Product Crush: Jelly Fruit Slices
“Har dee har har.”
I just ate a package of Chuckles, and I hate myself a little bit for settling, because I didn’t really want Chuckles — I didn’t set out for the deli on a Chuckles mission. Nobody has ever done that, and furthermore, nobody has ever actually chuckled during, in anticipation of, or after eating Chuckles. The Depression-era consumer may have managed a wan smile; I did the “well, fuck it, they’re out of orange leaves” shrug.
There was no chuckling. There was not so much as a titter. There was only grumpy chewing, and an abiding longing for these, the little candy songs of my heart.
One time, for my birthday or Christmas, M. Giant and Trash sent me some nibbles, which is nice enough of them to have done, but the nibble-pack contained jelly fruit slices, and I swear to God, my eyes filled up, because I don’t recall ever mentioning to either of them that I adore jelly fruit slices, and Lord knows nobody would ever guess that about another person, a person whom they give every indication of respecting, because nobody “adores” jelly fruit slices except your grandma, and she also “adores” plain watery cottage cheese so what does she know. And yet somehow M. and Trash had divined it, and sent me a little plastic pint container of them. (I also recall a tub of spearmint leaves, another candy that I alone in the under-70 cohort can tolerate.)
My thank-you note read “I LOVE THESE GODDAMN THINGS OH MY GOD YOU GUYS!”, and contained more than a few rock-sugar crumbs.
Tags: food Product Crush
Cost plus or BevMo (if you have either of those out there) might carry those. I’m sure Cost Plus would–they have all kinds of unusual goodies (including those coconut fruit jellies that were banned for a while).
You have to count me in as an under 70 who loves spearmint leaves! :)
I hate the substitute candy. It’s just so disappointing.
I gotta say, I am also a HUGE fan of the jelly fruit slices, and thanks a lot, now I have to go buy some, DIET BE DAMNED. I can practically taste the crunchy sugary bits…
Well, I’m 27 and LOVE those jelly fruit slices (and spearmint leaves). Also, I have a huge weakness when it comes to those spice drops (you know, those gumdrops that taste like clove, cinnamon, mint, orange, etc.). Better than chocolate, in my opinion. Mmmmmm….crunchy, sugary, gell-y deliciousness! Great, now I have to run to the store…
My mom loves them too. I like the ones that look like fake orange slices with the rind and everything, but those are hard to find. However! You can get the Sunkist variety (which split the difference between fake slices and Chuckles) at Bed Bath & Beyond.
I will say this for the maligned: the black-licorice Chuckle is pretty damn good. It does not make up for the horror of the lime Chuckle, and I don’t know why I never remember that it tastes like Pine-Sol, but geeeeyahh.
The Sunkist ones are actually really good; I’d forgotten those.
PS I’m sorry I keep making fun of you for liking Sno-Caps. I promise I’ll stop doing that.
I love LOVE jelly fruit slices. Trader Joe’s sells them, and it’s so good but SO bad. Go there to buy cereal and crackers, come out with fruit slices.
I like the jelly fruit slices, fittingly, because of my grandmother. As her god-given duty, she made sure she kept plenty of candy on hand for her grandchildren and jelly fruit slices were a mainstay. I group them with chocolate-covered eclairs, shrimp cocktail sauce, and the scrapings from a scrambled egg pan in the category of foods that will always remind me of her.
I love anything jelly-ish with sugar coating. The spearmint leaves are one of my all time favorites.
And, thanks to Sarah for the Trader Joe’s tip on the jelly fruit slices. It really is impossible to find them anywhere.
I’m on Erin’s boat — anything jelly-like with sugar coating is AWESOME. Gumdrops/Spice drops? Check. Jelly orange slices (the kind that are wedge shaped)? Check. Jelly fruit slices, whether resembling fruit or just circles? Check.
Now I wish I had bought those at TJs instead of toffee with milk chocolate!
