N Candy AA: Round of 64, Flight 1
Welcome to the N Candy AA! Please enjoy 1) the snazzy graphic by Glark, and 2) the new voting set-up — as you can see, the polls are tucked in under each write-up.
We’ll probably roll out a flight per day this week, but I’ll be traveling and may not be able to stick to a strict schedule.
I know the polls look a little hinky in spots, don’t observe consistent punctuation, et cetera. I will try to address these problems as we proceed, but today is my birthday, and I have to finish packing. And…start packing. Try to roll with the jank for now and I’ll work on fixes.
Today’s write-ups by Sarah D. Bunting. Confused? Click here.
1 Butterfinger vs. 16 Duplo. …”Butterfinger.” (Hee.) (Ew.) (And now seems like a good time to introduce the shortcut combo of “hee” and “ew” that Keckler and I like to use: “hew.”) Butterfinger is, by most objective measures, reasonably disgusting. The innards look like shale, that orangey color does not exist in nature, and of the average bite of Butterfinger, only about 34 percent makes it down the hatch — the rest gets stuck in your teeth, and I mean stuck. Duplo is much more upscale; it’s got hazelnut, and none of it is Day-Glo. But it’s not a movie snack, it doesn’t come in handy BB form, and presented with a range of candies at the deli counter, Duplo is seldom the impulse buy. Butterfinger, easily. (…Hew.)
8 Goldenberg’s Peanut Chews vs. 9 Clark Bar. I really like Clark Bars; they’re chewy, but not too much so, and have a great chocolate-to-filling ratio. I can’t pick it to win here, though, for three reasons. First, it’s true that a lot of candy bars could have played the role of doody in that famous scene in Caddyshack, but I think a Clark Bar is the likeliest culprit. I mean, look at it. (Sorry, dude.) Second, it’s one of those candies you only seem to see at Halloween; I always got a handful of them in my candy sack (hew), I always enjoyed them, but I always forgot about them for 360-odd days until the next Halloween. Third, Goldenberg’s is one of my favorite candies. You’ll see me get behind a lot of old-lady-style sugar as the brackets unfold, but this one’s probably my favorite except for kosher fruit slices. I singlehandedly cleared every vending machine on campus of those magnificently stale bastards during my sophomore year in college, and I regret nothing. Okay, washing them down with Crystal Pepsi was a mistake, but that isn’t GPC’s fault. What’s actually going to win? Not sure, but I’ll call a narrow victory for the chews. (Hew.)
5 Cadbury Crème Eggs vs. 12 Ferrero Rocher. This is a tough call. Sometimes, what makes a candy beloved — or beloathed — isn’t taste, it’s texture, and the filling of a CCE grosses a lot of people out. I don’t mind it, although I dislike eating Eggs because you basically have to put the whole thing in your mouth at once, or end up with, well, Egg on your face. That said, the texture of a Ferrero Rocher isn’t much better if that’s the kind of thing that oogs you. Cadbury Crème Eggs have the edge here, benefiting from association with a holiday; a classic ad campaign (remember the clucking bunny? so cute); and the loyal love of those who don’t have texture issues. I prefer FRs for taste and ease of eating, but I think CCEs win handily here.
4 Hershey’s Almond vs. 13 Fast Break. Now and then, I get a craving for a Hershey’s Almond. A regular Hershey bar, never, but something about the combination of cheapish, bitterish chocolate and the almonds just hits the spot. Reese’s Fast Break — which apparently is called a Hershey Sidekick in Canada? Our northern neighbors can let us know — is good enough, i.e. if it’s free and just sitting around the office kitchen, I’ll eat it. But it’s more about Reese’s trying to move their brand into the nougat-filling arena than about filling an empty niche in the candy market; it’s fine, but we’ve seen it done before, and better. Some people really get their snob on about Hershey’s, but it’ll still win this round.
6 Baby Ruth vs. 11 Cadbury Fruit & Nut. Baby Ruth has a lot in common with Clark — I never ate it except at Halloween time, and it looks like poo. But it’s a good candy bar, and it should win this match-up. I will say this in defense of Fruit & Nut, however: I didn’t realize it had raisins in it until I’d eaten half a bar. That is an impressive piece of chocolate; usually I’m like the princess and the pea when it comes to raisins. Of course, now that I know it has raisins, I can’t un-know it, but for fifteen minutes, it had me.
