By the way, a sherbet fountain is a tube of sherbet with a stick of liquorice in it.
Phillip, I bought a pack of 3 Fry's Chocolate Cream only yesterday! Did you know that Chocolate Cream was the world's first chocolate bar, launched in 1866?
Charlie - Neopolitan ice cream used to be a thing over here too, in the 70s. I wonder whatever happened to it? Its contrasting blocks of colour certainly got your attention, as a kid!
Phillip
Colin - Fry's was a favourite of mine - I'll have to keep my eyes open, if they're still selling it!
Phillip
I also bought a pack of 3 Fry's Turkish Delight and a bar of Cadbury's Dairy Milk - I don't buy chocolate very often but I decided to get some for the upcoming bank holiday weekend.
Colin - I've never been that keen on Turkish Delight. When my brother was 8, our old teacher (Miss Hood) asked our class if anyone knew what Turkish Delight had inside it. My brother, sniggering, cheekily replied: "It's full of eastern promise!" - and got in trouble!
Going off at a tangent, with 1980s railway journeys, train station platform vending machines had stacks of compact Crunch bars in them! To me, they were mysterious, and intriguing. Only as an adult did I learn of their rice crispy filling!
Phillip
Colin- US Government class was a state requirement for graduation, usually taken during your senior year. The class was a survey of the history and function of US government: the various branches, powers, responsibilities and duties thereof. It covered the Constitution, voting, etc.; basically the nuts and bolts of government and governing. Given the current state of our country, I'm guessing that there were too many students who didn't pay enough attention...
My 10th birthday, when I got the first Marvel Superheroes Monthly, is also associated in my memory with both mint and orange Aero bars! I think I've bored everyone with that before! And what about tubes of sweets? Old English flavour Spangles, spring to mind - also Blobs, and Double Agents!
Phillip
Colin- oh, and in case you were wondering, my drawing didn't affect my studies; I aced the class...
Phillip and Colin- thanks for the info on the sherbet fountain! Sounds sort of like a candy concoction we had over here called "Lik-M-Aid": it was a pouch of powerded candy, fruit flavored, and it included a stick made of hard sugar. You licked the stick and dipped it into the powder and then licked again, getting a blast of sweet/sour goodness...
Oh, Redartz - regarding "Fudgies", over here we had a Fudge bar, with a famous theme-song, penned by the lead singer of Manfred Mann:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nC9BBLSZZdQ
Phillip
Sorry Phillip, but there's too much happening to think about chocolate.
Man City are a goal down as I write - if they lose, Arsenal are champions!
More importantly, Spurs are hopefully about to lose. Surely everyone is hoping they get relegated, rather than West Ham?I
-sean
My felicitations, Sean - I hope your nerves survive it. Best of luck to your gunners!
Phillip
Spurs are a goal down, Phillip!
-sean
Any sweet shop nostalgia conversation eventually gets around to how wagon wheels (link for Charlie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wagon_Wheels) seem to get smaller every year.
But let me tell you something. There's a life turning point somewhere around 60 after which wagon wheels seem to get bigger every year. You know you're old when that happens.
Oh, good shout on the blobs Phillip. Boiled sweets with something in the middle with a different texture. I remember the toffee apple flavour with chewy centres and strawberry and cream flavour with a weird foamy/creamy/sugary/fondant centre.
Current chocolate of choice for me is a crunchie because after extensive research I've concluded that Jura and crunchie is the best whisky/chocolate combination.
The champagne bar, dangermash - it's like mixing grain & grape!
Phillip
Phillip- Great call on Aero bars! They are wonderful! They used to be available here many years ago, but no longer. However, there is a store in our area called "World Market" that stocks a wide range of imported food items. They do carry Aero bars, a fact I was thrilled to discover...
West Ham could sign Dez Skinn, Frank Ro**ins, Gemma Collins, Stephen Mulherne and Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and I'd still be happy for them to stay up if it meant Spurs were relegated.
Oh, good shout. I'd forgotten the champagne bar marketing angle. Grain and grape will be my new name for the Jura/crunchie combo.
Redartz - Yes, Aero bars are fantastic! Over here, Cadbury tried to blow Aero (made by their mortal enemy, Rowntree Mackintosh) out of the water, by producing the Cadbury Whisper bar. But stooping to such dirty tactics, to me, just made them look bad! (Whisper's pretty good, too, using supposedly higher quality chocolate - but without the flavour, or pedigree! ) UK Channel 4 (or 5?) did a show about how nasty, and cut-throat, the rivalry is between UK confectionery brands. Although supposedly the world of sweets, etc, is something nice, for children, in reality it's literally 'no holds barred', with competing brands willing to stoop to anything to beat their commercial rivals!
