Name: CraniYUMS Pops
Brand: CraniYUMS
Place Purchased: sample from Candy Warehouse
Price: $1.65
Size: 1.52 ounces
Calories per ounce: unknown
Type: Hard Candy/Gummi/Lolly

I’ve noticed that I get a lot of Google search hits on this blog for CraniYUMS. Well, that and Choxie. So it’s about time I gave folks what they’re looking for. This has got to be one of the more innovative candy formats I’ve seen. I got this as a sample at my Candy Warehouse visit over the summer. They hadn’t decided to carry the pops, so I didn’t want to blog about it until it was available then I forgot about it until I saw Candy Addict‘s post a few weeks ago.

What is it? It’s a hard candy lolly in the shape of a Tyrannosaurus rex skull then covered in a gummi “flesh”. The fleshy part is transparent, so you can see the skull shape at the center. It’s actually a pretty fun idea.

I wasn’t quite sure how to approach consuming it. A gelatinous skin does not lend itself to sucking, and of course it’s a bit big for putting in the mouth whole. So when I tried nibbling on the end of his snout, I kind of get the sense that there should be some growling involved. The gummi part is definitely gummi, but I guess that’s a good thing. You kind of have to rip it off the candy skull with your teeth. As a gummi it’s rather mild, not zesty orintensely flavored. The skin is cherry flavored and the skeleton is green apple. Once a corner has been started it’s pretty easy to nibble off pieces then to get to the center. The skeletal center is hard candy, but not quite hard, because I’m guessing the gummi softens it a little bit. The flavor overall was just bland, I wanted some zip to it all. Maybe mine was a little old, but I also think I’d prefer the lemon/cherry combo.

I’m obviously not the target market for this candy, but I can see it being a fun thing to pick up at a museum gift shop for my nephew should we go look at a dinosaur exhibit. But I can also see a kid getting kind of bored with it after a few minutes. It depends on the kid. I found myself eating all the gummi skin but I didn’t eat the center. They get big points from me on originality, but I see it as more of a special occasion candy than a regular one.

The package says it’s made in China, but it’s distributed by an Denver, CO company.

Rating - 5 out of 10

UPDATE: Please see the revised review here where I now give CraniYUMS! an 8 out of 10.

There have been articles about this report floating around for the past few days, so I’m assuming most folks have heard that a new Swiss study has found that a little dark chocolate a day could help slow hardening of the arteries. They performed their small-scale experiment on a group of twenty male smokers. For the control group they consumed 1.5 ounces of white chocolate and the other group ate 1.5 ounces of dark chocolate a day. Then they took a look at their blood flow and determined that the dark chocolate eaters had better blood flow.

The article in Forbes magazine details some other reports as well that back this up. However, the article goes on to point out that dark chocolate is notoriously high in calories and fat. As a demonstration they say:

For instance, according to candy manufacturer Hershey’s, a dark chocolate Mounds bar weighs 1.72 ounces and has 240 calories and 13 grams of fat, most of it saturated fat.

Okay, any idiot who eats candy knows that a dark chocolate Mounds (redundancy, hello?) is not really a chocolate bar, it’s a coconut bar covered in chocolate. The saturated fat in a Mounds bar comes from the coconut just as much the chocolate. Plus, why eat a Mounds bar for the dark chocolate benefit ... you should be eating one of Hershey’s new Extra Dark Chocolate. And while they’re at it they could mention that it contains 3 grams of protein, 4 grams of fiber, 20% of your RDA of iron and the fat is monosaturated. But really, there are lots of better ways to get your antioxidant boost from dark chocolate and one of them is using cocoa instead of chocolate. The antioxidant compounds are found in the cocoa solids (the control group used white chocolate, so they know it’s not the cocoa butter that’s having the positive effect), so adding cocoa to your sauces or stews might be a good start. Or a little pudding made with skim milk.

I think the next step, however, might be to find out if the same holds true in healthy non-smokers.

Link to article.

When I was a kid there was an amazing candy bar called the Marathon. It was made by Mars and came in a bright red wrapper and was almost ten inches long (the candy was only 8 inches). Inside was a braid of firm caramel covered in chocolate.

The Marathon bar came along at a time when I would guess I was particularly impressionable and it was a marvelous time in candy. New candies were being introduced that seemed to speak directly to my soul. It was at this time that things like Reese’s Pieces, Sprees & Starbursts came out and Pringles (okay, not a candy, but I’d buy them at the Stop ‘n Go). And let’s not forget Pop Rocks.

The Marathon bar was probably not marketed towards me. The commercial campaign I remember involved a square-jawed, white-toothed and practically perfect looking Patrick Wayne (son of John Wayne) who went by the name of Marathon John. This hero of little commerical stories did everything slow, like eating his Marathon bar. He had a nemesis in the commericals, a wirey fellow named Quick Carl. Quick Carl was careless and jumpy and was, of course, always foiled by Marathon John and his candy bar that you can’t eat quickly. (We didn’t have color TV back then, so the whole “red” thing was lost on me ... it’s not that I’m that old that I remember black & white TV, it’s just that we didn’t get one in my family until 1979).

My guess is that this long candy bar that came with a measuring stick on the back was aimed at adolescent boys. You know how obsessed they are with measuring things. And how often do you find yourself at lunch or hanging out at the park with your little paper bag of sweets and wanna measure something with your buds?

