I certainly do appreciate your quizzing Robert the Store Manager for his insight, as it does provide some data as to what actually sells at the retail level. And yes, that’s certainly important!  My only point, clumsily and I guess rudely made, was that what the children covet upon the Dumping of the Bag may not quite equate to what is purchased by the Parental Powers That Be.

For the benefit of future candy hierarchies, I attempted to employ my own offspring, new as they are to the whole trick-or-treating custom (this is Milo’s freshman year, Annabel’s third), and solicit their own opinions as to what’s most sublime and what’s most apt to stay hardening in the candy bowl for the next eleven months, unwanted and untouched.  I tried to ask them, but their mouths were too full of… well, yes, chocolate.

For what it’s worth, though, Milo’s second favorite appears to be lollipops.

You win again.  Bon appetit.

If the kids had the purchasing power, chocolate would not dominate so.  I guarangoddamntee it.  Seriously, when you see TV commercials for candy, all the Snickers/3 Musketeers/Milky Way ads are obviously aimed at adults looking for a snack to get them through until lunchtime.  (Or, in the case of Twix, something to get you through the next awkward moment.)  Kids like chocolate just fine, but they’re really into all the brightly-colored Wonka stuff, the bubblegum, the extremely sour stuff that no grownup dares to ingest, the pixie stix that grown-ups would rather snort than swallow, the everlasting gobstoppers that look like great fun to gradeschoolers but just look like impending periodontal trauma to a grownup.

And kids, yes kids, do the trick-or-treating.

There was very little chocolate anything left on the shelves.  There were, however, boxes and bags of the very candies you’re proposing be given higher status.  There was a bounty of Nerds, Jolly Ranchers, and Smarties, bubble gum galore, Dum-Dums out the wazoo, and big variety packs shoppers wisely passed on, to be discounted later and snapped up by bargain hunters buying for next year (and let us now bow our heads in prayers for the teeth of those poor young souls…)

True, it was just one store in one city, among many within a corporation, and that corp. may have over ordered, so I hunted up the grocery manager for a chat — his name is Robert.  He said that’s what he sees more or less every year the day after Halloween.  The lower tier candies are passed over for the preferred chocolate, caramel and nougat.

Nature herself demands it be so?  Well, I can’t speak for Nature, she’d kick my ass… again.  But I do have faith in the candy preferences of the middle class folks who do most of their grocery shopping at my neighborhood store.  They have correctly assessed what is popular with all those little ghouls and witches that show up on their doorstep on All Hallows Eve, knowing perfectly well that Mom and Dad too will be raiding those treats.   Their methodology is not scientific, yet their palates are unerringly in line with the consensus represented by ‘The Candy Hierarchy.  I respectfully nod  to the majority.

I see “healthy fruit” on here, but where is “unhealthy fruit?”

Durian.

My sister would have protested quite loudly, as she was allergic to chocolate into her late twenties, and to imply that her Halloween diet of Abba-Zabas, Sugar Daddies, Lik-M-Aid Fun Dips, Pixie Stix, Bazooka, Charms, Dum-Dums, SweeTarts, Bottlecaps, Nerds, and Jolly Ranchers somehow conferred upon her a third-class childhood, well… tellya what, O brave Messrs. Cohen & Ng, why don’tcha go tell her yourself?  And gird your loins for the furious diatribe you thereby instigate!

Chocolate is good (nay, great!), and it’s been my tongue’s best friend since 1971 when it supplanted mom’s teat.  But it is neither the be-all nor the end-all, so you really gotta start bumping the Red Vines and the strawberry Starbursts and the Skittles and the Abba-Zabas and the Bottlecaps up closer to the top if you want to retain a fingernail’s grip on credibility!  Not necessarily top tier, for I would not upend the throne of God thereby, but certainly at or above second tier!

Nature herself demands it be so!

I second the black licorice vote.  The more Australian, the better. :)

The entire catalogue in the post  is on my “no, no, no” list.  In that Russian Cat kind of way.

I eat chocolate rarely, as once I start, like with wine, or cigarettes, or other noxious substances, I cannot stop until it runs out.  So when I have it, it must matter, it must be significant, it must change my insides to sparkling and warm tides of melting gold.  I must Remember those moments.

So:  my choccie choices are limited to:

Prestat.  Neuhaus.  F&M.  Wonka (not the candy bars, but the British Genius Who Probably Changed His Name by Deed Poll).

Yes, Leonidas.

But I do agree with the Hershey’s school – it is not bad chocolate always, and reminds me of my youth.  Kisses, no, but bars, yes.

Just one at a time.

1 – Lindt – smooth and delicious
2 – Dove (by M&M Mars) – best of the American domestics, by FAR
3 – Cadbury – a little bit too milky, but very good, and with a pleasant, but distinctive, flavor

Then way, WAY further down the list:

4 – Hershey – terrible, really. Acrid and waxy
5 – Nestle – milder than Hershey, but with less chocolate flavor. Bland and waxy.
6 – Palmer – like eating a mildly cocoa-scented candle

Godiva is horrible chocolate, BTW. A triumph of marketing. Don’t fall for it, people!

Premium chocolate that will make you cry with happiness is found in Leonidas shops, sprinkled throughout Europe and a few choice U.S. cities. Worth seeking out.

Cast your eyes to evidence of the legend of the chocolate-covered PayDay. It’s a Thing!

http://www.candyblog.net/blog/item/chocolate_payday/

Do not search Urban Dictionary for “chocolate covered payday.” Trust me on this.

I was shocked to my core the first time I went to the US and discovered that none of you had ever even heard of Smarties, Coffee Crisp, Flake and Almond Crunch. And as for other kinds of snack foods… why you didn’t even get dill pickle and ketchup chips until the 90s. It’s no wonder poor America is in the trouble it’s in. 

Personally I’m not a huge fan of caramel and I’d put whatever it is inside of a Three Muskateers above it.

Also Charms Blow Pops deserve a special exception from lolipops. The combination of lollipop and gum somehow makes it more than the sum of its parts.

Top 3 for me are the Reese’s PB Cups, York Peppermint Patties, and Three Muskateers. I don’t hate caramel, but it’s not my favorite.