British sweets!

What's your favorite? I recently (finally!) came across a tube of Smarties, which I had always assumed were just like our m&ms. They aren't, as they have a definite citrusy flavor. I like Flake bars and, of course, Cadbury.

Well I am going to give a choice of three - first up are proper Jelly Babies. These are probably available in a few shops in the US. The next two I have gone for sweets that you buy loose - Rhubarb And Custards; and Soor Plums.

Of course some of my favourites are no longer sold even in the UK. Spangles were superb and I cannot understand why they stopped making them.

I fear Smarties are a pale imitation of their former, E-numbered glory.

Have you encountered Dolly Mixture, aniseed balls or Kendal Mint Cake?

Blackpool Rock and Sherbet.

Wine gums. I like to suck on them until they're as thin as a piece of cellophane and look like miniature bits of stained glass!

When I was a child in post-war, sweet-rationed Britain, friends of my mother's from the US would send occasional food parcels. As well as Hershey Bars, I remember with delight getting packs of Life Savers done up as silver foil bound books which opened up to reveal cardboard drawers containing a variety of the sweet tubes. There was another brand similarly packed, square like Spangles, the name of which I've forgotten.

Yes! Real wine gums, dolly mixture (Bassett's wasn't it?) and Rhubarb & Custards :) Mmmm....

Cadbury Fruit & Nut.
And while it's sold in the US, it's manufactured by Hershey and just isn't quite the same.

English fudge is out of this world. It made me almost lose my mind when I was in London! :)

Curly Wurlys. Mars bars. Wine Gums. Flake bars (coated & uncoated). Penguin Bars. Aero Bars. Cadbury Buttons. (Thank) Crunchie (it's Friday!). Maltesers!
Okay...I have quite a sweet tooth. A great place to order (not affiliated) all of these is www.britsusa.com

:)

Many, many years ago when I was staying in London, I couldn't find things like Oreos or Chips Ahoy. I was jonesing hard for cookies but didn't recognize anything. That's when I found the cellophane-wrapped chocolate Swiss rolls that were everywhere and Digestibles. For anyone unfamiliar with this pack of biscuits, it's like sweetened sawdust. I think they're meant to make you go, right?

I would have to say Turkish Delight, but then I am a "nut" for Narnia.

Double Deckers, Penguins, Malteasers, Jaffa cakes, Hobnobs, and on and on...

#2

I live in the UK, and used to work in confectionery buying for Tesco, the UK's biggest supermarket chain (and owners of Fresh n Easy in the USA), but I've never heard of Roobarb & Custard's. There used to be a kids cartoon series on the BBC in the '70s of this name, but I don't know if they're related.

Cadbury's products are the business (excluding Creme Eggs - yeuch - and my personal aversion to all chocolate bars containing fruit), as are Rowntree's Lion Bars, Thornton's toffee and Trebor Extra Strong Mints. Biscuits - bourbon creams, Hobnobs and Scottish shortbread.

However, I love Swiss chocolate (Lindt, Toblerone) too.

Rhubarb & custards go back a lot further than the cartoons. They are a pink and yellow boiled sweet.

You musing about chocolate has just reminded me of Walnut Whips. Double Deckers are good as well but I liked them much better when they had raisins in.

There are a few nice passages about English sweets in Nigel Slater's Toast. It's worth a read.

Right now I'm looking at a large round tin sitting on a table in my house. It once held the Celebrations miniature chocolates (and now holds crayons!) I loved those miniatures; they were especially fun in an advent calendar. And being small they had no calories :-)

#11, they're Digestives. McVities are the best. And they are delicious, especially with a bit of cheddar and a cup of tea. Not the least bit sawdusty, imo, just not overly sweet.

Cadbury's Flake and fruit & nut, yes, also Terry's chocolate oranges (have to have one in the toe of our Christmas stockings or it just isn't Christmas), Marks and Sparks blackberry (or is it black currant?) hard candy, also M&S almond cookies.