Phillip
dangermash - Raise a glass to me; it must certainly warm the blood!
Phillip
Phillip mentioned Marathon bars — I’m not sure if they’re the same as the ones I used to buy at the Student Store in Jr. High School (which is what we called Middle School) but ours were loosely braided ropes of caramel-flavored taffy, with a Milk Chocolate coating. They were tasty, sweet but not TOO sweet, and because of their ‘chewy-ness’, took you awhile to eat. Abba-zaba bars were another taffy treat that we would occasionally get at the student store, but they were almost TOO chewy for me (and didn’t taste nearly as good as Marathons). Other candy items that got me through Jr. High : Bottle Caps, Pop Rocks and Razzles.
At the movies, my candies of choice were Black Crows, Dots (but only if they didn’t have Black Crows) or Sno Caps.
b.t.
Charle Joe:
Did you used to get Szaloncukor candies at Christmas-time?
b.t.
Man City equalized... But it's enough, and Arsenal basically have the title!
Fingers crossed Spurs stay a goal down, and West Ham pull themselves together (a long shot I know, but still...)
b.t,, Hey, are they still called Marathons in the US? Over here they've been Snickers for ages. Still are, even after Brexit!
-sean
Oops, apologies for mentioning the Brexit.
-sean
b.t. - Over here, Marathon was the UK name for Snickers. But it's now got the name, Snickers, just like the US. Our bar that's like a ladder, is called 'Curly Wurly' !
Phillip
Oh, and we used to get a chewy variety of Life-Savers at the Student Store, which was probably very similar to modern-day Life-Saver Gummies (no one used the word “gummies” back then).
b.t.
Oops! Sorry, Sean (re: Marathon/Snickers) - my screen hadn't registered your comment, by the time I submitted mine!
Phillip
No worries, Phillip.
Especially as Spurs are now two down at Chelsea!
-sean
Correction: not any more they aren't. Useless Chelsea.
BT - Charlie knows not of what you speak that starts with Sz… But odds are it is Hungarian if it starts with Sz, lol!
The only thing that can make my sports life richer besides Man City not winning the title and Tottenham losing is West Ham beating Leeds! I really do feel “chicago” cheering for others to lose! (Chicago Cubs in my case.). CH
Charlie used to sell a fair % of his Halloween candy back in middle school. It was all profit since the costs were $0 lol.
Then one day I got a call from the middle school about my son. He was not to sell any more of his Halloween candy at school or he would face detention or suspension. I honestly don’t recall ever telling him about me selling Halloween candy. This could explain why he does so well in sales today lol.
As a very young boy I was fond of Galaxy chocolate counters and Texan bars. Both discontinued now.
I too got the Mars netted Xmas stocking, and also a big tube of Smarties. And, more crucially, a Terry’s Chocolate Orange: it was the only time of year I ever ate Chocolate Orange, and I still buy one every Christmas for the potent nostalgia of the taste.
As a teen, King-size Mars bars. And supercan size Coke (which have just made a comeback!).
The only family memory / connection I have for sweets is mini or fun-size Mars bars being something my Grandparents had in the house. They also had a colour TV and a VCR before we did, and Crunchy Nut Cornflakes instead of plain, they were clearly better off than we were.
Matthew - I'd completely forgotten about big Smartie tubes, until you just mentioned it! I've now also got some hazy memory surfacing, about some cardboard thing you could buy, that dispensed sweets/chocs. I'll ask my brother on Sunday; his memory's better than mine! I don't know Galaxy choc counters.
Redartz, Charlie, b.t. - Did the American mother place a chocolate biscuit in her offspring's school lunchbox, like in the UK, to be eaten after its sandwiches? Equivalent to the UK's Breakaway, Taxi, Blue Riband, etc, at the lower end - and classier, foil wrapped biscuits - Club, Penguin, United, Viscount, Kit-Kat, and Tunnocks (although that not choc covered), at the 'high end' ?
Phillip
Oops - a correction - Penguins were not foil wrapped, despite being Club's direct rival, and mortal enemy!
Phillip
Another correction - further up I wrote 'Whisper', which should be 'Wispa'. Palm
slaps forehead!