I, too, lurve those jellied fruit slices. They have some in the Kosher section of our grocery store, but the brand it carries is kind of pricey and not that great, in my opinion. For a while, the only way for me to get really good ones was when the state fair rolled around each summer — for some reason, they have a bulk candy booth there. I have no idea why — but I recently went to Fresh Market for the first time, and I discovered that they sell them in bulk! And so many tasty flavors … and I love the color combinations, too. Really, everything about them is perfect. Oh man, now I have a terrible craving …
OMG, I lovelovelove those jellied fruit slices. Pretty much anything gummy, and sugary, with that dusting of sugar that feels like its slicing your tongue when you eat too many. Sour patch watermelons, or those weird gummy peach rings with the marshmallow … give me those over chocolate any day.
If we’re making weird old-lady candy confessions, I have always had a fondness for that weird candy-coated really tough black licorice. My grandma always had that and stale butterscotch candies in these elaborate antique ashtrays-turned-candy dishes in her house. I haven’t eaten either in years, but I loved them at the time.
I love spearmint leaves! And jelly fruit slices. Although I don’t think I’ve ever eaten Chuckles, because that black one scares me. Even though I like licorice. Go figure.
This one candy store in my home area had jelly grapefruit slices. They were big and triangular and perfectly tart and sour and covered in sugar. Gah, now I want some.
Count me in on the spice drops and the spearmint leaves … pure joy. Now, the orange wedges? Those rank up there with the spongey-orange-circus peanuts and the funky marshallow-ick-covered-in-lacquer candy eggs my mother used to be addicted to … the only candy I wouldn’t pilfer from her nighttable drawer…
OOH, FRUIT SLICES! I have many happy childhood memories of eating them every Passover. I can’t remember which brand, but odds are Joyva. Yum. I am also an under-70 spearmint leaves lover.
Mmmm…Jelly fruit slices! I thought that I was the only one of the “under 80” group that had a deep and meaningful love for them! AND spearmint leaves…Christ. I feel ready for some shuffleboard and adult diapers now.
Also, I always believed as a child that ANY green jelly candy would taste like PINE. Not PineSol, but PINE. As in the tree. So I still (at 21) steer clear of any green jelly candy, even though I know better now. See Sars? Just remember, green is bad.
If anybody lives in the southern United States, Cracker Barrel sells the really oldschool jelly fruit slices with the rinds. They even sell it in the oldschool white box with four slices of each flavor fanned out in rows (and each one a gummy, sugary piece of heaven everlasting.) We once went on a music-festival trek through the deep South and, by the end of it, the back seat of the rental car was jammed with the remains of my three-state rampage. I don’t think my tongue will ever fully recover.
This may be my imagination, Sars, but I seem to remember you mentioning that you love the fruit slices in an essay ages ago, the one where you went to San Francisco, perhaps? Anyhow, I love those things, too. Been ages since I had them. Probably not since my dad’s mom died, and that was in 1991. As you say, no one enjoys them but our grandmas.
GAWD. There was a little candy store in the town I grew up in in NY~SUCH a throwback to like, the 50s candy shop, but they had those fruit slices, and oh, baby! They also had chocolate-dipped potato chips, which I can’t find ANYwhere in Ohio now :-(
Anyone who loves grandma candies as much as I do could do a hell of a lot worse than checking out the Vermont Country Store. There’s the one-pound tub of jelly fruit slices, with the little fake rinds, which contains the all-time rulingest flavor, grapefruit.
The Vermont Country Store is also the only retail establishment I’m aware of that sells both flannel nightgowns and cock rings (no, really, check out the Apothecary) which alone makes it worth patronizing, in my opinion.
HA! You’re cracking me up with this. My in-laws (both over 70) never make a road trip without a huge bag of jellied orange slices. Although I have to admit I do like the jellied spearmint leaves (and had totally forgotten about them until now), a lot of times jellied fruit candies give me Circus Peanut Syndrome, in which you never know that you ate one too many until it’s TOO LATE.
Jelly Fruit Slices are my all time favorite candy! Luckily the mall across the highway from where I work has a bulk candy store that sells them. And now I’m going to have to stop by after work to pick some up, I’m really craving them!
Wow…spearmint leaves…I had forgotten all about them, and all about my intense and undying love.
::stands up:: My name is Ashley, and I too am a member of the under-70 strange jelly candy lovers club.
I also had a strange affinity for circus peanuts…Those orange marshmallow-ey so disgusting they were good candies. But that was in my younger years, and now whenever I see them I’m actually quite afraid to actually buy them, for fear that the disgusting level would be out of this universe.