As we have Cadbury's in Australia we get most of the chocolates etc that you get in Britain, but there are a few things I miss. Thornton's toffee is a big one. They had some packets of it here over Christmas and I went nuts! Jaffa Cakes were really hard to find but these days I can get them from some supermarkets in my area so I'm not too badly off...though none of the available brands taste as good as the McVitie's ones. McVitie's Chocolate digestives do pop up from time to time so I always make sure to grab a packet when available. I cannot find Polo Mints for the life of me though the mint Lifesavers do cover that lack sufficiently.

My real problem was all the Australian sweets I missed while I lived in England. My family used to send packets of the stuff to us so we wouldn't feel homesick. TimTams (they're like Penguin bars but there's 11 of them in a packet and they taste so much better), Cherry Ripes, Violet Crumbles (like Crunchies but the honeycomb tastes different) and musk sticks among other things. I shared some of my precious musk sticks with my friends and one of them commented that they tasted like soap so I decided they didn't deserve to have any more of them.

>11 mstrust:, 18: McVitie's digestives are even better in their chocolate-covered form (milk or dark). To die for. And great crumbled over ice cream!

Anyone reading my posts on this thread will discover a distinctly chocolatey trend ... !

Oh yes, #20, the chocolate ones are divine.

ETA re #19, Australia sounds like it has sweet(s) potential!

Okay here goes. When we lived in Scotland I loved Fudge bars and my husband was in love with Caramacs and Top Decks. I also loved those mints - the clear ones with a bear on. We have an English lolly shop here in Albany and they import some of the stuff from the UK an US - they even has Irn Bru, they are quite expensive though.

> 20 - they also have Polo mints - can get you some if you want and send them to you... as a treat! ;0)) Let me know.

I loved Fry's Turkish Delight..."full of eastern promise". I can sometimes buy it here...and that is a real treat!

Fry's commercials were beautiful as well.

#19 - Last week I had to travel to a different town, Leeds, for a doctors appointment and went into Harvey Nichol's afterwards just because I had never been in it before. They sell TimTams and Violet Crumbles upstairs in the food hall. I had never heard of either of them before and although I was tempted by the Violet Crumbles I decided that a £3.75 price tag just a bit too high for a crunchie bar. Now I wish I had splashed out and tried one.

#11 - I love your description of digestive biscuits but I don't think the intention is to make you go. And they are very, very nice with either cheese or chocolate. Haven't tried cheese and chocolate together though.

ETA #22 - I think the clear mints with the bear must be Foxes Glacier mints and they are very yummy, both the clear white mints and the fruit flavoured ones.

#24- I guess I assumed that anything with that much wheat had an ulterior motive. I can't believe they charge that much for a Violet Crumble, though they are excellent. We can get them here in the Southwest for about $1.50, so just a bit less than the U.K.
I work for a British cosmetic company and meet many British visitors who tell me that our products are selling for double the price in the U.K., where the products are made.

I loved anything that came out of those Cadbury vending machines in the tube station, and the Flake in ice cream is tremendous. Cadbury hot chocolate is really nice too.

How about the drinks like Ribena, Tango, Irn Bru? It's the little things I miss from my visits to London.

Just received a gift from the online store Britsuperstore of crystallized ginger, my favorite.

Interestingly, ginger itself is as old as the recorded history of man. A native to southern Asian and India, it is spoken of in the Jewish Talmud, written about by Marco Polo, and even recommended by Henry VIII as a remedy against the plague.

Thanks for the offer primlil. There's a shop in Darling Harbour, Sydney which sells British products and I found some Polo Mints there once. Whenever my housemate goes up to Sydney I get her to buy me a stash, though they are rather expensive at $2 a packet when they're only 20p in England (or at least that's how much they were 7 years ago when I lived there) so I usually only get 1 or 2.

As for Irn Bru...mmmmm yum. Apparently Scotland is the only country in the world which sells Coke but in which Coke is NOT the number one selling carbonated drink. Irn Bru has something like a 60% market share. Don't know what the supermarkets are like in Albany, but I found Irn Bru at my local Woolworths/Safeway (whatever you call it in WA).

Oh dear yes McVities and crystalized ginger and (sweetish with out truly being a sweet) real lemon curd.