Phillip
Another technical error - thinking about it, I believe Breakaways were foil-wrapped, too, as a way of making them seem more 'high end', like a Club, or Kit-Kat!
Phillip
It goes without saying, that - if needs must - the lunchbox school biscuit could be 'hived off', and collected each day, in one's class desk, to be traded with other boys in the class, for their items, like a ball, for example. Mothers, of course, were not privy to such little commercial side-ventures!
Phillip
My favourite biccy was a Tunnocks Carmel Wafer. Choc bars like Milky Way remind me my childhoodl as my mum would freeze them in the summer and give them to my pals. On visits to the cinema I would occasionally get a Bar Six which seemed very grown up when you were 10 years old . Did others have a tuck shop in Primary school where you could buy biscuits to go along with your daily milk ration( pre milk being stopped)?
Were Breakaways and the like not essentially glorified biscuits?
Any thoughts on why Jaffa Cakes are er, cakes, Phillip?
Btw, going to Steve's preamble, I am reminded of something that we all missed in the recent 40 year ago posts. This month marks the fortieth anniversary of the revisionist Shadow #1 by the ever awesome Howard Victor Chaykin.
-sean
Charlie, I am sure all right-minded people would like to see West Ham beat Leeds.
But that may not be enough - Spurs also have to lose this weekend! Admittedly that does seem more likely, so I suppose it is up to West Ham to decide things.
"I've supported West Ham for 50 years and can't imagine what it would be like for us to send Spurs down. It'd be better than any FA Cup or European Cup... I think a lot of people in this country would love to see Spurs go down."
That's the spirit! -
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2026/may/16/west-ham-tottenham-fans-fume-amid-relegation-panic-picture-essay
-sean
Paul - Yes, Tunnocks were a real treat! I remember Bar Six - I got my mum one as a birthday present, when I was a little kid! Our Infant school tuck shop sold XL crisps, which were spilled, and kids ate them off the ground! Our school milk was left out in crates, in the summer of 76, and went sour - but we were forced to drink it, anyway!
Sean - Yes, obviously a Breakaway's a biscuit - but I think I get what your more subtle point is. Under the thin veneer of chocolate, a Breakaway tastes like a digestive biscuit. That's a very good point - a fancy foil-wrapper can't disguise a glorified cheap digestive!
Phillip
No thoughts on the Jaffa cake/biscuit debate - and its VAT implications - other than the spongy stuff in the Jaffa's middle being, perhaps, cake-like!
Phillip
The reason Jaffa Cakes are cakes as they have a soft sponge that goes hard which defines a cake. Choc biscuits are considered a luxury item and attract tax whereas cakes don't. This was all discussed in a landmark legal case in the 1990s that McVities won. I heard about this on an episode of QI
Lunchbox favourite was a Trio bar.
But I was always stupid and scraped the chocolate and caramel off with my teeth, so the remaining biscuit bit was all boring.
In the US (at least Gary, Indiana) a dessert was part of lunch at school. If you bought a hot lunch, there would be a cinnamon bun, big cookie, or such.
Charlie was always a brown-bagger: sandwich, chips of some sort, fruits, and a mass -market “cake/cookies.”
Mass market cakes was typically Hostess or Little Debbie cakes in various shapes,
Sizes, flavors (typically a chocolate or vanilla cake with “cream”, chocolate or vanilla intermeshed on top, inside.
Cookies seemed to have more market players like Nabisco, Maurice-Lennel, and various regional or local “bakers”’that Charlie no longer remembers’
Crunchy nut cornflakes were far too decadent and bourgeouis for us too, Matthew.
-sean
Paul, in my primary school we could buy biscuits like Penguin, Taxi etc and there was a tuck shop in my secondary school too.
Last year there was a Radio 4 series about tax which mentioned the Jaffa Cakes legal case.
Do UK readers remember a rod-shaped fudge bar coated with peanuts on the outside? I've been trying to remember the name of this particular confection for years to no avail.
Rowntree’s Nutty Bar? Joe P
Charlie - By cookies, I assume you mean large, roundish/irregular ones, with bits of choc chip, etc, in them. I'm assuming such big cookies, and hostess Twinkies, play the UK chocolate biscuit's role, in the American lunchbox. Does America not sell chocolate coated biscuits, for mothers to put in lunchboxes, or are they sold, but just not put in said lunchboxes?
Colin - The Prize bar was fudge, with peanuts & raisins, but not on the outside!