@KMSD- Thanks for the tip!! Cracker Barrel is always a great place to check for old candies. I *love* fruit slices, and like a lot of us it seems, anything gummy with sugar.
Also, I love Sno-Caps, and I refuse to appologize for it. I *know* they’re just chocolate chips with candy balls on them, but damn, I love them.
Wow, I have never even heard of jelly fruit slices or spearmint leaves before. Maybe it’s because I grew up in Texas? I’ve never seen those on the shelves of any candy store around here. But I’m intrigued.
I have a 8 year old’s taste in candy–I adore Nerds, Spree, and Fun Dip. I actually have Nerds in my desk drawer right now.
I’m another under-70 jellied-sugar-coated-candy lover. Especially spearmint leaves. I do not need a craving right now, people. I should not have opened these comments.
I’ve never had fruit slices, though I sure have been tempted to try them. STOP MESSING WITH ME, INTERNET
Word on Cracker Barrel’s candy selection. I get a bag of lemon drops every time I go there. Because I have no willpower.
Sars, your love for the fruit slices was indeed mentioned in an old-school TN essay, and it stuck in my head because I love them too. I have to resist the temptation to send them to you every year in favor of something different, but maybe I should stop resisting.
Oh my God! I LOVE orange fruit slices but it’s not something you really see. Except at those bulk candy stores that charge you an arm and a leg. I’m a weird candy eater (I’ve been known to eat the shell off of an M&M before eating the chocolate), so I usually eat the “pulpy” part first down to the “rind” and eat that last. I’m also a fan of the spearmint leaves, but in small doses. Dammit, now I have to stop at the mall on the way home and get some candy.
I’m not really a big fan of the jelly fruit slices, but I love this weird licorice we had when I was in Europe and one of my teammates is now regularly mailing back for a few of us. It’s salt licorice, which is absolutely vile the first time you taste it, but interestingly addictive.
@M.: STOP RESISTING!!1!
@ the people near a Trader Joe’s – not only do they have jelly fruit slices, but they also have both raspberry and orange jelly sticks covered in dark chocolate. Sort of a compromise if you are not sure which you’re in the mood for, and horribly addictive. I can chain the raspberry ones like nobody’s business.
“Twenty servings, huh? Amateurs…”
Am I the only person around here willing to defend the Chuckles? I love me some Chuckles! They’re all soft and squishy, with just the barest coating of sugar to keep them from sticking to your fingers–those thick orange slices taste good, but they’re hell on a bad jaw. For me, Chuckles are second only to Jelly Fruit Slices in the Gummi Candy category.
Then again, my childhood candy of choice was Sno-caps, so maybe I’m just an all-around candy loser (c’mon! They were the only movie theatre snack with massive amounts of dark chocolate!).
And now, I want gummi candy. With dark chocolate.
Oh, I HATE jellied fruit thingies, of any variety. Just…*shudder*…I’ll be a voice of disagreement – though I fully defend your right to love the foul little things. :)
I do love sour jelly thingies, though. And I love sugar-coated stuff. Well, candy – not just anything covered in sugar.
@Marie – Oh my God! Orange jelly sticks covered in dark chocolate! I LOVE those! And orange slices! And Good-n-Plenty! All that gummy goodness!
Okay, I’m excited now. And hungry.
I remember the candy slices with some distaste – mostly because they appeared each Passover & everyone had to take one so my grandmother’s feelings wouldn’t be hurt. Unfortunately, the Manischewitz variety always tasted like fake-fruit-flavoured vaseline-crossed-with-Saran wrap. The only thing good about them was the sugar crystals, and I could have gotten those out of the sugar bowl (if my mum didn’t catch & kill me first).
The trauma of sub-standard Passover candy – mostly exemplified in waxy Barton’s chocolates, ick – seems not to have embedded too deeply; I still loves me all kinds of candy, including the gummy ones (currently snarfing juice berries, mmm). A day without candy is a day not worth remembering. For all the other candy addicts here, I highly recommend this book: http://tinyurl.com/yp2oat
Twenty-five. Loving the jelly slices.