This thread is making me think of the the passage from Dylan Thomas's A Child's Christmas in Wales (actually now I think of it I think it is something added to the film version with Denholm Eliot nonetheless)

"There were crunchies, cracknels, humbugs, glaziers, marzipan and butter Welsh for the Welsh"

I probably mangled that but something to that effect.

We should set up a trading system and all send a box of hard to get supplies to someone else.

cool idea- chain mail candy!

And for those who really like Smarties:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandhealth/gallery/2008/apr/16/food?picture=3335524...

>28 dreamlikecheese: - Irn Bru is also the number one soft drink in Russia (or it was about 5 years ago) - the reason is that they love it with vodka. One of the reasons it is number one in Scotland is also alcohol related - people use it to fight a hangover.

ps...polo mints are now a shocking 30p or so.

#26

You found a tube vending machine that actually worked! Where??

On the rare occasions they do seem to be operational, they chill things because they often contain soft drinks as well. Consequently, you need to take a hammer to you chocolate bar before it is possible to eat it.

ETA: Oooh, and make mine a 99, too. For reasons lost in the mists of time, a soft ice cream with a Flake bar in it is so called.

I haven't actually BEEN to the tube machines in a while, but it's definitely hard to stop looking at a big colorful machine advertising chocolate when the next train is 4 minutes away. It's a novelty - you'd never find that in a NY subway station.

I luv liquorice so I'll add this to the list

Bassett's Liquorice Allsorts were created by accident in 1899. Bassett's salesman Charlie Thompson was discussing an order with a customer when his tray of samples was accidentally knocked over: scattering his sweets everywhere. The buyer liked the look of the mixed up confectionary, placed an order there and then, and Bassett's Liquorice Allsorts were born.

If you want to see what a real sweetie shop looks like try this link you'll understand why Glaswegians have just about the worst dental record in the world!

http://www.glickmans.co.uk/index.html

Go through to the online shop and yes, that's the actual size of the real shop, although they don't sell their famous cough tablet online, maybe there's customs problems with it being described as medicinal.

It's tiny! I love how they describe the candies as "limey" or "appley".
The coconut stuff looks amazing.

#30 & #31
I am more than happy to send anything to anyone in exchange for some Hershey kisses or Chips Ahoy! If anyone wants to set up a sweets exchange keep me posted!

This is a very bad thread! Having read it I just had to go and dig out a Cadbury's dipped flake that I had squirreled away. Did I need it? no. Was it delicious? yes. As a Brit transplant to Boston I do find it's the chocolate I miss the most - Galaxy, flakes, Time Out, mint Aero, Maltesers, etc. Our local Stop & Shop has a few in the Irish section and I've found a Brit supply shop, the Union Jack in Peabody that has a good range. Shame (or probably just as well) it's an hour's drive away.

Licorice and Blackcurrant are my all time favourite sweets. Fruit pastilles are good too and Marks and Sparks used to sell Buttermints that were heavenly.
#2 I also remember Rhubarb and Custards -- they were one of my brother's favourites along with pear drops and cola cubes. I wonder if they were a Northern thing like Vimto. It's 85 F (28c) here right now and I could murder a big old glass of vimto.

#42

Well I'm from East Anglia (and like Vimto too, although I prefer it hot in winter) so it wasn't just the north. I've never liked cola cubes though.

StringerTowers-
I'm in! Have to warn you though, I live in Phoenix so mailing and receiving chocolate is definetely a problem at this time of year (it's already in the 90's here). I think something like Chips Ahoy would be okay though. And any none-chocolate stuff like hard or gummy candy.

I have my son hooked on Ribena and maltesers (well, I couldn't have him turning into a complete Yank), maltesers are so much better than American malted milk balls and I back Ribena over soda any day.
For those near New York city there's a British butcher who also imports large quantities of Brit food (sweets, mushy peas, Fray Bentos steak and kiddly pud. etc) It's called Meyers of Keswick (pronounced Kes-ick) and is on the corner of Hudson and Horatio (he also makes his own pork pies, scotch eggs etc.)