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2505270952950325/posts/3209750329169047/
Phillip
Apologies, Luchbox equivalent = brown bag, in the USA! ( Lost in translation! )
Phillip
For sure the US had lunch boxes for kids! It was mostly a 1960s-70s thong with designs based in TV shows.
PHILLIP! Hostess’s Twinkies were low mass, too spongy for CH. I preferred the denser cakes.
We certainly had cakes and cookies in every combination of chocolate conceivable from Hostess, Nabisco, Nestle (?), Little Debbie, et al but I don’t recall… :(
The Hostess, Nabisco, Nestlé brands were the nationwide, mass market, most expensive snacks for cakes and cookies. And buy cake I don’t mean a birthday cake, lol, but those lunchtime snack things we kids got.
My parents, being very frugal and first/2nd generation Americans bought little Debbie’s confections. Typically, in my lunch, I had the Little Debbie Nutty Buddy bar. ( google for an explanation lol). It was a chocolatey, peanut buttery, bar shaped thing, like 5 inches long and an inch thick and an inch and a half wide. That was a lot of mass! Perfect to fill up a little 10 year-old kid!
And for what it’s worth, HOSTESS, doesn’t exist as a manufacturer anymore. The straw that broke the camels back was issues with the Teamsters a.k.a. trucking union/syndicate. They filed chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2012 and were subsequently, or at least the naming rights and presumably the rest of the intellectual property, was acquired by a company called JM Smucker In 2023. Charlie is assuming that J.M. Smucker is the company that is known nationwide for jelly and marmalade.
And I’m sure you’ve heard all the stories about how hostess Twinkies could last for several decades, I think they found some made in 1940 that were taste tested around 2010 and they were still pretty much the same!
Really, Charlie should be doing some work since he is at the office, instead of researching snacks, cakes and cookies, lol but Charlie just learned that LITTLE DEBBIE was founded in CHATTANOOGA, Tennessee in 1934 and is still family owned!
And, being curious, Charlie has fallen down yet another rabbit hole! Chattanooga is a word from the creek and Cherokee Indian Nations, which translates to “rock coming to a point” Or “rock rising to a point.” I do enjoy the origin of our many cities with Indian names. Chicago meaning “the smell of wild garlic or onion. “
Charlie is struggling to recall a chocolate coated biscuit or cookie. Because I am supposed to be working, and not goofing off, perhaps my brain is hedging… Lol.
But the only thing I can recall, which is germane to the southern United States, is the MOON PIE. And I just learned that it too originated in Chattanooga, Tennessee in 1917, lol. It was conceived as a snack for those who worked in the coal mines in Kentucky.
Anyhow, Southerners, basically meaning anyone living below the Ohio river, seemed to really love a MOON PIE with a RC COLA back in the day. My southern friends in the army would reminisce about it back in the 1980s and I picked up the habit when I was at helicopter school in Southern Alabama in 1984–1985. And now I am kind of curious if red, BT, or MP ever indulged and moon pies given they are all essentially northerners st least geographically (BT is California which in “not southern.” )
When I first visited New York in the 1990s with my work one of the first things I bought was a Hostess Twinkie ( based on all those ads in comic books) they were awful so sweet and they had a really strange texture. I also bought a Baby Ruth ( similar to the UK Picnic bar) that was excellent as was a Three Musketeers bar ( like our Milky Way) and Tootsie Rolls.
Charlie - In general shape (if not filling, etc), those Little Debbies look a bit like a Tunnocks:
https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=6f186da72e2ed7d3&rlz=1C1TEUA_enGB467GB467&udm=2&fbs=ADc_l-aN0CWEZBOHjofHoaMMDiKp9lEhFAN_4ain3HSNQWw-mMGVXS0bCMe2eDZOQ2MOTwnFUBJ2uyTXGY7FrnjAwa7N7ichJoHtISusgmLxg0ZDh7KQ9miyoJPlAQsV3wK3x-aa0JPI523paNmh8BoXF9GRMVeedRcsJMiOVp9DHS-co-PSNDGmHImW2kxHfPLv7-5yvzoJ7iJ3jZmwGqRXDtui9asIxw&q=tunnocks+caramel+wafer&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj_8qa9-ceUAxXRVUEAHSZJB1IQtKgLegQIGRAB&biw=1242&bih=568&dpr=1.1
I only know Chattanooga, from the song lyric, "Gonna take the Chattanooga choo-choo - take a trip down memory lane...!" Or something - maybe it had the words "sentimental journey" in it, too!
