Ask Lemmy

American candy. Not American brand candy which different outside the US, but actuall American candy. It's all so bad quality and vile that it would never sell outside the US and not even be legal to do so in many places.

Probably these little lychee candy things I had years ago. No fruit flavor at all. Tasted as though someone mixed powdered blackboard chalk and sugar.

Chocolate brandy beans.

They always seem to be made with cheapest shittiest chocolate as well but that brandy liqueurs inside is revolting enough on its own thread the chocolate is usually completely forgettable

Licorice. Anise flavored candy. It's disgusting.

If I had to choose between leather belt flavoured licorice and vomit flavoured Hershey's. Licorice wins everytime.

There is this brittle thing of foam everyone likes to make into weird shapes like little birds... I don't know what it is called and I don't want too

The red gum that's just pure cinnamon or something. Plus it's spicy. Ew. Just ew

Maryjanes? (Very old yucky candy, not cannabis related)

I’m seeing a lot of black licorice mentions, but there’s a special hell for Läkerol’s menthol black licorice.

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.

American or South African chocolate products.

NOT an anti-American/-Saffer thing. They add butyric acid, which tastes like vomit to the rest of the world. (Accurate, as vomit contains it).

Presumably because the market there have been trained to expect that flavour for some reason. To the rest of us, a US or ZA origin is usually a sign to avoid.

Salted liquorice.

I had a Norwegian friend who waxed lyrical about this stuff. So when I saw it for the first time in a shop, I grabbed a packet to nibble on while waiting for my train.

Plain black liquorice is delicious and salt makes everything taste better, and the Norwegian seemed like a nice, relatively normal person who enjoyed other things I liked. This was a low risk choice of mid morning snack, I thought to myself.

I was wrong. So very wrong.

This stuff tastes like it was peeled off the bottom of a shoe after walking through the city all day. It's not salt either, it's freaking ammonium chloride.

To paraphrase the Wikipedia:

The mineral is commonly formed on burning coal dumps from condensation of coal-derived gases. It is also found around some types of volcanic vents. It is a product of the reaction of hydrochloric acid and ammonia.

And Scandi's put this on liquorice and like it. Even the kids. Madness. It took my all not to heave into a bin after trying it and like six cups of black tea to get the taste out of my mouth.

I gave the Norwegian the rest of the packet and he laughed at me while I watched him eat it because I looked so horrified.

Black licorice.

I firmly believe candy should be sweet; not bitter.

I got a monthly food box for my wife a number of years ago. Each month they sent snacks from a different country.

I can't remember which country it was from, but one month we got some round, hard candies. It was one of the most unfortunate things I have ever intentionally put into my mouth.

I don't even remember the flavor (licorice, maybe?), because my brain attempted to bleach it out.

Everything else was usually tasty, though.

When I was a kid someone gave me a "buttered popcorn" flavored dum-dum sucker. It tasted so terrible that it gave me a taste aversion to real buttered popcorn for nearly 2 decades.