The Tuesday Taste: Halloween Candy Edition!

Oh no, here it comes again

Can't remember when we came

so close to love before

Hold on, good things never last

Nothing's in the past

it always seems to come again

Another Tuesday.... another spooky Taste! This is the first ever Halloween episode of the weekly show, and since this is a favourite holiday of mine I wanted to switch gears for a moment and do something a bit different this time around. 

So yeah, as the header photo has already revealed... it's a chocolate bar tasting showdown! 

I'll jump into this quickly I swear, but first I should explain my specific choices here. These are six chocolate bars I vividly remember receiving vast quantities of (in "Fun" size form) on childhood Halloweens wandering the bountiful side streets of the Annex with my dad. The Annex of my costumed youth was the true zenith for Toronto trick or treating and you'll never convince me otherwise. A wealthy area with plenty of accessible houses packed close together, tons of families and perfect for on foot travelers? Yeah get lost Forest Hill, Rosedale or Bridle Path... The Annex kicks your gated asses. Once older I used to even plan with my dad the best strategic routes for optimal candy... it was in our mutual interest after all. I even trick-or-treated at Margaret Atwood's door a couple times (unsurprisingly she does not know video game characters). 

Enough of my tricks, onto the treats. I regret four omissions: Mr. Big, Caramilk, Crispy Crunch and Wunderbars, all of which would be usually plentiful in the evenings loot. I'm also an adult, bought full size versions of these and frankly my weakness towards chocolate and candy has never matched that towards my true chips and dip master. Wunderbar is the one I really would've liked to try again though... I always loved those but sadly could not find it at the singular place I looked. 

I'm also no culinary dessert expert (or expert on anything really beyond Star Trek before 1993) so my observations will be more on taste and feel over what makes the actual ingredients in these things go. Hint: it's sugar. Okay lets ring these doorbells.

 

Snickers 

 

Cheating here somewhat by starting with a longtime favourite, one of the few candy bars I've actively purchased in my 30s. I've always liked how as you chomp down, the layers of flavour and texture come to you in succession: the outer layer of chocolate, then the caramel below that, then the nuts combine with the bottom deposit of nougat (totally had to look up what it was) to finish off the Snickers experience. There's a softness to the bite wonderfully balanced by the peanuts inside, while the gooey sweetness of the caramel gives you a bit of everything. This really is the chocolate bar I think about twice a year when I unexpectedly crave such things. 

 

Mars Bar

 

 

Makes sense to jump here next, as Snickers is produced by Mars Inc. and the two bars are visually nearly identical (only by the cross section cut could I myself be sure which was which).

They are different enough in taste though: Mars bars ditch the nuts for a less crunchy ride and a far more chewy one. This allows the bottom layer, which seems more taffy-like (still apparently nougat) to dominate the texture while the top caramel takes the steering wheel of the flavour. As a child a Mars was acceptable (duh) but never a first choice... now I think I can appreciate the slow chew of it quite a bit more. Snickers is the quick snack while Mars is the slow treat. I'd still pick Snickers but both have their time and place.

 

Oh Henry!

 

 

Now we're combining the chewy and the nutty, and Oh Henry! is nutty to the point of being committed. Eating one again though, after probably eight years... I can understand why in my teen years I couldn't get enough of these. We supposedly get fudge instead of nougat here, making this a less sweet affair (I've never had a sweet tooth anyway) and a more chocolatey one. Texture-wise it's a bit uneven to eat due to it's composition. The mis-shapenness of it is amusing to me, ditching the perfectly rectangular bar form for a lumpy log one could describe looks turd-like in nature. I know this guy would do such a thing.

 

Kit Kat

 

I need a break... lets cross the pond into wafer territory. Kit Kat (originally created in the UK) is extraordinary simple: it's a wafer bar covered in chocolate. You could make them at home without much difficulty (some cooking chocolate, wafers and a freezer I'm guessing). What makes them appealing is that crispy wafer within, dissolving in your mouth while that coated chocolate doubles down and coats your taste buds as well. Wafers on their own are quite dry even with the filling... I think as a pre-teen I used to buy a pack of vanilla ones and dip them in peanut butter. Geez, it's a damn miracle I don't weigh 300 pounds (bless you, obsessive bicycling). 

Kit Kats are enjoyable within their simplicity as long as you like that chocolate, since that's 80 percent of what you taste here (95 percent if it's a Kit Kat Chunky). I also recommend the "put them in the fridge" trick... then you get that real good "snap".

 

Coffee Crisp

 

 

Now we're closer to home... Canadian innovation baby! Well sorta... it was invented here in the 1930s but distributed by Rowntree's, a UK company until Nestle bought them out. Basically any pre-wrapped and branded chocolate bar you find in most stores anywhere is going to be blanket owned by some super mega corporation. 