I thought 'southern' was beneath the Mason-Dixon Line ( c.f. the Mark Knopfler song! )
Cornish tin mine workers took Cornish pasties down into the mines with them, in their pockets. In fact, don't Americans call their version of Cornish pasties "pocket pies" ?
Moon Pies look like one definition of UK tea cakes (perhaps?)
Phillip
Charlie - If you get sacked from your job, for goofing off, you can come over & spy on uk football clubs' training, like Leeds did with Derby, or Southampton did with Middlesbrough!
Phillip
All this talk about cookies/biscuits reminds me of a beloved item from childhood, Van De Kamp’s Windmill Cookies.They tasted a bit like a Ginger Snap, but not as spicy, with little slices of almond baked in. They were literally shaped like a silouhetted windmill. Van De Kamp’s subcontracted their baked goods to one of our local supermarket chains and baked them fresh on the premises, so you’d be hit by a blast of that enticing ginger/cinammon/cardamom aroma soon as you walked in the door. The bakery went bankrupt in the ‘80s, alas.
b.t.
Paul, despite having read dozens of the ads in the 70s, I still don't know exactly what a Hostess Twinkie is.
Thanks for the Jaffa Cake explanation.
-sean
b.t. - The UK has a 'Brandy Snap' - also involving ginger; but it doesn't sound like what you've described. It's kind of a brittle ginger tube. Looking like a Dutch windmill, yours sounds far more creative!
Phillip
It is funny that you UK gents reference, advertisements as your awareness of hostess Twinkies, and presumably other hostess products like their fruit pies, which were heavily advertised in the Comics as well.
it seems hostess should’ve tried branching out internationally to Europe, or at least to the UK.
also Mike’s amazing world does show the Comics ad pages advertising the upcoming seasons for Saturday morning cartoons for the three major broadcast channels in the United States from the 1960s through the early 80s. I just discovered it a few weeks ago and sure enough ads are in there for the hostess Twinkies another products.
As mentioned, Charlie didn’t find the Twinkies particularly filling Unlike the fruit pies, which really stuck in your gut for a good while. same with hostess ho, hoes, and ding dong’s. It was just a bit too much like chewing on air.
Phillip:
The Moon Pies I’m familiar with are kinda like marshmallow sandwiches, with two thin-ish, bland, dry, cookie/biscuit-like discs acting as the ‘bread’ with a somewhat thick layer of marshmallow in the middle, and the whole thing coated with milk chocolate. When I was a kid, we had something similar called Scooter Pies which I liked a lot. I remember them having much more flavor than Moon Pies (tho that may just be nostalgia talking).
b.t.
And speaking of marshmallow — I loved Rocky Road candy bars as a kid. A wedge of sponge-y marshmallow with bits of roasted cashews mixed in, coated in milk chocolate. I hadn’t seen one for sale in decades, found a stack of ‘em at the checkout counter of our local 99 Cent Store about a decade ago and had to buy a few. It was pretty good, tasted exactly as I remembered but a little too sweet for my “Boomer Palette”. A few months later I saw they had special Dark Chocolate ones — oof, I’m a total sucker for dark chocolate. Still too sweet but that dark chocolate coating definitely made the Guilty Pleasure of it all more pleasurable.
b.t.
b.t. - Hmm - That's not like a Tea Cake, which has a 'dome' - or half a dome - of mallow, on top of a feather-light biscuit base, with some jam-type stuff in the middle. There's a newish UK snack, called Rollercoasters, which might be slightly similar to Moon Pies. I tried them once, but they weren't a patch on Wagon Wheels!
https://approvedfood.co.uk/34955-roller-coasters-malllow-sandwich-biscuit-9-pieces-234g?srsltid=AfmBOor9n10ACmsj6Al4RqOtJ2Rc7msqrgrOfwSdzEgH5DApoN-NRaFs
I must stop thinking of US confectionery in UK terms, because really it's unique in and of itself!
Charlie - Here's a controversial one - in the 70s, the UK sold 'sweetie cigarettes'; but these were banned, eventually, as they might encourage kids to smoke. Did you have anything like that, over the pond?
Phillip
Phillip, thanks for the topic (no pun intended).
I shall wrack my brain to see what snack-based anecdotes I can come up with.
I do remember a chocolate biscuit called a United Bar whose wrapper had blue and white strips, presumably because no real-world football club called United played in blue and white stripes. From memory, I think they might have been similar to Clubs but cannot guarantee that.
