Every day after school I used to go to the corner shop and buy a chocolate bar or a bag of 10p (20p if I was feeling rich) penny sweets. There was a brief phase of those sherbet sticks that you could buy for about 3p which everyone in school had and for some reason I remember them being of particular concern to teachers. Maybe because kids were pretending they were cocaine and snorting them, maybe that was it.
If you've read Stephen Fry's Autobiography (the first one) which includes a long section listing all the sweets he loved and loves that is just about how I feel about sweets too. Even though most of the sweets I used to eat still exist now there is always a heap of nostalgia associated with them.
Here comes the list, my favourites include: foam shrimps, lemon bon bons, apple laces, strawberry laces, sherbet dib dab, black jacks, fruit salad, foam mushrooms, foam strawberries, cherry lips, aniseed balls, fizzy cola, chewy cola, giant cola bottles, fizzy blue bottles (not the flies, the drink) coconut rolls, love hearts, foam teeth and toothbrushes, refreshers, drumsticks (one of my teeth came out because of a drumstick lolly), flumps, rhubarb and custard, Wham bars, candy sticks, candy necklaces, fried eggs.... the list is pretty much endless.
Although there are some sweets I don't like. I'm not a big fan of hard sweets save for bon bons and rhubarb and custard. And I never understood why people liked those white mice. I'm not a big chewing gum person although I did used to buy those long packs of bubblegum which were about 15p a tube. They never tasted sweet for very long so I could easily chew a whole pack in a couple of hours.
Chocolate wise the list is quite a lot smaller than the sweet side of things. At the moment I am favouring Galaxy over Cadburys - have Cadburys changed their recipe? I am inclined to blame Kraft Foods for the less chocolatey nature of their Dairy Milk lately. My favourites at the moment (which changes often!) are Galaxy Caramel, Galaxy Ripple, Wispa, Milky Bar and Crunchie. I am still mourning the loss of Kit Kat Peanut Butter which has been replaced by the rubbish Kit Kat Caramel - which isn't really caramel inside at all is it? Do we not get peanut butter as much in the UK as our American counterparts. There should be more peanut butter in confectionary in my opinion.
My favourite chocolate bar ever was the Cadburys Fuse bar, which was discontinued around the late 90s. It had basically everything going for it - chocolate, raisins, nuts, FUDGE PIECES and crispies. And the packet design was pretty cool too. I miss those.
So there you are, an essay from a sugar addict. I still do need to have at least one bar of chocolate a day, and it is a need, I think. I get a bit crabby otherwise. And you have no idea how glad I am that retro sweet shops have become popular again, Mr Simms Olde sweet shop in Cambridge is one of the best places to go for all kinds of sweets.
Now I am off to the shop for some sweets. I hope you enjoyed reading my post!
Sweetie images from Handy Candy - http://www.handycandy.co.uk and google image search
I miss a (I'm going to get this all wrong now) "Secret" by Cadbury - I'm thinking of the chocolate mousse bar covered with birdsnest chocolate - hopefully I've applied the right name to it.
ReplyDeleteWe've got a Mr Simms, too.
I was, and am, the opposite - not a big fan of sweets. My parents always swapped sweets given at parties for chocolate - I think they thought eating a bar of choc was better for my teeth than sucking and chewing on sweets. Perhaps they were right - didn't have a filling until I was 17 (the results of a skittle eating competition & copious amounts of ribena... I feel sorry for the teachers that had us that afternoon, I've never been so high!).
ReplyDeleteI did like fruitella though, and had those as a treat sometimes. And I remember those sherbet sticks! Dayglo orange, yellow and green. Pretty sure the kids at my school snorted them like coke too! I remember fuse bars coming out, and being disappointed because I don't like raisins. Straight up Galaxy or Dairy milk has always been my favourite, along with Munchies, Mint Munchies, Mars bars and Toffee Crisp. Had a craving for double deckers lately though!
Oh, citrus Polos! We went barmy for those when they came out, and the fruit ones.
What a lovely post! I love Mr Simms in Cambridge too, even though I don't like sweets that much - I eat Cadbury's chocolate by the bucketful!
ReplyDeleteGina - I remember Secret, the chocolate birdnest thing was pretty cool
ReplyDeleteMolly - Mr doesn't like sweets so I get to keep them all to myself :)
Clare - Good to see another Cambridge food blogger around!