45: I LOVE Myers of Keswick - do you remember when their cat got stuck between the buildings and it was on the news? Anyway, I've had cornish pasties there and got some nice elderflower cordial (great with vodka!) My neighborhood in Queens has some shops with Irish products which offer similar sweets. I even found Ribena in Patel Brothers, and Indian grocery store. Going back to M of K - the great thing about that place is that it's in the "Little Britain" area, also including Tea and Sympathy with all their puddings. Lovely.

#18, #20, #24
'Digestives' are frequently mentioned in Martha Grimes' Richard Jury mystery series. The main character, Richard Jury's, 'sidekick', Sgt. Wiggins, a bit of a hypochondriac, often uses 'digestives' in his medicinal concoctions.
Wikipedia's description of 'digestives' points to "McVitres" digestives as the best example.

BTW...I lived in the UK autumn 1979 through summer 1986. Milddenhall in Suffolk to be precise.
Although not strictly a 'sweet', I miss 'Cream Tea' featuring scones topped with strawberry jam & whipped cream and of course hot tea.

I love Bassetts Allsorts! Used to get Callard & Bowers (sp ?)in several different flavors of toffee haven't seen them in a store for a while tho! 8^)

Catgwinn, McVities. They ARE the best. Thank heavens we can get them in Canada. They are particularly nice with a sharp cheddar and an English afternoon tea.

#45: The same people that own Tea and Sympathy also run Assault and Battery a shockingly expensive chip shop.
Not that M of K is that cheap I never seem to spend less than $100 which is why I don't go that often.

#47: I used to be able to do my own cream teas, Double Devon crem is available is some specialty stores and Tiptree
do this 'Little Scarlet' strawberry jam which is outstanding. Trouble is my local German baker stopped making scones for some reason and I can't be bothered making my own. They're too fattening anyway.

This thread reminds me of Narnia 'and as for the sweets, I won't tell you how cheap and good they were, it would only make your mouth water in vain' (that's the gist)
When I was about 5 my whole nursery school used to go for a country walk every week - we had rhubarb and custard sweets on the way, and lemon sherberts on the way back. The taste of autumn...

Sorry - the sweets weren't in Narnia, of course, but 1890s London.

I'm dying to try a custard tart. But where can you get them this side of the Atlantic?

Short of making them yourself I think the closest you going to get is a coconut custard.

I've never had an English custard tart, but if you live near a Chinatown you can try their custard tarts. I have an English cookbook which has a recipe for Chinese custard tarts so they might be similar.

It's only personal taste but I think custard tarts are among the most disgusting thing on the planet. Do yourself a favour - don't bother!

We used to have custard tarts here in Australia, but I haven't seen one for quite a while. They're family-size with a much higher custard to pastry ratio than the little Chinese tarts. The pastry on the bottom is always soggy, which adds to the appeal. Nutmeg is sprinkled on top.

In Melbourne the vanilla slice appears to have usurped the custard tart.

Here's a recipe. I haven't tried it so can't vouch for it. But it is a traditional Egg custard tart recipe.

Ingredients
FOR THE PASTRY
250g/10oz plain flour
100g/4oz unsalted butter
2 eggs
100g/4oz icing sugar(optional) (Icing sugar = confectioners sugar)
4 drops vanilla extract(optional)
pinch of salt
FOR THE CUSTARD
480ml/ 16oz or 2 cups whipping cream
6 egg yolks
70g/about 3oz sugar
1 vanilla pod (split)
fresh grated nutmeg

Directions
Pre-heat oven to 180C/gas 4/350f.
Place the flour and butter in a food processor and blend to a breadcrumb consistency. (I rub it together by hand)
Beat the eggs, icing sugar and vanilla extract together in a bowl and add this into the food processor.
Pulse until the ingredients have combined together to form a ball. (Again I do this by hand) Do not over work. Remove from the food processor bowl and wrap in cling film. Leave to rest in the fridge for 1 hour, then remove.

On a lightly floured surface, roll the pastry out to 5mm thick and use it to line a greased 25cm tart ring (About the same size as a 10" ring). Cover with baking parchment, fill with baking beans and bake ‘blind’ for 20 minutes. Remove from the oven, discard the baking beans and turn down the heat to 160C/gas 2/325f.
In a saucepan, bring the whipping cream to the boil with the split vanilla pod. Whisk together the egg yolks and sugar before pouring the cream onto them, stirring continually. Pass through a sieve and add a small amount of grated nutmeg.
Pour the mix into the tart shell and bake on the middle shelf of the oven for 30 - 40 minutes or until the custard appears set but not too firm.
Turn the tart out onto a plate and serve.