Were those XL crisps you ate Rishy XL crisps?
McScotty, our primary school didn't have a tuck shop but it did have a table in the assembly hall, from which one could buy a plethora of unhealthy foods.
I am surprised that no one's mentioned Jammie Dodgers. Have they faded from public consciousness?
Steve - These are XL crisps:
https://www.facebook.com/crazyboutcrisps/posts/a-pair-of-fantastic-retro-crisp-companies-here-with-some-of-their-1980s-offering/848984818606980/
I particularly remember the green ones, which were cheese & onion!
I remember Uniteds - they had a satisfying snap, and crunch to them. The slogan/jingle went, "Chocolate flavour, coated wafer, UNITED!" Sadly, despite being a superior biscuit, United is discontinued!
Phillip
Steve:
By the way, your Shadow/Horticulture-themed intro made me laugh out loud for some reason :)
b.t.
We did have the candy CIGARETTES and chewing gum CIGARS! Google suggests they were sold unfettered until 1970-ish in the USA.
Now when Charlie was in France, 1997 to be exact in Brittany, he bought a couple packs of candy Cigs called KAMIKAZEE that had the RISING SUN on a military olive drab green background. It seemed sort of surreal. Maybe SUNFIRE munched on them?
But by the mid 70s, Charlie and pals were stopping ar the news agency on the way to school to buy and smoke “rum-soaked crookeds” a cheap-ass crooked cigar!
We also had a sweet based on loose tobacco called Spanish Gold that was coconut dipped in brown sugar / cocoa made up to look like rolling tobacco . Looking back you have to wonder what these companies were thinking about.
Charlie - Our sweet cigarettes (at least in my era) usually had a space theme:
https://nostalgiacentral.com/pop-culture/food-drink/sweet-cigarettes/
Phillip
We did have a shredded chewing gum, referred to as “BIG LEAGUE CHEW”. IIRC. You would pull it out of the package like when you would pull out raw tobacco from those packages to stick in your cheek.
(There was also something called plug tobacco, which was like a very small little brick of dried tobacco. You could stick in your mouth. And we also had snuff which was finally shredded tobacco. The Germans sniff snuff up the nose while the Americans put it between their cheek and gum.)
Aren't there fruit drink based vapes these days, that seem packaged to appeal to kids?
Not that I know anything about vapes. If there's not a good chance you'll get cancer, I'm not interested!
Seriously though, as with fancy designer drugs, I'm too old for that sort of thing. The seeming popularity of ketamine is enough to convince me young people these days don't have a clue.
*shakes fist at cloud*
-sean
Yeah - they were nice, too.
You can buy Twinkies in some London newsagents and grocery stores - the sort of places that also sell Vanilla Coke.
They are incredibly sickly sweet, but unfortunately for me I like them and occasionally risk my dental health for one.
Eat a Moon Pie while drinking an RC Cola, Sean, and you wont be just shaking your fist at the moon, you’ll be barking at it while standing on your head, naked!
I was amazed to discover Twinkies in my local Tesco at Christmas 2018 but it was only a one-off batch and I've never seen any Twinkies since then. It gave me the opportunity to finally experience this legendary food-item though which was quite nice in my opinion.
McVitie's baked a special giant Jaffa cake to display in court during their legal case in order to prove that a Jaffa cake is indeed a cake and not a biscuit (I learned this fact while listening to the Radio 4 series about tax that I mentioned in a previous comment. The series also said that Britain is one of the LEAST-taxed countries in the industrialised world which you'd never guess from the never-ending whining about tax in this country).
Phillip, you can't buy sweet cigarettes anymore because they supposedly encouraged children to smoke (?!) but you CAN still buy cider-flavoured iced lollies even though they might encourage children to try real cider!
Colin - Yes, that very thought occurred to me, when I mentioned Blobs/ Double Agents. Either Blobs or Double Agents (I mentally conflate the two) had cider flavour, I seem to remember. Likewise, the Cider Barrel iced lolly. But the government banning such things - or not, as the case may be - is forgetting the 1970s understanding of childhood. Sweetie cigarettes, Cider flavour sweets & lollies, and the Raleigh Chopper Bike (with its gear stick, just like the one you watched your dad operate, in the car! ), allowed kids to role-play at being adults! As a character (the gardener?) in 'The Secret Garden' said: "There's nothing kids like more than play-acting!" I never had a chopper, but I asked my dad what a gear-stick was for, and how it worked. He gave me a complex explanation which, as a little kid, I didn't understand, at all. Nevertheless, I'd have loved a bike with a gear-stick, to learn how to work one, just like my dad did, in our car! Similarly, kids thought, aren't I being grown up, having 'Cider' in my Cider Barrel lolly, etc! The manufacturers knew this, and no harm was done. I scarfed sweetie cigarettes, as a kid, but have never felt any desire to puff on a real cigarette in my entire life!
