Hello Sweetie

Regular readers will know that I am not afraid to tackle the big subjects on this blog.
Politics, classical music, literature, food, ecology, social networking, technology...the list goes on. You name it, it’s probably been subjected to my ill-informed and unthinking scrutiny.

But I realised the other day that I have been remiss. There is one burning issue that remains undiscussed here.

Reader, I apologise.

All I can do is rectify the situation without further ado.

It started with an innocent tweet in my timeline.

The mere mention of the word ‘curly’ in conjunction with its natural rhyming partner was enough to send me down memory lane. I don’t know why, but some sweets belong firmly in my childhood. It’s almost as if they stopped making them in 1979. And even though the taste of curly-wurlys (wurlies?) eaten in my innocent youth remains with me still, I would no more buy one now than Sarah Palin would conjugate a prefixed imperfective verb of motion in Russian.

Or English, come to that.

Why is this?

They are still making them, those cheeky monkeys who call themselves Cadbury UK. They’ve been making them since 1971.

So why did I stop eating them about seven years later?

It’s got nothing to do with ‘growing up’, a pernicious process that I have managed to avoid with dextrous ease for forty-five years now. Oh no, I still eat confectionery on a quasi-daily basis: Mars, Twix, Wispa (plain or Gold), Crunchie, Kit-Kat (don’t get me started - just bring back the foil), Flake, Maltesers and on and on and on. I eat them all with a childish relish that makes my five-year-old boy’s innocent pleasure at the sight of a party pack of chocolate buttons seem debonair and sophisticated.

(Obviously I don’t let him have chocolate very often. Bad for your teeth, you know. Now pass me that King Size Twix.)

It’s just one of those mysteries of life, I suppose. I may have to try one soon, just to see what I’ve been missing.

Now, time for some interactivity. What I’m about to do will no doubt please some people, while enraging and alienating others. (I have already discovered, to my cost, the folly of extolling the virtues of cre*e e*gs in certain quarters.)

The fact is, people take their confectionery very seriously. Yet impassioned debate is entirely missing from the public forum. National news outlets, obviously, have to shy away from any accusations of product placement, which is why Charlie Brooker never writes his 800 words on ‘Why I Hate Lion Bars’.

Food bloggers, by contrast, probably could write about individual candy bars or brands, but are too busy doing vertical comparisons of single-estate Argan oils or writing impassioned and purple prose on the subject of their favourite root vegetable.

So to fill this gap I present below a vaguely categorised list of chocolate-based confections (there is one exception, but I couldn’t leave out Caramac, could I?). It is an entirely personal list - so even though you may disagree with me I will come down like a ton of bricks on anyone who says I’m ‘wrong’ or ‘deluded’ or ‘in league with Satan’. But I give it to you in the hope that you, in return, will embellish it with vigorous and informed debate.

As long as you don’t diss my creme eggs.

The Classics - Timeless, irreplaceable
Twix
Kit-kat
Toffee Crisp
Mars
Crunchie
Flake

Great When I Was Ten, But Inexplicably Don’t Eat Them Any More
Curly Wurly
Rolo
Caramac

Good Solid Stuff, But No More Than Once A Month For Some Reason
Minstrels
Galaxy
Aero

‘Modern’ Pretenders, And Pretty Darned Good Ones At That
Yorkie
Wispa
Wispa Gold
Dime

Down In One
Smarties
Maltesers
Buttons

Not As Big As You Want Them To Be, But Any Bigger And You Would Probably Feel A Bit Sick
Milky Way
Milky Bar
(Finger of) Fudge
Creme Egg
Ripple

‘Grown-Up’ Chocolates That You Just Wanted To Cram In Your Mouth But Were Only Allowed One At A Time
After Eight
Matchmakers

Passed For Sophisticated In The Seventies But We All Know Better Now
Bournville

Nice Try But We’re Not Falling For Healthy Stuff In Our Chocolate
Fruit ’N Nut
and especially
Whole Nut

Always Somehow Disappointing
Revels
Club
Penguin

Just Somehow Never Fancied Them, You Know. Perfectly Nice, I’m Sure, But...
Topic
Picnic
Boost
Twirl
Time Out
Double Decker

Can’t Imagine Why Anyone Would Want To Eat Them
Lion Bar
Drifter

Sorry, Repulsive
Walnut Whip
Wagon Wheels
Bounty
Marathon (and no I will not call them Sn*ck*rs even though that’s been the name for at least thirty years)

Comments

[Coara]

Ooh, Topic and Drifters are my absolute favourites! We are in an impasse, a sweet, chocolatey impasse. Now to go spend all my pocket money in the local shop...

[Rhiannon Paine]

Galaxy for me. My English friends keep telling me it's naff, but I see it's made your list. In California, I like Dove, See's (especially Scotch mallows), and (San Franciscan) Ghirardelli, but can't stand Hershey's. Totally with you on the importance of chocolate in "candy."