Oh my God I LOVE Digestives. I have not had those in years. I never clicked on this link before but I am happy that I finally did today cause you guys just reminded me of things to buy when I get to London in three weeks.

Just to be sure, is Rhubarb and Custard a hard candy? I think I had some a few months back. A friend went to a British specialty last year and he gave me these a hard candy that had red and white swirls. It was delicious and I loved it but cannot for the life of me remember what its called.

And I must agree with the person who said that Smarties are not as good as they used to be. I do not know if living in a country that only has M&M has made changed my palate and now made me think Smarties are not as great as I used to.

#59 Yup - those were rhubard and custard. Not to be mistaken for actual rhubard and custard, of course.

Ahh, thanks for the confirmation.

> 59

Trish, if you liked rhubarb and custard, look out for sour apples - similar, but green and red.

Uhhh that sounds really good Sarah. Thanks for the recommend.

#19 - Violet Crumbles (like Crunchies but the honeycomb tastes different)

Violet Crumbles! I hadn't thought of those since I left Australia in 1983. Thanks for the memories! Australia did have some fine sweets, as I recall. Also an awesome selection of frozen treats.

In Canada, we get lots of the things mentioned here . . . but I wonder if they're different. I have a Cadbury's chocolate bar in my freezer that I brought back from England--I'll have to buy a Canadian Cadburys and do a taste off. And are our Smarties different from English ones? They're incredibly common here, and not really like M&Ms at all.

I am totally addicted to Fruitgums (by Rowntree). It's worse than any of the pregnancy induced cravings I experienced, though the one for Black Jacks is a close second.
Thankfully I can buy Fruitgums through a British import mail-order company and there's even a shop in town that sells them though at a premium price.

We have a British store here in town, so for the holidays I made up two gift bags of British candy and candy bars for two families on my list. I thought it might fascinate the kids in both families, which it did. I included Flake, Bounty, Picnic, Smarties, Lion, Kit Kat Dark (my favorite) and others whose names escape me at the moment.

Ooh Rubarb and Custard! The headmistress at my infant school used to take us on nature rambles and we'd stop to have R & C on the way there, and Lemon Sherbets on the way back...

McVities "Taxis". mmmMMMmmm

Flying saucers!

What's this I hear that United Biscuits (McVities, Jaffa Cakes etc.) is being taken over by the Chinese?

>68 tiffin: yeah, I thought those looked good. Michael stopped by that store on the way back from the grocery store and came back with more imported Cadbury bars (someday we should really have a taste test to see if Hershey's is making Cadburys here exactly the same...)

Unless they've changed recipes since the buyout then no, the Cadbury's made under license by Hershey's does not taste like the Cadbury's made in the U.K. It's definitely worth paying the premium for the real thing.

>72 Sodapop: we'll have to run an official taste test, me thinks.

>73 avaland:: yes you must! My daughter visited England last year, conducted her own test, and reached the same conclusion as Sodapop.

#72,73,74 You guys pay extra for the real thing? Wonder how much it would cost for me to send cases over - I spot a business proposition here! Speaking of chololate (and, as usual, veering just a little off topic - sorry) I had a packet of Maltesers yesterday that, acccording to the writing on the packet, was very proud of itself for being 're-sealable'. Can anyone tell me what exactly is the point of chocolate being re-sealable? Is chocolate even really safe in the hands of the kind of person who would eat a bit then re-seal it?

It does rather beg the question, doesn't it, Booksloth. Although with something really good, if you were trying to eke it out....
And yes, every now and then the Real Thing is the only thing that will do so I go into the chocolatier in town who carries real English chocolate and pay through the nose for the privilege.

>64 Nickelini:: Smarties are the most tasteless things. They always taste like cardboard to me. M&Ms have a much better chocolate flavour.

