Curiously Strong

I really like sour candy. One of the few gaps in Singapore's culinary repertoire is the lack of sour patch kids, or the even better sour fruit salad. When I was in high school we used to have this fair at the end of the year, called flower mart, and the best snack sold was a lemon with the top cut off and a stick of hard candy inserted in it. You used the candy as a straw to suck up the lemon juice, the straw becoming more effective as the acid ate through the candy. After you finished one your teeth felt slightly rough from where the top layer of enamel was eaten away; when you ran your tongue over them it was like licking velvet. Mmm. So, I was excited to try the new Altoids sour gum. The verdict? Green apple, very nice. Sour cherry, on the other hand, has got a serious problem. When I put too many pieces of it in my mouth in too short sucession (I only like to chew gum for as long as the initial flavor and sweetness last), painful cracks developed on the side of my tongue. When I spit the gum out in dismay, there was blood in it. Blood. In the gum. Maybe the dominatrix ads should have let me know something, but I can't help but feel that is a bit much.

Comments

[Clancy]

If you keep chewing after the flavor is gone, the gum kind of disintegrates in your mouth. I imagine it's what chewing ABC paper is like.

[Jeremy Osner]

Gumchewers beware the fate of Violet Beauregard!

Are you familiar with a candy called "Swedish fish"? They are red gummis shaped like fish and quite sour.

[Nick Fox-Gieg]

Hmm...I remember my dad mentioning a candy from the '40s that made kids' tongues bleed. I wonder what the magic ingredient is?

[Matt Weiner]

Swedish fish from my childhood were sweet, not sour at all. Make sure you're getting the ones you want.

[Will Baude]

In high school, my best friend and I used to eat sour-patch-kids until our tongues bled. You can hasten the process by letting them get a little bit hard and rubbing all of the sour grit off with your tongue. It's great.

[Richard]

Maynard's Sour Gums are rather enjoyable in the UK. Vinegar and wine gums - together at last!

[des von bladet]

There is no sour "candy" that can match the awesome might of salt lakrits which is salty liquorice, and quite right too.

We particularly recommend the "Double salted briketten" from hollandsedrop (and they do deliver worldwide, hoorah!)

[Doug]

Salty liquorice is one of those nasty things you love if your are raised on it and cannot fathom otherwise. Peanut butter, I'm told, sparks similar reactions. As do marmite, vegemite and similar vile concoctions. Unless you're Scandinavian, do not go near salt liquorice. It's not even cool & gruesome (like sour things that can hurt you), it's just pure unadulterated blech.

[des von bladet]

I wasn't born Scandiwegian, you know, and I haven't even had it especially thrust upon me, yet I like very much the liquorice of saltiness. (And I'm not, nor have I ever been, even single Dutch.)

I like Marmite also, as well.

[ben wolfson]

Salty licorice isn't really all that bad, and is actually kind of good, until you remember that you could be eating unsalty licorice.

Salty chocolate on the other hands is tops.

[Adam Kotsko]

I guess they weren't running the "So sour it makes your tongue bleed" ads in your neck of the woods.

[Tom Scudder]

I tried some salt liquorice the other day, at a big getting-to-know-other-cultures type conference. I think i was the only non-dane who asked for another.

[Benjamin]

I accidentially ... no, just stupidly ate a piece of something out of a bin in an underground supermarket in Philly's chinatown. It was a square, black little crud and it was near legit looking candy. I think it was this "salt licorice." It was potentially the grossest thing ever. And yeah, the gum loses its flavor about as fast as fruit stripe. But, hey, Belle: At least you didn't bleed out of your ears. Or ass.

[ben wolfson]

That she's telling us, anyway.

[sara]

This is starting to sound like the "Disgusting English Candy Drill" in Gravity's Rainbow.

Since John is in Singapore, he can probably get the Asian equivalent of salted licorice, salted plum candies. Another thing you have to grow up eating. I am third-generation Chinese-American, and less assimilated older relatives used to bring bags of salted plums as presents. The taste is indescribably awful: on top of the prune-like flavor, sour salt. Since these were real plums, the stone was still in the center, and you had to nibble around it. Sugar candies also come in this flavor.

Green tea flavors (more popular in Japan) seem to have crossed over quite nicely.

The only indisputably superior Western achievement is desserts, and they owe chocolate to the New World.

[Carlos]

I thought I had successfully repressed those plums. Gah. Give me flan any day. Or frozen custard, either.

[Dcee3]

I tried the Altoids Sour Cherry gum and also had a real bad experience! I had the same "painful cracks developed on the side of my tongue". My teeth hurt for days - something is seriously wrong with this gum! Now given I chewed the whole pack in about an hour, but I don't think it should have put my mouth is serious pain for days?!
dc

[marmitelover]

Now this is the kind of blogging i like...
I love marmite ;)
and salty liquorice and all sour sweets. Swedish fish are sold in IKEA and are not salty.
Really want to try the lemon straw thing...sounds fantastic.