[Tam]

This is a pretty comprehensive list but you've missed out Star Bars and M&Ms, I think? And I don't care what you say, Curly Wurlys are for life, not just for childhood.

[Lev Parikian]

Thanks for the early comments everyone.
Coara - sweet and chocolatey is how I like my impasses.
Rhiannon - I hoped you wouldn't be miffed that I ignored US 'candy'. In my experience it's a completely different (and frankly pretty horrible to my buds) taste. Agree re Hershey's. Galaxy is always promising but I always find something nicer.
Tam - I know you're right re CWs and I will rectify the situation as soon as I can. I've never counted M&Ms because they started in America, but of course are now well-established here. Star Bars! I bow to your expertise. Which list, though?

[JonM]

You're right about Milk Ways, Lev. Everytime I've ever eaten one I immediate want another one, yet I've never brought two in one go.

Thank you for the nougat of wisdom.

[Sharon]

I don't eat Yorkies any more. The manufacturers said that they weren't for girls.

[Dud]

Star Bars are in the Creme da la Creme category, anyone who thought of putting chocolate, peanut butter and caramel together deserves the Nobel Prize for confectionary.
Bought a five pack of Curly Wurly's and gave one with Gareth last week. Somehow like most sweets they're not as big as they were whe I was 10. Maybe that's why I had to eat four of them.

[Dud]

Oh and you forgot Fry's Turkish Delight, the perfect way to temporarily fuse your gums together.

[Talli Roland]

Where oh where are the M&Ms?

I never understood Fruit n' Nut. Just... wrong.

[The-Sis-In-Law]

First of all, Cadbury, Mars or Nestle? I prefer Mars chocolate as a base and as a bar - AKA Galaxy. I notice you didn't include any grown up chocolate like Green and Blacks. I can't tell you the number of times I've plumped for some sort of 70% cocoa chocolate and then thought, poop, this stuff is crap. (Of course, the use of poop and crap in that sentence must mean I was channeling a totally difference use for dark choc!)

Anything that involves a mixture of chocolate and something else means either biting all the chocolate off first (kitkat, penguin, maltesers, crunchie, creme egg - yes of course that's messy) or trying to leave the chocolate until last (mars, bounty, minstrels).

Revels are all about living dangerously - will it be a malteser or will it be the dreaded coffee or even more evil orange. Buttons in Revels are so much nicer than normal buttons though - what's that all about? Different chocolate brand maybe.

I remember I used to eat curly wurlys in a very strange way, nibbling one 'branch' at a time. I think anything with a large proportion of toffee in it is just too sweet now which is why they don't appeal anymore.

How could you not include toblerone - probably in the 'only allowed to eat one piece at a time' category. I still feel guilty if I eat more than one After Eight. Oh and what about 'ze ambassador, 'e is spoiling us' ferrero rocher.

Talking of choc ads, Cadbury currently win hands down with their glass and a half ads - particularly the gorilla ad but what would chocolate be without 'only the crumbliest, flakiest chocolate tastes like chocolate never tasted before.'

Were Dime bars the ones with mint cracknell in the middle. What the hell IS mint cracknell anyway? Always looked like a chemistry experiment gone wrong.

Any chocolate that is flavoured orange goes into my 'meh' category. Even that expensive stuff that the Dutchy of Cornwall does with candied orange skin doesn't cut it, for me.

My all time favourite chocolate is probably a galaxy bar (for comfort sessions at home) seconded by maltesers when at the cinema - particularly in a box, spending the whole film trying to stop them rolling around and annoying the hell out of everyone else. And I still don't feel grown up enough to go out and buy a box of After Eights.

Haven't eaten much chocolate recently. Feeling very nostalgic and hungry now.... THANKS, Lev!

[Claire Constable]

Good stuff Lev.Can't agree re Bountys(Bounties?) though,I still love them!Wasn't there something in the chocolate bar line back in t'seventies called "Amazin Raisin" or something?used to like them,unless I'm mistaking them for something else!Am still q partial to Galaxy,KitKat and Cadburys Whole Nut/Fruit and Nut,esp whilst driving on the M1 northbound...American chocolates are indeed terrible,though I have eaten them whilst in the US,just to show willing.

[Claire Constable]

ps.a number of my friends seem to be obsessed with Cadburys Creme Eggs,but I have always thought they were vile(the eggs,not my friends).

[Elly Fisher]

Can we expect expect a gelatine-based sweet sequel? _That_ I could get excited about.

[The Flame haired temptress]

After much discussion, I have realised that it is a miracle that the Runny man and I are married. I love nearly all the sweets in the repulsive list although like him haven't actually eaten a wagon wheel, walnut whip or bounty since I was a child! We checked yesterday and rolo's are still just yummy and the boy thought 'a finger of fudge' totally scrumptious and it went down in about two chomps.
I'm afraid though what should be in the 'yuk disgusting' category is anything chocolate involving peanuts - eughaghurghpah!!!!!!!

[Wrach]

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[utirl]

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