Remember that candy-bar letter I sent to my guy Jake and slogged about a few months ago? Well, a number of the featured candy bars travelled back to Seattle with him, and were eventually eaten by one or the other or both of us.
Except one: The Chunky bar, which was purchased for its adjectivial properties then left to gather dust in our hidden-on-a-high-shelf candy bowl. “Chunkys are disgusting,” Jake said, and I believed him.
Then came last night, when a diabolical bong hit persuaded me that maybe I should just try one bite of the Chunky, so at least I can say I’ve tasted one. It’s a candy bar, sold in the American marketplace—how awful could it be?
Fuck. It was so awful. Have you ever put a Chunky segment in your mouth? It is a bad, bad thing to have happen. The official ingredients of the trapezoidal Chunky are milk chocolate, California raisins, and peanuts, but the end result tastes like the crappiest American milk chocolate mixed with the contents of a dustpan. It tastes like candy issued by the county to orphans during the Great Depression. It tastes like jail. Background facts from Wikipedia only make things worse:
The Chunky candy bar was introduced in the late 1930s by New York City candy maker, Philip Silvershein. Looking for a name for his candy bar, then made with cashews, chocolate, raisins and Brazilian nuts, he decided on Chunky, the nickname of his “chunky” granddaughter.
It is not surprising that America’s worst candy was inspired by low-level child abuse.
CRIME/CHOW
How do you know what jail tastes like?
Thank you for performing this public service. I’ll remember this post the day a Chunky appears in the office candy jar.
Excellent post, David.
I’m not sure if I’m more fond of the phrase “purchased for its adjectival properties” or the history behind the “candy”.
Anyway, you have totally nailed it! I can’t think of any practical use for Chunky outside of composing candy-bar letters – unless it is to prop up a wobbling table.
Sorry that you had to experience this nightmare masking as a confection for yourself. I dare say that’s a mistake that you won’t make again.
Thanks for reminding us how vile those things are, and for providing a PSA/warning to any unsuspecting readers.
It’s true. They taste like they have dirt in them. About 50% dirt.
Wow. It sounds even worse than a Zero candy bar.
I remember the Easter of my childhood when my siblings and I discovered how to make a double boiler in the kitchen.
We melted all our chocolate bunnies down and threw in any kind of candy we could find, jelly beans, peanuts, M&M’s, raisins, etc.
The results were generally unapalatable.
It’s nice to see someone marketed that kind of haphazard culinary fun.
I like Chunky, but I eat candy only a few times a year, so YMMV.
“Have you ever put a Chunky segment in your mouth?”
Heh, heh, heh.
I had one when I was a kid. I bit into it and quickly spat it out. On my tougue was a bit of what seemed to be a tiny wood chip or some other kind of disgusting debris. Never had one since.
Are you fucking crazy? Chunky ROCKS!!! Fuck all you raisin haters out there. I’m assuming that’s what you’re referring to when you say it tastes like dirt.
The Ref 71 folks just announced their signature count and their plans for Olympia tomorrow on their official blog. They’re calling on people to meet them there.
Now back to your regularly scheduled scat-related candy post.
what a righteous asshole. Chunky’s are good, Zeros are great. Get over yourselfs, remind me never to move to Seattle. The rain is draining your brains.
Never had one. When I was a kid, my dad would let me buy one candy bar if I happened to go with him to the drug store (he wisely never went through the candy aisle if I was with him at the grocery store).
I always chose the biggest bar, whatever it was (usually a charleston chew). The little square chunky never stood a chance.
The moral is: Marketing strategies, unsurprisingly, work amazingly well on children.
@11 is right, this is raisism.
I once took a bite of an Idaho Spud AND HAVE NEVER BEEN THE SAME. I bet you anything it’s worse than Chunky.
Oh Lindy, surely you’ve had more disgusting things than that in your mouth.
@16: Lindy, you shut your gash, you raisist!
Anyone who hates Chunky is in absolutely no position to judge other candy, even if that product is a disgusting by-product of Idaho’s lack of ingenuity and smarts.
Chunky is good, however the Cadbury fruit ‘n nut is way better. But, for my money, the best candy bar is the Cadbury Crunchy.
I remember Chunky was pretty tasty when I was a kid in the 50s/60s, but haven’t had one in 20 yrs so there’s no telling if it’s anything at all like it was. You make it sound pretty awful, but I guess I can spend a buck or so to find out. Best wishes.