Anyway, the candy bar was introduced in 1973 by Mars and discontinued it in 1981. But of course once you discontinue a candy bar the fans come out of the woodwork. The bar has been gone for more than twenty years and still there are rabid admirers who insist that it be returned to the American Pantheon of candy bars. I suspect that one of the issues with it is its non-standard size. It just doesn’t fit on the shelves the same way and slotting is important for the big candy manufacturers. But Cadbury seems to be doing fine with the Curly Wurly ... but for all I know their biggest market may be the United States and these folks in their forties who insist that there is no other candy bar for them than an eight inch braid of caramel covered with chocolate.

A few years ago Mars resurrected the name Marathon but this time gave it to an “energy bar” type candy. I’ve never tried it.

Links: CS Monitor and the Snickers/Marathon bar, Linda Lee Dobbins muses on her favorite candies, including the Marathon bar and other contemporaneous memory lane items including the Marathon bar

If you’re looking for a fix now that you’ve waxed as nostalgic as I have, pick up the Cadbury Curly Wurly bar. You can find them in the UK or Canada or perhaps in the States at a shop that carries UK imports and of course online. Old Time Candy has a nice page about Curly-Wurly and the Marathon Bar Here’s my review of the Curly Wurly (I gave it an 8 out of 10). The only question that remains (and perhaps you dear readers can help) is who came up with the bar first? Was it a Cadbury product that was licensed by Mars just as Hershey licensed KitKat from Rowntree (well, now Nestle)? Or did Mars come up with it and it was successful enough in the UK to continue?

Name: Kissables
Brand: Hershey’s
Place Purchased: 7-11
Price: $.85
Size: 1.5 ounces
Calories per ounce: 140
Type: Chocolate

Dang if these aren’t the cutest candy with a shell to come along in years. Vibrant primary and secondary colors in that familiar Kiss shape only smaller and more “poppable.” When I saw the promo stuff on the internet at first they looked a lot like the tops of crayons and now that I have them in front of me I still think that. The shells aren’t quite as pretty and consistent as an M&M, but the vibrancy of the colors is pretty phenomenal.

Though Hershey’s Kisses are wonderful little candies, Hershey found out long ago that folks only buy them in large bags. Hershey tried for a while to launch smaller bags, but people just don’t buy them that way. Here’s an easier way to take Hershey Kisses to a movie (less unwapping, thankyouverymuch).

But let’s get to the eating, because convenience and color doesn’t mean diddly if it’s not tasty. These are tasty. I bought two bags - one to spill out in front of the unopened package (you actually get more than shown in the photo in the package, I ate or rejected about ten of them). The shell is a lot like the familiar M&M shell, it’s crunchy, sweet and has no flavor of its own like the UK Smarties do. The little fellows are about the size of chocolate chips instead of the large Kisses. The inside is Hershey’s chocolate - very sweet, a little milky and with an overall pleasant smoothness. The biggest issue I have with this is that I can’t eat them quite like M&Ms. When I’m eating a plain M&M, I’ll arrange the candy in my teeth on edge and crack it so that one half of the shell falls away and I get pure crunch, then mostly chocolate. These just don’t cleave that way. But maybe I’ll find some other interesting way of eating them, at the moment biting off the little tips seems pretty fun.

If you like M&Ms, you’ll probably like these. I don’t see Hershey’s coming out with a version with nuts anytime soon, as there’s just no room in there for one (well, maybe a sesame seed). Interesting fact: when M&Ms were first developed they contained Hershey’s chocolate. In fact, one of the Ms in M&M is for Hershey’s sales manager, William Murrie (or his son Bruce who was in business with Forrest Mars during the period they developed the candy-coated chocolate).  They were made with Hershey’s up until the late sixties (I can’t find the exact date).

Other Reviews - CandyAddict gives it a positive, Accidental Hedonist’s musings on candy coated chocolates,  JunkFood Blog points out that these are made without peanut traces, which M&Ms are not.

Rating - 8 out of 10

UPDATE 8/7/2008: Hershey’s reformulated Kissables sometime in 2008 and they are no longer made with real chocolate. Full review & comparison here.

Related Candies

1. Hershey’s Bliss
2. Hershey’s Favorites - Sugar Free
3. Hershey’s Cacao Reserve
4. M&Ms Line
5. Hershey Eggs

Hershey is suing Simon & Schuster for the cover design of an upcoming biography of Milton Hershey, founder of the Hershey Chocolate Company, entitled Hershey: Milton S. Hershey’s Extraordinary Life of Wealth, Empire and Utopian Dreams by Michael d’Antonio.

Personally, I’m excited that someone is finally doing a real biography of this interesting figure in American candy making and philanthropy. Of course I agree with the Hershey Corp that the cover design is cleary using tradmarked materials for their own benefit. As some of my loyal readers know, my masters thesis was a biographical play about Milton S. Hershey which I researched there in Hershey during my grad school days. I was lucky enough to interview some people who knew and worked for Milton Hershey but was sadly not able to access the extensive Hershey archives at the time because they were in the process of moving during my grad school days. I’m hoping Mr. d’Antiono did get more access than I and can discuss some of the more fascinating and less-known aspects of Hershey the man and the paternalistic Utopian society he tried to create.

The book comes out next month and you can be sure that I’m adding it to my birthday wishlist.

You can read more about the case here: Herald Tribune: Hershey Sues Publisher Over Cover Image.

UPDATE: Hershey has settled the suit with Simon and Schuster:

The New York publisher agreed to add an image in the upper left corner of the front cover stating that Hershey: Milton S. Hershey’s Extraordinary Life of Wealth, Empire and Utopian Dreams is “neither authorized nor sponsored by The Hershey Company.”

link to article in Star Telegram.