Phillip
Colin, you can kinda still buy sweets cigarettes they have been renamed Candy Sticks minus the red dot at the end ( to simulate a lit cigarette) . You must have a sweet tooth if you liked Twinkies.
Reporting on the situation Down Under - we used to have small candy cigarettes called FAGS - obviously from the UK euphemism, but social media discontent about other interpretations of the term had them renamed FADS, which doesn't actually make sense, but a name's a name. However, I do recall in my childhood there was a period that you could buy chocolate cigarettes that mimicked the real thing right down to the packaging! Yep, you could friends a Marlboro or Camel without fear. Candy cigars too, but they tasted pretty bland.
One thing i haven't seen mentioned was bubblegum, with its main attraction: the bubblegum card. We had one company monopolising the trade that I could see - name of Scanlens, they licensed a lot of stuff from the US, thus could one collect Odd Rods and other things I can't remember the names of now, but featured a lot of Wally Wood artwork. There were also cards based on TV shows - collecting and swapping taught you from a young age about supply & demand, and capitalism on a smaller scale.
PS I am over 60 and Wagon Wheels have not gotten any bigger!
B - At my school, purchases of bubblegum massively increased after Star Wars cards started appearing in the bubblegum packs. You could swap them with your friends, trade them - you name it!
Later, I also recall a bubblegum brand (very early 80s?) in the UK, which had an American Stars & Stripes wrapper. I've looked online but can find some similar, but not the same.
There was some indigenous Aussie chocolate bar discussed on the UK news a bit back, but I forget its name. As regards Australian snacks/foods, I recall somebody on Neighbours in the late 80s/early 90s (Bronwyn?) going on about Lammingtons - repeating the name 'Lammington' over, and over again! Unless, maybe it was Home & Away.
Phillip
Thanks, b.t. :)
B. I had forgotten all about those chocolate cigarettes in realistic packets, didn't they have a rice paper cover to simulate the cigarette and the filter?. I used to like Beech Nut and Wrigleys P.K gum ( no idea what P.K. meant) and Anglo gum which was heavily advertised in UK comics with a superhero type comic strip and
Phillip. I had a Lamnington when I was in Oz a couple of years ago, very tasty. I think you can buy a version of these in M&S . The only stars and stripes gum in UK I recall from the 1980s was double bubble as my niece liked that .
Paul - The Stars & Stripes bubblegum's packet I remember was a rectangular, with the flag pattern covering the entire packet. In the pictures, Double Bubble looks more round. But maybe it did another one, back then. Thanks for helping my bubblegum nostalgia quest, anyway!
B - The only BBC Aussie choc I've found is Violet Crumble:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-42644681
Seems it's the Australian Crunchie!
Dangermash - You won't be short of something to sprinkle in your Jura, if you ever go Down Under!
Phillip
One last bubblegum memory ( trying to get this thread to 100 comments 🙂) does anyone remember Golden Nugget Gum that came in a cloth bag . The gum was a handful of smallish golden nuggets representing a prospectors gold.
I'm afraid I don't remember it, Paul - but you're a few years older than me. I'll leave it to older & wiser heads!
Crossing Speak Your Brain's 100 comments barrier's not for the faint-hearted. It's only ever happened once, so far, in SYB's entire 124 episode history - and it almost broke the Internet! ( Okay, I exaggerate, slightly! )
An iconic Norwegian bar, called 'Kvikk Lunsj' (sounds like 'quick lunch!' ), also appeared on the BBC, a bit back ( a Kit-Kat equivalent, perhaps? )
https://www.bbc.co.uk/travel/article/20250909-kvikk-lunsj-the-controversial-sweet-that-fuels-norwegians
SDC may not yet reach Norway, for a first-hand perspective!
Phillip
SDC might not reach Norway, Phillip, but it's close to 100 comments with this post!
-sean
In fact, this comment is the 99th. Care to follow through and bag the big one, Phillip? After all, it was your choice of topic...