My great uncle had a bookshop in Scotland. Every Christmas a box would arrive with The Girls Annual, The Beano, Black Bob the Wonder Dog (for my brother), Oor Wullie, The Broons (for Dad) and several good books (he gave me my first Jane Austen). But layered over the top would be about 24 chocolate bars, the like of which we had never tasted. The box would sit under the tree with all its UK stamps on it and was always my favourite gift. Chocolate and a good book, is there any better combination?

>76 tiffin:: completely agree on Smarties vs. M&Ms !!

>75 Booksloth:

Booksloth, if you ever do start importing the stuff, let me know! It is very hard to get real British candy where I live. I've only been to the UK three times, but I think I bought my weight in Wine Gums and Scottish toffee while I was there! Fortunately, all three trips were for running marathons or I'm sure I would have exceeded some kind of weight limit...

I have a friend originally from Ireland who brought me a Flake once. I made it last for more than a month, so I probably could have used something resealable!

Do you know why Hershey's chocolate tastes different than other chocolates? It's because once, years and years ago, they made a batch with sour milk. They liked the slight "bite", and they've been using sour milk instead of sweet milk ever since.

#78 Mmmmm, Flake . . . Ripple is pretty amazing too.

>75 Booksloth: Someone is already doing it:-) http://www.britishdelights.com/ This happens to be less than 3 miles from my house.

Did the Cadbury taste test and yes, there is a marked uptick in creaminess in the UK original.

Fell in love with Cadbury Picnic when I went to London last month. Glad there's places online to get them.

In Tesco, I found canned Gin & Tonic (Gordon's)...not exactly the sweets discussed here, but it was still kind of a novelty.

I like the old-fashioned humbugs sweets, pear drops and other boiled ones - they are nice!

Old thread...but I've done a lot of travelling between the US and UK and carried suitcases full of treats from each back and forth so I just had to check in.

I miss Callard & Bowser Butterscotch. It was the best.

#83 Oh yes! For some reason it always reminds me of childhood holidays (as do Kellogs cereal variety packs).

Ah, the little cereal packs. very much a thing of childhood, and different between the two countries!

I remember my mother, long before the variety packs appeared, writing to Kelloggs to suggest portion-sized boxes. She had a reply pooh-poohing the idea as too expensive and unlikely to be popular. The rest, as they say, is history!

So, every time we go to England to visit my folks, we come back with: twixes; kit kats; flakes; Cadbury (especially Fruit and Nut); Quality Street; Chocolate Oranges; fruit pastilles; aeros. Finally, before Amazon let me get them online, PG Tips tea bags.

Hailandclimb - can you not get those in the US, or is it that they're different? We can get all of it in Canada (not sure about fruit pastilles). Our Cadburys taste a little different though (but they're still way better than waxy Herseys).

Flakes, fruit pastilles and Aeros are only available from some import shops. Smarties are rare and worst of all it's very difficult to get Maltesers.

Nickelini - A few years ago, Hersheys struck a deal to produce "Cadbury's" here in the US. It is not the same thing at all. Chocolate in the UK has to have 20% of cocoa solids to deserve the name of chocolate vs. the American 10%. Other European countries may have up to 40%.(http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/8414488.stm)
I saw on Wiki that the Chocolate Manufacturer's Assoc., which includes Hersheys, lobbied the FDA unsuccessfully to substitute fats and oils for cocoa butter in so-called chocolate. I don't buy my kit kats or twixes from anywhere other than England. (They are regularly available in my local Arab store, but they are imported from the Middle East.) I'm not sure what Canadian chocolate tastes like, though.

Interesting. We have British sweets shops here, so I'll have to try some imported versions of our regular things. I've compared the Cadbury bars, and they're both good. I hate Hershey's wax products.

We have a British shop in town and I find the Cadbury's from them much better than the regular Canadian Cadbury's. Our neighbours are from England and their parents bring over proper English chocolate for us when they visit!

Hershey's wax and grit chocolate is awful, frankly.

The funny thing is that Hershey's is now being sold at Asda, who are owned by Walmart. We have better chocolate than Cadbury's, Thorntons is one of the premium chocolate brands. Very nice!