3 Goobers vs. 14 After Eights. I like After Eights — it’s a Thin Mint, without the cookie part — but there’s no way they defeat the chocolate-covered peanut, despite the unfortunate branding. (“Goobers” is the “Moons Over My Hammy” of candy; it’s not gross-sounding like Nut Goodies — hew — but ordering a box of Goobers at the concession counter is not fun. “I’d like a medium Diet Coke, and a box of…argh. [point point] You know. Those.”
7 Almond Joy vs. 10 5th Avenue. Looking at it now, I don’t know why we ranked AJ so high. I like them fine, but if I’m in the mood for a coconut candy, usually I do not feel like a nut, and choose Mounds (hew) instead. On the other hand, 5th Avenue is pretty good, but doesn’t Butterfinger cover that waterfront pretty well? I imagine it depends on how many people despise coconut, and anecdotal evidence suggests that it’s a lot. No idea how this one goes.
2 fudge vs. 15 Chunky. Let’s get the “homemade fudge” jokes out of our systems…okay, seriously. We didn’t know what to do about fudge; we couldn’t list every variety, my favorite kind isn’t chocolate, will jokes about fudge with nuts (hew) end up taking over the entire write-up, and so on and so forth. We ended up cramming all fudge types into one entry, rationalizing that the best-known kind is chocolate, and I think it wins here, both because maple-fudge lovers (hew) like myself will vote for it and because Chunky is kind of bad. It has a raisin flavor, which fuck that, but even the flavors not designed to make me hate them…the bar is physically too hard to eat. It’s a bulky shape, and the chocolate tends to be dry. Also, something about the name irritates me. I don’t know what else they could have called it, but the word “chunk” does not have happy connotations. “Bricky”? “Slabalicious”? Just…not “Chunky.” Fudge wins, and should.
It’s a dead heat between Creme Eggs and Rocher. All other polls closed; please check the bracket for updated standings.
Tags: food N Candy AA
It’s the peanuts. I will eat almost any other nut covered in chocolate (yeah – Hew!) but peanuts tend to fall apart in little crumbles that stick to my teethl So no chocolate that contains peanuts.
But, Goobers don’t have raisins in them.
Much like my real NCAA brackets, few of my choices will get past the first round if current votes are any indication. This is why I no longer do the NCAA brackets – it’s throwing bad money after bad. That said, Cornell made it through two rounds, so perhaps my beloved Cadbury Fruit & Nut has a chance. Go Big Red… and Cadbury Fruit & Nut!
Okay this is going to sound really awful, but…I basically bite the top off so I can get all the filling out at one time. (Hew.) The chocolate I’m meh on, but the filling? To die for. I’m terribly sad that it is currently losing (against Ferrero Rocher?? Why??).
My employee is from New York and he has never heard of Duplo either.
Glad to see so many people like Cadbury Creme Eggs as much as I do! I love them. So perfectly palm-sized! The egg shell is just the right thickness and I actually like the creamy middle. One year I was in London and they have them in three-packs in vending machines there – heaven! I also like the caramel ones.
I’m allergic to nuts, so that informed my voting choices greatly here. There were a bunch of polls I had to skip altogether. And add me to the list of folks who’ve never heard of Duplo.
“Ferreros Rocher”… hee. :D Thanks for the giggle… love those things!
I have no idea what Duplo candy is, but Butterfinger is so bad i’d rather vote for something I’ve never eaten.
Also, Cadbury Creme Eggs are incredibly gross looking, but not terrible somehow.
And coconut should never be in a candy bar. It is such a terrible texture and flavor to mix with chocolate.
I’ve only ever heard it as the name for those mega legos. I can’t get behind a name that has caused so much injury :)
Yes, yes, yes and word. I basically wanted to copy this post and paste it in as my own.
I love that I am apparently such a coconut-lover that even the “devil’s pubes” association does not at all deter my craving for an Almond Joy right now. And I can’t even eat Brazil nuts because they remind me of cockroaches.
