• neidu3@sh.itjust.worksM
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    8 days ago

    Related anecdote: When I worked an offshore rotation with people from all over the world, I made an effort to bring candy that I’d never seen outside of Scandinavia. It was always amusing to see people sampling candy I liked when they weren’t used to the ammonium chloride branch of flavors.

    And once I brought this:

    Everybody who weren’t Norwegian, Swedish, or Finnish (sadly we had no Danes on board) absolutely hated it. Especially the Americans and Brits.

    Everyone except Mario, that is; a Croatian geophysicist. He loved them. His voice still lives rent free in my head over ten years later, saying “Sweet candy is for kids”

    A few trips later I brought one of my favorites for basically the same result, but this time with Jim (from Illinois, iirc) complaining that it made his mouth physically hurt:

    Mario loved that one even More.
    The only thing everyone on board liked was the obscene amount of chocolate my navigator brought every trip.

    But to answer the question: Twizzlers. I bought some when visiting the US a couple of years ago. It tasted like oily sweetener (as in, clearly not actual sugar). That’s when I learned that American and European wine gum are flavored very differently.

    Footnote: Durian and durian chocolate is quite alright once you get used to the slight farty smell from each packet you open.

    • owenfromcanada@lemmy.ca
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      8 days ago

      Yeah, American candy has about the lowest standards. Canada isn’t much better, but there’s a noticeable difference in the quality of chocolate in common chocolate bars. We once did a side-by-side comparison of KitKats (we live right on the border) and the difference was stunning.

      • partial_accumen@lemmy.world
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        7 days ago

        We once did a side-by-side comparison of KitKats (we live right on the border) and the difference was stunning.

        Bad comparison on that one. KitKat brand in the USA is an entirely different company that the rest of the world. So they aren’t even the pretending to be the same recipe.

      • neidu3@sh.itjust.worksM
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        8 days ago

        If you like KitKat, try and see if you can find this one:
        .
        It’s similar, but better.

        One American candy I actually like is Reeses peanut butter cups.

    • garbagebagel@lemmy.world
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      7 days ago

      I will defend my rubber flavoured twizzlers til the day I die. Do they taste like you shouldn’t be eating them? Absolutely. Will I still eat an entire bag of twizzlers at the movie theater every single time? You betcha.

    • Deestan@lemmy.world
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      8 days ago

      Take a bag of those pebers and dump them in a bottle of vodka. Let them dissolve overnight. Bring to a party and you will be instant friend of any scandinavian.

    • Vanth@reddthat.com
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      3 days ago

      sweet candy is for kids

      I vibe w Mario. I haven’t had either you mentioned, but they seem my speed. I go for the saltiest licorice you crazy Scandinavians can come up with.

      (am an American who warns people off my candy stash, but they still try it and think I’m pranking them)

      Edit 4 days later: I bought a bag of Original and a bag of Hot & Sour as a result of this thread. Delicious but TBH, I was hoping for stronger. I ran into a specialty licorice store in small, Midwestern city Lincoln, Nebraska a few years bag and they had imported licorice from all over the world. They had a couple that were stronger.

      I am happy to see they survived Covid. It couldn’t have been easy for such a niche thing like licorice in a city that small. https://licoriceinternational.com/