When younger, when things like these mattered so much, Coffee Crisp was a divisive candy. Many truly hated it, but I was never one among them. Its uniqueness appealed to me: how it tasted, crunched and crumbled like no other chocolate bar around at the time (and I truly was an expert on these matters, my credentials being that I was a ten year old boy).

Two decades later, I can give it the same compliments now as I did then. Like Kit Kat it utilizes wafers internally (must be that British influence) but Coffee Crisp is like if you stacked a brick of Kit Kat wafers and brushed the chocolate gently around them, as opposed to coating a layer of chocolate housing insulation. The texture is like a brick, you can knock your knuckles on this thing, and biting into it is like you're a Godzilla creature chomping on a skyscraper and feeling the walls collapse around your teeth. 

It's on the drier for a chocolate bar, which is a fair criticism. I've just always liked that rich flavour, a hint of coffee and vanilla faint enough to dance along the tongue... and I don't even drink coffee. 

 

Reese's Peanut Butter Cup

 

 

Without a doubt one of the most widely known treats of our time, an ingenious merging of two forces into one entity so powerful even Family Guy referenced it. Okay, that's not saying much... I just wanted to share that clip.

I do enjoy them: the chocolate/peanut butter ratio is just on point and they're even better after some time in the fridge to truly harden up that chocolate shell. The peanut butter just doesn't do it for me though... the feel and taste of it bothers my mouth and I'm certain it's the excess sugar in this thing. Once upon a time I loved my Skippy on some English Muffins in the morning... smoother the better. Now, any rare occasion I buy peanut butter I go straight for the certified organic stuff as chunky as possible. Like I need to taste the air of the peanut shell within the spread.

Reeses peanut butter cups are a tasty treat and a classic, but they always leave my throat feeling kinda gross... or I get a slight sugar headache. Not for me anymore, it seems. I do recommend getting a homemade one from a chocolate shop sometime if you can though.

Final verdicts! I'm not gonna grade these (because how could I) but I can rank them by preference:

 

1. Snickers 

2. Coffee Crisp

3. Oh Henry!

4. Mars

5. Kit Kat

6. Reese's

 

None are bad... each one is enjoyable in its own way. Now excuse me for a moment, all that sweet sugar is making my head spin and my stomach groan.... glad I only ate half of each one.

 

 

Burnt Ends -- It's been a busy-ish week here on the ol writing train. Wrote another Star Trek review, back to season 3 of the 60s series with "The Mark of Gideon". Beyond that, I jumped head first into looking at the Led Zeppelin discography... enough so that my first draft is complete! All 5500 words of it. It'll need a few edits no doubt, hopefully to subtract some of that length but no promises.

The Unworldly Series -- Rather sad to say, as an enormous baseball fan, that I haven't watched a single second of the currently ongoing World Series. Hell, I didn't watch the LCS series either. The combination of how the Blue Jays season ended (still not completely over that) and basically how I dislike every single playoff team with the exception of the Brewers and Giants... who go figure were both knocked out quickly. Yep, the last 2021 MLB baseball I saw was the horrible checked swing call to end that otherwise fabulous Dodgers-Giants Game 5. Worst... postseason... ever... 

That said, I still love the game of course. Here's a pretty interesting article I read about baseball's connection with the literary world, both in regards to baseball's use as a setting or event in literary works, or just lingo from the game itself we use in everyday phrases (even by those who don't know or follow the game). It's a good read. 

 

Attack of the Phone(ys) -- Have you noticed we're starting to see provincial attack ads recently? Gimme a goddamn break. Isn't the election not slated until next year anyway? Can't we at least get a somewhat extended reprieve from this garbage? Sigh. 

Anyhow, I did chuckle at the PC ad attacking the Ontario NDP for "she says she wants to reduce gridlock, yet Horwath opposes new highways..." Ummm... like not wanting to destroy unique wildlife and forests for a fucking slab of concrete is a bad thing? Well done, fellas. Besides, this proposed 413 highway seems to be a rather gross and slimy affair.  

Look, I get that people have to get around to where they have to go... we all do... I just prefer a solution that also leaves us with breathable air and a livable climate by the middle of the century.

 

Tuesday Tune -- Kind of crazy I haven't featured a song by this band on the TT yet. So here is some fast power for your Tuesday ears. This tune makes me wanna go run a mile in like twenty seconds.

 

 

That's for me this week. Hope you all enjoyed the spooky holidays and are gorging on leftover candy as you read this. Until next time, we well, be kind and don't spill that mustard.