The World's Strangest Candy
When Americans eat gummy bears, we blithely assume that "bear" is not actually an ingredient. But travel to Great Britain, and that's not an assumption one should make. After all, Percy Pigs—a candy that debuted around World War I—gets its name not just from the smiling piggy face, but also from the pork gelatin that gives the candy its bulk.
In fact, in many spots around the world, sweets are not always sweet. Sure, nothing says 'I love you' like candy, but the translation can vary greatly, placing the mung bean, the chili pepper, and even a whiff of ammonia in the same league as rich, Madagascar chocolate.
Of course, local ingredients often play a role into what becomes candy. Beans, for example, come up a lot in Asian sweets. They're turned into marzipan-like pastes and then may be molded into treats that are perhaps more about show than indulgence.
It may be time to expand our horizons. As one fan of Percy Pigs says, popping one of these treats is not unlike "that first sip of Veuve Cliquot." Who can argue with that?
Check out the slideshow above to see what candies people in other countries indulge in.
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