I love Cadbury Roses, Flake and Time Out. Many years ago when I lived in Ireland, I remember spending all my leftover coins at the end of my trip on piles and piles of sweets to take home, thinking I'd never see them again. But then I found gourmet food shops and British and Irish shops all over that sell them! Woot! The Flake at my local gourmet grocer looks like it's imported from the Middle East as well as the labels are all in Arabic.

Useful factoid for the Cadbury Dairy Milk lovers out there - always look at the ingredients. If the first ingredient is milk, then it's authentic UK chocolate. If it's sugar, then it's probably made in their French factory, and designed to appeal to European tastes. The stuff made in the US also lists sugar as the first ingredient, and it's made by Hershey, not Cadbury.

It's worth keeping an eye out - a lot of the so-called British import stores carry the French Dairy Milk, not the UK. And they usually don't know there's a difference.

>87 hailandclimb: We also have a British shop in town, but it is mostly an online seller (which means the retail area isn't much to look at and it's not located in the usual retail area). For those in the states, here's the site: http://www.britishdelights.com/

We stop in from time to time to get the Cadbury, but I'm also fond of Picnic bars. I pick up Malteasers for my British son-in-law. I've picked up all kinds of stuff there---biscuits, bangers, Indian sauces, jams and freeze-died PG Tips tea (I use it for individual glasses of iced tea!).

>95 tkgough: Nice tip on the Cadbury, thanks.

The orange coloures smarties are orange flavoured.

#96, the irony is that over here we have shops like http://www.americansweets.co.uk

>98 jaqdhawkins: LOL! I went to the site and did not recognize the items they had on display. They seem to be peanut butter cups with additional things on top. Then I watched the scrolling bit at the bottom and didn't recognize a 1/3 to 1/2 of the products (red velvet pancake mix?)

So it isn't just me that has never seen Reese's Whoppers before?

Under its tamarind glaze, the Mills bomb turns out to be luscious pepsin-flavored nougat, chock-full of tangy candied cubeb berries, and a chewy camphor-gum center. It is unspeakably awful. Slothrop's head begins to reel with camphor fumes, his eyes are running, his tongue's a hopeless holocaust. Cubeb? He used to smoke that stuff. "Poisoned..." he is able to croak.

Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow http://www.olemichaelsen.dk/gravity.html

Regarding Smarties . . .

First, are these really not available in the US? They're super common in Canada and have been my whole life. I thought these were just everywhere--different versions or not.

Because of the earlier conversation on Smarties here, I brought some back from England and set my daughters up for a blind taste test.

Personally, my first impression of the British ones was that I didn't like them as much as the Canadian version. There is a difference, although it isn't hugely different (for example, the difference between either type of Smartie vs M&M is much more). But then after a second and third try of the British Smartie, it grew on me, and I think has more chocolate taste.

Here's what my daughters' blind taste test showed:

Smartie "A" (orange):

"Charlotte" preferred the British Smartie, commenting that it tasted like a Creamsicle, and the other just tasted orange.
"Artist formerly known as Prince" preferred the Canadian Smartie

Smartie "B" (blue-ish):

"Charlotte" preferred the Canadian version
"Artist formerly known as Prince" preferred the Canadian version

Smartie "C" (brown):

"Charlotte" preferred the Canadian version -- said it had a good aftertaste
"Artist formerly known as Prince" preferred the British version. The Canadian version drew a special "ew" comment. Both agreed they weren't fond of either brown candy.

Personally, I think it's what you're used to. I like Smarties, but if I never eat one again for the rest of my life, I'm okay with that. And I never eat the red ones last (because I hate the red ones and throw them out). If you don't know what that means, watch this ad: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9B2L4vjELF8 (a very late version of this theme--I guess they were trying to get modern).

102, you can get chocolate Smarties in British/Irish and gourmet food stores pretty easily in the US. I can think of three stores in my immediate neighborhood that sell them in the Boston area. Outside of major cities I don' t know, they may be harder to come by but look for British/Irish themed stores and you should be able to.

I always preferred M&Ms to Smarties because the chocolate was more chocolatey tasting but then I prefer dark to milk, so maybe that's it. On the whole, I prefer English chocolate but have never eaten English Smarties. Love the taste test above!