N Candy AA II: Sidebar
Submitted by Sarah D. Bunting on October 25, 2010 – 3:50 PM101 Comments
While we wait for the Round of 64 voting to finish, I thought I’d see which breed of fake fruit you find the most disgusting. Everyone has a different fake-fruit nemesis, often derived from a Keckler’s-sister-esque run-in with a particular candy as a child (or a Night of the Living DeKuyper incident as a sophomore); mine is fake cherry, which I hiz-ZATE, but I bet faux-nana wins. Well, “wins.”
What’s your most blerf-inducing fake-fruit “taste”? And what do you think everyone else will pick? Whether it’s in candy, gum, Snapple, cough drops, or soda, now’s your chance to indict a “froot.”
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Tags: barfing food N Candy AA unmourned odors of childhood
Fake banana, no question. That aftertaste … it’s pure chemical, and it just lingers. (I like real bananas though, as long as they’re not too ripe and mushy.) But I just have to add that fake lime is my favorite “froot” so when I take a green candy and it turns out to be apple? Haaaaaaaaaaaaate. Fake apple is my second-least favorite flavor, to add insult to injury.
@Melpo: I totally like peach rings. They’re not as good as Haribo peaches, but I like them.
@Anlyn – Jelly Belly has a “juicy pear” flavored jellybean, and it’s pretty good, at least as far as tasting what it ought to taste like.
Not like apple Jolly Ranchers – my niece told me once she thought they tasted like underripe bananas, and now that’s ALL I taste when I pop one in my mouth, because… they really kind of do taste like that. But they are still head and shoulders above watermelon-flavored ANYTHING.
Fake banana freaks me out, but the sour apple Jolly Ranchers give off some kind of crazy fume that freaks me out even more.
@ Wehaf, no. Just…no. But, hey, more for you then! :)
Banana gets my vote. I do not eat real bananas. I do not eat banana-flavored candy. I do not eat banana bread. I do not drink bananas blended in smoothies or adult beverages with fun-colored umbrellas sticking out of the top. I will never forgive the person who decided to take my beloved strawberry-flavored anything and combine it with the unholy taste that is banana.
Blech. Barf. Banana. Coincidence? I think not.
@Wehaf: Yes! Banana popsicles always disappear first in my freezer. I could not believe when Popsicle started selling boxes of just root beer, lime, and banana… that’s a trifecta from heaven right there, people.
But then, I love me some horehound too, so you all can just tag me “freak of nature” now and move on with your lives.
Ugh, I can’t stand fake grape since the bubblegum and crayons left in the back window of the car incident of, 82ish? There is no way to wipe that smell from my mind.
I made myself sick just thinking about it.
I’m feeling you guys on the fake banana, but fake grape takes the cake for me, so to speak. Primarily because I couldn’t swallow aspirin until sometime in college, and would sometimes get migraines, so I always had to have the incredibly nasty grape-flavored chewable aspirin. . .and now grape candy and I just can’t be friends anymore.
Until I was 16, I thought I hated strawberries because I hated fake strawberry flavor so much. Then an elderly relative convinced me to eat an actual strawberry OMG and all became clear.
Banana is a close second (fake-banana and real-banana alike), except that I do love banana popsicles.
Does anyone else have to eat Skittles in a particular order? Mine goes strawberry (get them out of the way), then grape, then lime/orange/lemon usually in threes. *blinks* Just me? Oh.
One vote for lemon/lime. For some reason, all the worst alcohol experiences of my youth involved citrus-flavoured drinks.
I remember one particularly vile ready-made mixed drink that tasted like a combination of cheap bathroom cleaner and even cheaper vodka.
I suspect that someone, somewhere had had an idea: “hey, this cleaning agent isn’t selling, let’s market it as a drink in Finland cause they will drink anything there”. And we did. After the inevitable barftastic hangover, I was put off anything citrus-flavoured and even citrus fruits for a long time.
All blueberry or forest fruits flavors remind me of Body Shop shower gels, but they’re not half as disgusting as lemon/lime.
I had to pick banana, but I also find fake peach ‘blerf’. It was a close second.