I never crave Hershey’s with Almonds, although I will eat them if they are present. I like almonds, too, don’t get me wrong, but when it comes to a Hershey bar (clearly I am not a chocolate snob), the almonds take up valuable real estate that could be filled with more chocolate.
I’m not a particular fan of fudge, it’s usually way too sweet for me. I did vote for fudge, or rather against Chunky. 45 years later, I can still hear the commercial jingle: “Open wide for Chunky!” Ew. Ew, ew, ew, ew, ew. Ew. Anybody else remember that? Just me? Okay.
Plus they just taste gross.
I have found my people.
But Goobers are chocolate-covered PEANUTS! Are you sure you’re not thinking of Raisinettes? Because the back of my brain is humming some Really Old Commercial that goes, “da dee dah, Goo-bers and RAISINETTES! Goo-bers and RAISINETTES!”
Hence, different!
I’m glad to see fudge so far ahead. I worried it was going to be a squeeze.
When I was a little girl, I thought Cadbury Creme Eggs were actual eggs dipped in chocolate (based on the commercial where they crack open the egg and you can see the “white” and the “yolk”). I couldn’t understand why anyone would want to eat a raw egg, and why would you coat it in chocolate? the two just did not seem to got together. . .
I had no idea that so many people hated Cadbury Creme Eggs. I guess it’s because I’ve never EVER heard the filling compared to any bodily fluid found on Pequod or otherwise, but I find Cadbury Creme eggs to be supremely delicious.
The trick to biting a cadbury egg is to eat it in quarters and keep it tipped just shy of vertical as you go. Hmm. Maybe I should stop talking now…
That’s exactly how I feel!
I cast my votes for my favorite chocolate, but also needed to add my vote for the new voting format. I love it, thanks!
in the mid-atlantic here. we had goldenbergs peanut chew when I was a kid – not so much anymore. blech – stale and vaguely chewy in a way that is just not good.
Mmmm, Ferrero Rocher. I have a UK-based boss who is annoying, hard to understand, and who’s blather-quotient is inversely proportional to his knowledge on any given subject. However, whenever he makes a trip to the US he always brings us a 24-pack platter of Ferrero Rocher. Makes it almost worth it.
Neck-and-neck with Cadbury’s Creme Eggs? I can see that. The Eggs have an almost cult-like following.
Yeah…I think that in general people are going to say “what the eff is THAT” about a lot of the entries in this NCAA.
Thank you, Glark, for perfectly capturing my feelings on the subject of coconut and candy. Bleah, hew, and everything in between.
I also think Reese’s FTW, but swear my undying love for all things Cadbury Creme Egg. I’ve only ever heard of Duplos in lego form, but am all for European candy, having recently made several of my friends buy and eat Mars Bars while we were in Switzerland.
Mmmm…Mars Bars. Wow, that got off track in a hurry, didn’t it?
Best new invention from Cadbury – the mini creme eggs! The same flavor, but a higher chocolate to creme ratio, and you don’t have to eat one of the big eggs, because seriously? Those things do not make good leftovers, and they’re sugary enough to make me feel nauseous if I eat a whole one.
Note to the Webmaster (hee!):
This post breaks badly when viewed in Firefox with NoScript running. (I think it’s the poll that’s doing it, since I’ve never had problems with TN before.)
And by “badly”, I don’t mean, “I’m sorry, Dave, I can’t do that.” I mean huge streams of unrendered raw HTML character codes, mostly &.
And of course that renders. By &, above, I mean &
Couldn’t have said it better myself, except for the part about liking them as a child. I *always* thought they were disgusting. I was so happy when Mini Eggs first came out: candy shell, chocolate filling, no overly-sweet goop.
Chocolate and hazelnut, contrariwise, was probably stolen by Prometheus, that’s how good it is.
I love peanuts in chocolate, but I think Goobers have a too-low chocolate-to-peanut ratio. Maybe that’s their problem.
I can’t stop laughing at “devil’s pubes” and will never look at coconut the same way again. Now I’m almost dreading my mom’s deliciously awesome magic cookie bars because I’ll look them, burst into laughter and have to explain why!