I’m not a fan of Chunky (I am, in fact, a raisist, Baconcat)… but I don’t hate it with the fire of 1,000 suns as Schmader seems to.
I’ve actually become a fan of some of the newer candy bars out there — Take 5, Reese’s Nutrageous, etc. But, I still love a good Whatchamacallit…
Maybe try a fresh one? Report back.
I’ve never tried a Chunky, and am not inclined to. It reminds me of a brownie with raisins, and that was not a gastronomical experience worth being repeated.
Thanks for the recovered memory you asshole. I had a chunky about 40 years ago and it was the worst thing I’ve ever tasted and I’ve tasted things that would keep some folks awake at night.
22: Three months is nothing is candy-bar time.
@25: Oh, so you’re an unapologetic raisist.
Love all the raisins, Schmader.
It’s not the raisins, but the icky fake-chocolate taste. Chunkies have a terrible texture and no real chocolate flavor. Raisinettes (dark, esp.) are good. Chunky is grody.
@16 Idaho Spuds are a nice change-up from the regular candy bars, imho.
Idaho Spuds are horrible. Chocolate-covered pillow stuffing that your great-grandmother died on.
At one point Chunky had a plain – all chocolate version, or what passes for chocolate for Chunky. And even that was vile. So, you can’t blame it on the raisins.
It could be that the chocolate used for Chunky’s tastes like last years cheap hollow Easter chocolate recycled*, or it could be that a percentage of the population doesn’t associate candy bars with raisins in every bite.
*There is nothing wrong with cheap hollow Easter chocolate, my dislike of it is a fault of my own taste buds. Or, the unbreakable association I have between hollow Easter candy and peeps.
Low quality ingredients make for an inferior product. Primarily the shit chocolate that Nestle uses (which by the way is harvested by children slaves) is grainy and has a terrible mouth-feel.
Bit O Honeys don’t taste like jail. But they do jail to your teeth.
@11: raisins are reject fruit. Do not want.
@16 is right. I’d rather be Chunkyboarded than look at an Idaho Spud.
@34: OM, you’re a raisist, too?!
What has this world come to?!
Perhaps in the ensuing 80 or so years, the flavors of “chocolate” have changed to the over-sugared (HFCS?) chemically infused flavorings that we now call “good.” Way back when, not every chocolate bar was as sweet as milk chocolate. (That’s why most of them are gone.) We are the generation of Honeycomb cereal and Screaming Yellow Zonkers. A larger number of people my parent’s age really liked a dark, less sweet and drier chocolate.
Besides, I’m sportin’ a chubby just thinking about going to the store to buy one due to the Pavlovian response to the photo. Loved them as a kid. Haven’t had one in years.
Dear god! Chunky how I loathe you! Chunky brings back the wretched memory of my grandmother. The she-hell-hound would walk us to the grocery store to spend our allowance when she used to baby sit us. We wanted to buy real candy, but instead she’d say, “No, get this. This is better. This has dried fruit and nuts in it. It’s good for you.” Our response, “Ewwww, no! It’s gross!” Her reply, “It’s delicious” (she’d never tried one.) “It’s chocolate with healthy things in it. You’re getting this one.” Then she’d snatch our money out of our little hands and buy the nasty chunky bar. It was the only candy she gave us or let us buy. Until her death it was the only candy we ever got (barring holidays).
I hate Chunky and my (deceased) grandma with the heat of a thousand suns. Dear god I hate them.
But all dear Grandpa was doing was showing his overweight granddaughter concern for her health! I mean, she never would have known about her little problem if it weren’t for the fact that Gramps called her Chunky and then made it a public affair. Child abuse?? THE FAT ASS DESERVED IT.
Aw Lindy. :(. Idaho Spuds are my favorite candy besides Chick-O-Sticks. I don’t know what’s better – the thin chocolate coconut shell or the grey vanilla sugar puff in the center formed with agar agar seaweed.
(Yes, that is an accurate description of Idaho Spuds, and yes, they’re yummy. Bartell’s sells them and lots of other nommy indie candies.)
The problem is….most of the Chunky bars you come across are probably FROM the 1930’s.
I had never had one of these before either….when the lady at the liqour store reccomended them ( I am a cook, I live on sugar and beer ) DISGUSTING.
I’ll take a Payday or a chico-stick over one of those ANY DAY!
Idaho Spuds are motherfucking ambrosia, Lindy. NECCO wafers taste like spoiled fennel toothpaste.
Raisins do not belong in candy.
Chick-O-Stick FTW!!