™
The Halloween candy I collected in my plastic pumpkin bucket twenty years ago seems to have gone virtually unchanged? No offense to SweetTarts and Snickers, but I don’t eat much traditional candy these days. The super-sugary, artificially flavored/colored–cherry, orange, lemon, grape - doesn’t appeal much anymore. I indulge in gourmet chocolate bars now, but they cost a lot more than an “allowance.”
I have my nostalgic favorites, of course,–remember Mary Jane’s, Zots and Sugar Babies? And the traditional ritual of bargaining to get your favorites from siblings or friends afterwards when we inventoried our stash at the end of the night? Goldman Sachs would have been impressed by some of the negotiations and calculated trades that ensued for coveted Blow Pops!
What I have discovered are Asian candies that come in real tropical and zingy flavors, like mango, guava, melon, plum, lychee, yogurt, milk, starfruit, ginger, sesame, dark molasses, even durian! There are gummies, taffies, hard candy, crisps, brittles and nuts. Most of the ones I’ve had from Taiwan, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Philippines have natural flavoring so the cantaloupe taffy tastes just like the fruit! Some of them even have medicinal properties (ginger candy for indigestion, motion sickness, morning sickness). They seem to be “less bad” as candy goes, really tasty and a fun way to learn about different cultures. I give them away as gifts and the parents and kids will vie and hide their favorites!
We cover them (with samples) in our Asian Market Tours and I will regularly share my favorites.
I’m officially kicking off the CANDY REVOLUTION ! Halloween won’t ever be the same! 