I’ll love them a whole lot more, granted, when I get my damn fillings done and jellied sugar isn’t like freaking napalm for my teeth, but that’s not the fault of the jelly slices; that’s the fault of the 21st century for not replacing all my teeth with cyber-teeth by now.
Fanny Farmer fruit slices in the mall. So good, and such a funny name.
Trader Joe’s is totally my best friend. Mr Wonderful and I are both severely addicted to the jelly fruit slices and you can buy a whole tub of them there for less than $5. Mmmm, lime.
And I also love the spearmint jelly leaves and the orange jelly wedges. I’m pretty sure you can get both of them in the hanging-bags-o’-candy-aisle at Target or the grocery store.
I must insist that everyone head over to vermontcountrystore.com. So many old-fashioned candies! The memories!! Does anyone else like Cherry Mash!? So sick, yet so delicious! And Necco Wafers: how are you, old friends?
ZOMG. I have found my people. I’ve loved the fruit slices and the spice drops and everything gelatinous and sugar-coated since childhood (ESPECIALLY the Sunkist ones), but nobody in my circle of family or friends understands it. They all prefer chocolate-based candy. Thank you all for making me feel like I have a place in this world!
Aaaaaaand I’m off to the store.
Hey Amanda, I’m not sure where in Ohio you are, but Cleveland Scene says that Brummer’s, in Vermilion, has chocolate-covered potato chips. To quote: “The chips are crisp and lightly salted, and smothered in freshly melted chocolate. And amazingly, they’re not greasy. Our suggestion: Buy them by the pound.”
I live down in Columbus — now I’m going to have to look for them around here.
*Man, there are a lot of us Jen-Jenny-Jennifers floating around!
I’m really, really suspiscious of all this jellied fruit slice love. The thing is, I don’t think they’re actually meant to be eaten.
Oh! Jive Turkey, yes yes yes – dangerous little gobblets of jel and sugar, they sneak up on you and you don’t realize what damage you’ve done until too late.
I adore the orange slices, but have always wished grapes were like oranges so that I could get a grape slice too.
I gave up candy for Lent. You people are KILLING ME.
Jellied-sugar-coated-candies, how I want you.
“Anyone who loves grandma candies as much as I do could do a hell of a lot worse than checking out the Vermont Country Store. There’s the one-pound tub of jelly fruit slices, with the little fake rinds, which contains the all-time rulingest flavor, grapefruit.”
I bought my mom some PJs from there so I get their catalog now, and at first I was like, “I don’t need anymore freakin’ catalogs, I am a GRAD STUDENT, just hold off until I graduate in May, GOD,” and then I looked through and was like, “okfinetheyhavemaplesugarcandyandrealsyrup.” They have awesome sweets.
My first boyfriend and I bonded over our love of Sunkist Fruit Gems. And I’m 27 and have no shame about loving fruity jelly candies.
Thanks to you people I just scarfed down a box of Nerds after my lunch. And my tongue is now bright purple, which I love.
And for the jelly fruit slice people–are they like those bags of gummy worms that are covered in sugar? I just can’t picture what these fruit jellies taste like.
Jenny, I don’t think it’s a Texas thing to not know them, I’ve lived here my whole life and I know the fruit jellies. My husband was crushed when our Central Market stopped carrying the grapefruit ones in their bulk aisle.
Yay, I too love the sugar-coated jelly candies! When I was a kid they were my favorites and I’m still quite partial to them. I don’t like it when the jelly is too hard, though, and they stick in your teeth like a sumbitch (like Dots do, although not as badly – nothing is as evil as Dots are for sticking in your teeth!)
However, I have never been brave enough to try the orange circus peanuts. Even as a kid I thought they looked totally disgusting.
I despise jelly fruit slices but oh my GOD I love spearmint leaves. I also do not understand why they switched the green jujyfruit from the yummy spearmint flavor to the vile, dishsoap-tasting lime flavor. Gross. (Um, I’m also pretty sure I’m the only one who likes jujyfruits, because it’s really hard to find a fresh box, and the grocery store by my house stopped stocking them altogether.)
I also love each and every form of black licorice, which I used to think was weird, but now I’m not so sure, because I find lots of people who love it, too.