Banana flavoring, horrible. I’m glad to see I’m not alone in that. But I don’t get the love for fake cherry flavoring – especially in those nasty Luden’s drops! I guess it’s because I spent my childhood fighting one case of strep or another, and my mom always gave me Luden’s to suck on. They taste like sick to me – nasty, painful, cherry-flavored sick.
That and grape. To my way of thinking fake grape and cherry are in the same category, namely “medicine flavored”.
@Morgan – Ha, the liquid banana antibiotic medicine was the best in my opinion! I remember being very put out when I hit whatever magical random age cut-off there is and was presented for the first time with a big white horsepill instead of the banana stuff.
Also, my father (a family doc) has a great story about a mother calling in a panic because her child actually managed to succeed in the holy grail like task of getting the banana medicine bottle open and drinking the whole thing in one go. That child would have been your former child self’s hero, I suspect. And, p.s., the child was fine so I doubt any life lesson about following prescribed dosages of medications, fake fruit flavoured or not, was learned.
But back to the actual topic, fake apple and pear go down as my least favourites in candy form and otherwise. I don’t understand apple or pear vodka any more than I understand apple or pear chewy candies.
Have to weigh in.
Had to vote banana, but I have issues with anything other than just barely ripe bananas tasting like bananas. (Candy, banana nut bread, *shudder* banana pudding…bananas that no longer have any green on them, bananas that have brown on them…okay I have banana issues all over the place…)
BUt, I mentally just cross banana off as a flavor and don’t even think about it, so if the poll had been simply write-in, I know Cherry would have been my vote. (Children’s medicine being the culprit.)
Watermelon is my favorite, though I have to give everyone else the ‘it doesn’t taste like watermelon’ – I can’t eat watermelon (I think it’s texture more than flavor, but uch).
@Melpo – WORD. My initial though was watermelon, because BARF. But then I read “peach.”
My reaction to fake peach is filled with so much seething hatred that I think I had blocked it out of my mind because that can’t possibly be healthy. (Peach Schnapps, I’m looking specifically at you. I had many a good drinking night ruined in university when someone handed me a mixed shot/drink containing peach schnapps.) I think my hatred stems from those vile fuzzy peach candies. Couldn’t stand them even as a kid.
Fake banana = barf, so I voted for it. But my ‘second choice’ would be fake peach. Juice blends that include peach are guaranteed to make me sick to my stomach. I don’t think I’ve ever even tasted a peach candy, because I know better.
Finally, I don’t mind blue raspberry candy, but raspberry liquor (like Chambord) in any drink always reminds me of Robitussin.
Also, I’m another person who loved the orange Triaminic as a wee one.
I don’t like fake banana, I don’t like real banana, please keep all banana-related items far from me.
Except monkeys. They seem like fun.
Voted for fake melon (BLARRRGH!), but in hindsight, should have voted for fake peach. I have a very unsavory carsickness memory that involves peach soda (I KNOW!) and a package of one those HORRIFIC Little Debbie “Donut Stix.”
@Stella: I am totally with you on the fake peach being reminiscent of cat pee. It is!
(And yet I will still eat a gummy peach ring if given the opportunity.)
See, to me fake grape is actually its own kind of wonderful flavor. Not grape-tasting, of course, but good in its own right. Fake cherry, though? I refused to taste real cherries until I was an adult, because fake-cherry-flavor had totally put me off.
I can handle most of these fakety fruit flavors, but damn, does that fake peach flavor make me barf. Those fruit rings are of the devil.
Skittles… have distinct flavors (from each other)??? Triaminic… came in colors other than “Murky”? Huh.
This is why I love the ‘Nation: I learn so much!
I can understand the fake-banana hate. But my particular hate is for the strawberry/kiwi blend. Blech. Too sweet and shockingly artificial, just to make things worse.
I remember Triaminic as being purple (in the 70s), but maybe it was the red version, since I don’t see any other references to purple? Whatever, that was some nasty stuff.
I have always hated fake cherry. Don’t know why. Fake banana is bad, too, but I find cherry even more repulsive, for some reason.
Oh yeah, the tropical flavors are completely nasty! When I was pregnant I had the worst heartburn known to man and I lived on tropical flavored Tums because I couldn’t tolerate the mint ones. Now just the site of them at the drugstore makes my stomach clench up. I know it’s not candy but the principle is the same!