-sean
Thanks, Sean - don't mind if I do. In respect of SDC, As Tiny Tim said, "God Bless us, every one!"
Phillip
Congrats Phillip!!! 100 comments is a first?
WRIGLEY (chewing gum) was an incessant source of frustration for CHICAGO. They owned the Chicago CUBS, aka THE LOVABLE LOSERS. They were disliked as incredibly cheap owners ensuring the Cubs would remain losers until eventually selling the team in 1981 to the Tribune to pay back taxes.
And you’ve heard us USA gents speak fondly about the Tribunes’ cartoon syndicate.
FWIW - the UK consulate in Chicago is in the Wrigley building right on Michigan Avenue!
🎆
Sorry that was a rather uninspiring emoji to celebrate over 100 replies
Charlie - I think we've hit 100 once before, but never passed it!
In the past, the UK fielded many chewing gum brands ( Paul named some), but, now, few are left. Wrigleys was the biggest, so presumably that's survived. Niche gums, like the discontinued Beech Nut were, however, preferable!
Paul - Is it a Spider?
Phillip
Iirc one post here got a 102 comments. But that was right in the thick of the covid pandemic, when everyone was stuck indoors and comments were running at a pretty high rate generally.
Btw, completely off Phillip's topic, but if anyone's interested New York recently renamed Essex St to... Jack Kirby Way!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OoWEZ55gMx8
-sean
Planet Of The Apes bubblegum cards were all the rage in my primary school in the first half of 1975. They were all based on the short-lived POTA TV series which ran on ITV from October '74 to January '75 and you can still see all the cards online.
Congratulations on passing 100 comments, Phillip - you're now due a telegram from King Charles ;
D'OH! That should have been ; )
Sean - Yes, I've gone through Speak Your Brain's posts, and none of them reached 100. I think it maxed at 76. The post going to 102 must have been a regular Thursday-Sunday feature.
Colin - I'll await my telegram with bated breath. Or, are you referring to a telegram from King Charles (CH-47) of Chicago?
Phillip
No, definitely His Majesty King Charles Mountbatten-Windsor!
Lol it's meant to be fireworks Phillip
I hope you've got a better emoji or gif lined up for the day Scotland becomes independent, Paul.
-sean
Thought it sounded weird that blobs would have come in cider flavour as well as toffee apple flavour but I've checked and they did. There were six flavours on offer. We've ready identified
- fizzy cider
- toffee apple
- strawberry and cream
but there was also
- fizzy cola (boring!)
- apple, banana and pear: apple again!
- raspberry and sherbert
An eclectic range of flavours. Of course they couldn't launch a range like that these days without being accused of grooming kids into becoming future vapers.
By the way, Charles of Chicago never told us what he thought of King Charles's recent trip to America.
Charlie here, but not Charles! To be perfectly forthcoming, I saw very little of Charles’s recent visit other than in context of being with trump. We saw some of his remarks which seemed to challenge Trump‘s presidency. IIRC he referred to some historical events which clearly Trump would have no knowledge of that garnered a lot of chuckles in the room. But I think the general impression here was that Charles seem to suggest in various ways that Trump could do better.
I hate to say this, but perhaps the most interesting thing out of the visit was a photo taken of Trump walking with Melania, from behind, with his hand on her ass. Pig.
McScotty:
We had those little “bags of gold” gum here in the states too, but I don’t remember what they were called.
b.t.
Yes we did! CH
According to Google, there were at least two different brands of “bag of gold” bubble gum : Gold Nuggets and Gold Rush . The picture of Gold Nuggets looked the most familiar, so I’m gonna say that was the one we used to get here in Sunny Californy.
BTW: congrats to Phillip on picking such a record-setting topic :)
b.t.
Thanks, b.t.!
Phillip
Way too late to respond, but in case anyone sees this, just to clear up: lamingtons are not candy or biscuits, but are in fact cakes. Imagine a piece of vanilla sponge measuring about 3 inches by two inches by two inches. Dipped (or brushed with) chocolate, 'tis then rolled in desiccated coconut, and voila!
The size may vary, but they used to be triffically popular for school fundraising events - all the mums would get together and there'd be a lamington drive - tons of the buggers, made, ordered and consumed by the truckload. I, for one, did not complain (and have the waistline to prove it).
Oh, and they were named after Lord Lamington, who was the Governor of Queensland in the late 19th century (or his wife, no-one's really sure).
Thanks for the clarification, B. :)
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