I currently have 3 Cadbury Creme eggs in my purse, waiting to be eaten (the top bitten off, the goo sucked out, and the rest of the slightly goo-covered chocolate savored)…waiting for a private moment alone because not a single solitary person I know likes them, and nobody can see me eating one without making “Ewwwwww! You LIKE those?!?” comments. So I can only buy them at a limited time of year, and I must eat them in a secluded location. The forbiddenness just makes me want them more!
When I was a kid, my mom made an infamous Freudian slip when she described Cabury creme eggs as “that chocolate with the yuck inside” (get it? yolk-yuck? yeah, we’re hilarious). It’s become a family inside joke that we find insanely funny and other people think is just lame.
There were only 2 categories where I had enough knowledge to vote. I am a Brit, so Cadbury’s Cream Eggs and After Eights totally win it for me. However, I am not always patriotic. I can’t stand Cadbury’s Fruit and Nut, although their old commercials used to make me laugh” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8H4IC9ttIU
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SARS!
This entry made me lose my shit. I smiled at “hew” the first time, giggled the second, and then every time after that I had to do the semi-silent desk laugh-cough.
I’m loving the N Candy AA! Woo!
Voted the Clark bar just for you, Sars…and I’m on the phone with a guy named Clark.
How fun! Thank you for this yummy distraction!
I gave up candy for Lent years ago. By Easter morning, I had Reese’s Eggs and Robins’s Eggs and Peeps and so on piled up high and I pigged out all day!
The draw of the Cadbury Cream Egg is the Butter Cream filling. Not as good as a Zitner’s Butter Cream egg, but more accessible!
How is it possible that I am a diehard sugar addict and I’ve never heard of or tried most of these? Is this the “weird and obscure” bracket? If so, what are Butterfingers and Almond Joy doing there?
Zagnuts (hee) are AWESOME!
Ooh, tell me about it! I have a long-standing love affair with the eggs, especially when I studied in New Zealand and they had Caramilk eggs, which had a caramell-y outside and inside (never found them since). But, my overwhelming love for all things hazelnut forced me to give my vote to FR.
Ah, see, I like Cadbury’s–fondant will win me over any time–and am nut-averse enough to dislike FR. But really, I’m posting to challenge the notion that you have to put it all in your mouth at once (…snrrrrk): over years of basically having way too much time on my hands, I’ve discovered that you can bite a Creme Egg at the little seam-y bit on the side, separating it into two roughly equal bits, and then lick the creme out of each.
…that thing where I have too much time on my hands? Yeaaah.
Sars — it took you 15 minutes to eat half (half?!) a candy bar? Impressive. If it takes me 15 seconds, I feel virtuous.
I could not agree more, ferretrick. The only way I’d eat CCEs as a kid was if they were frozen first. Now as an adult even that can’t make their cloying sweetness palatable to me. Ferrero Rocher FTW on that one!
Now, if we were talking Cadbury MINI eggs on the other hand, that would be a very different conversations. I could swim in a pool of the minis with my mouth open and die a happy woman.
thank you, glark. i haven’t peed myself in awhile.
I always assumed the candy in the pool in Caddyshack was a Baby Ruth.
And to Cotterpinx: I once saw a comedian who referred to a Zagnut bar as a “Clark bar with hair”. I can’t eat/see a Zagnut without chuckling ever since.
Hew.
Well, the polls are scripts. Do what you gotta do.
My personal fav is Peanut M&Ms- it looks like it has a fairly easy bracket until Snickers, but what do I know. Glark, thank you. Now I have the perfect way to explain to people why I hate coconut so much!
I have never heard of Duplos either, but they look damn delicious and now I want one. Or twelve.
I think of it more like having to choose which end of the devil’s pitchfork to be poked with. Haaaaaaaate… both of them… .haaaaaaaaate. Hate!
Clearly, I have no tolerance for *that* texture in my candy.
Blasphemy! As evidenced by their yearly appearance for the holiest of events, Cadbury Creme Eggs were sent by the tiny infant baby Jesus to fill us up with love and happiness and chocolate and creme until He returns.