@Wehaf: NO. Banana popsicles were some kind of cosmic punishment. If it was yellow, I was expecting lemon.
I can believe that fake melon might fall behind fake banana. They were a close match in my mind, although melon wins for me. I can’t believe that grape and cherry are even in the running, though!
Okay, I get the fake banana hate. I’m okay with it, partially because after a certain ripeness point *real* banana flavor icks me out, but nothing compares to the hatred I bear for fake cherry, for one reason and one reason onl- okay, two reasons, due to a particularly nasty stomach bug incident in college, but the real one is Cherry Robitussin.
That. Crap. Is. NASTY. It’s so awful some people say they can’t even tell it’s supposed to be cherry flavored. I was raised on it. Sniffle? Tussin. Sneeze? Tussin. Sore throat? The sore-throat-specific Tussin concoction. Cough? Tussin. And I had a sinus infection from ages three to twelve. I have memories of lying in my bedroom after bedtime breathing through my mouth and trying to stifle the eternal cough that postnasal drip brings as an extra, like the aunt who gives you a twofer package and when you unwrap the size eighteen pink pony-print sweater with your initials on the shoulder she says, “but I bet you’ll really like the second one” and then it’s matching socks and yes, that analogy did get way away from me, but at that age, I would rather have dealt with either the running analogy or the suffocation-y goodness of having a sinus infection than one more dose of Robitussin or any of its off-brand Tussin cherry-flavored cousins.
I don’t know why bananas just don’t go and die already.
World’s most perfect food my ass.
@Wehaf, I have an entire Popsicle Hierarchy built around my hate for banana popsicles.
My hate list of fake flavors:
1. Banana
2. Watermelon
3. Any melon
4. Peach
I would like to note that, while I enjoy a medium-rare banana just fine, listening to someone ELSE eat a banana is untenable. It’s just so smacky and…smacky. Ew. Ew ew ew.
As Adrienne pointed out, the fake banana flavoring is isoamyl acetate, and like Cayenne, I also had to synthesize the stuff in an organic chemistry lab.
The kicker is that isoamyl acetate and similar chemicals are also used as an attack pheromone by many species of bees/hornets. I learned this the hard way, after some mishandled glassware in the aforementioned orgo lab resulted in a very long walk back to the dorm while covered in the stuff, reeking of fake banana and trailed by a swarm of angry wasps.
…but I thought the banana runts were nasty even before that.
Question for the cherry-haters: Does that hatred extend to, say, cherry cola?
Hey have 30,000 people sent you this candy heirarchy yet? I didn’t see it in the comments, but forgive me if it’s a repeat.
@ns: Only a handful — I think I retweeted it at some point — but go for it.
i’m on board with the other fake banana haters….twas a banana runt that did it to me as well. Took me yeeeears to even go near banana bread b/c i was so scarred.
Now, fake grape? mmmmmm, i’m the person digging through the jolly ranchers to find them. i never had traumatic experience with the flavor and grape crush immediately turns me 5 years old, in the pool, at my grandparents house smelling of sunscreen and chlorine as i eat my fried baloney sandwich and enjoy the fake grapey goodness.
My flavor hierarchy, from best to gag worthy?
grape
melon
peach
raspberry or blackberry
apple or pear
cherry
strawberry
other (boysenberry, kiwi, you name it)
lemon or lime
orange or grapefruit
combinations (strawberry/banana et al.)
banana
@Nicki: That is a great story!
Gotta go with banana. Even banana-flavored Jelly Bellies are nast.
Also, thanks to overindulging in Watermelon Smirnoff’s a few years ago, fake watermelon tastes like hangovers.
BANANA. (Oh god, circus peanuts. I am a candy democrat so I really assumed I would like these but didn’t try them ’til I was 16 or so. NUH UH. I don’t think I even got a bite down. We are talking spitting and sputtering and raking the tongue with the fingernails.) My only regret is that I cannot also vote for grape. Sick-making in all iterations, especially grape-flavored chewable Tylenol.
However. Worse even than the grape-flavored chewable Tylenol was the cherry-flavored chewable Tylenol. I adore cherry flavor in pretty much everything else (and have a little addiction problem with cherry Jolly Ranchers) but cherry-flavored medicine is somehow the most offensive substance on God’s green earth. See also Robitussin. Grape Dimetapp was so vastly preferable to that noxious shit, even though it was grape. I used to regularly barf the cherry Tylenols back up, even when permitted to not only wash them down with Coca-Cola but also brush my teeth with Coca-Cola immediately afterwards. (“[chew swig chew swig chew swig brush brush brush brush] … BUCKET.”) (Why, yes, I had to get approximately eight hundred fillings as a child. Why do you ask?)
I voted for fake cherry – I have always maintained that I hate cherries, in general, but now I wonder if I really just always hated cherry-flavored things, and I should give the actual fruit a go. I’m just so sure in my mind that it will taste like a cough drop, though!
“Is there such a thing as pear-flavored candy? I’m trying to think of any, and I can’t.”
Jelly Belly has a pear flavored jelly bean and it’s pretty good.
I would have said cherry was the worst, with lemon and lime coming close, until this summer. I tried banana pudding and bananas foster flavored ice creams this summer (both foods I love in real life) and could barely choke down a bowl. The fake banana flavor was nasty. Scarred for life.
I have never even heard of banana popsicles!
I feel very satisfied that fake banana is trumping everything else in the poll with 43% of the current votes, because:
(a) I hate fake banana hate hate hate hate hate, and
(b) when I was in college my friends and I developed this theory that the apocalypse had already happened (probably circa WWII with all the atom bombs) and that we were living in a post-apocalyptic world right now. Proofs cited: all the lethal chemicals in things like ordinary cleaning supplies (developed from the research for WWII chemical weapons! Hey!) and… fake banana-flavored things. Anything with fake banana flavoring was automatic proof of the apocalypse.
(Those weird gallon jugs of “fruit punch” and “limeade” and “grape” drinks in the dairy cases were a strong runner-up for Absolute Evidence, though.)
Also, on peach being cat pee: I had a roll-on peach scent as a tween, one of those fake essential oil things, and I sold it to my little sister for $3 because it started to smell like cat pee. There must be a connection here. We didn’t even have a cat.
P.S. I LOVE orange triaminic. I sometimes fantasize about doing shots of it. I realize this is crazy.
And P.S.2:
thanks for the shout-out! I am looking forward to recapping all of the pairings, but I don’t know what to do in the round after that. I will have to eat a bag of Halloween candy and see what sugar-induced visions appear to me.
Where the hell did that banana gum wrapper come from? It says it was made here in Oakland!
For some reason the additional “We didn’t even have a cat.” is cracking my shit up.
@Krissa – Actual cherries? Bings? Washingtons? NOT related to fake cherry – Robitussin, cherry Coca-Cola, ANY fake cherry. Except Cherry RC, which is the King of Colas, because I think that particular fake cherry is made partially with actual cherry extract but anyways, a good Bing is A) completely unrelated to any fake cherry flavor, and B) completely awesome. Note: unless you like purple fingers, the approved method is to bite them in half vertically,pull, and then spit the pit into a folded paper towel.
I find too-ripe bananas just as gross as banana flavor, so my vote goes to fake watermelon, which is a travesty. I’m so glad to learn that other people despise it as intensely as I do.
Fake grape is no picnic, either. It took me a long time to realize I actually like real grapes, because grape Kool-Aid and popsicles and medicine had persuaded me that grape = nausea.
I’m bringing another “fake watermelon = eeeeeYICK” vote to the table. I love me some Jolly Ranchers, but I have to throw away the watermelon on account of the yickiness.
Im currently eating a banana flavored Tootsie pop. It isnt half-bad.
I didn’t even know those existed!
I didnt either, but it is indeed a banana-flavored Tootsie Pop.
I hate them all, I avoid everything containing an artificial flavor. Melon is quite possibly the worst, it makes me want to hurl when smelling it.
“All that’s left is banana Runts. That’s the worst Runt!” -Bart Simpson
I learned to swallow pills at a much younger age than my siblings because of hateful fake grape chewable medicine. Gag. Literally.