The square dancing of candy versus sheer greatness.

The Washington State Legislature is about to make the most important
decision of 2009. This decision has nothing to do with the viaduct or
Sound Transit or education or arts budgets. No. What Washington
lawmakers are poised to decide is whether or not the locally made,
powdered-sugar-covered confection Aplets & Cotlets should be
declared the official candy for the state of Washington.

Food-loving people of the Pacific Northwest: We cannot let this
happen.

House Bill 1024 states that Aplets & Cotlets would be the
perfect state candy because “the tree fruit industry is a vital part of
the state’s economy” and “Aplets and Cotlets have been produced in
Washington for over seventy years and identify Washington State to
consumers worldwide.” The bill also recognizes that it’s time for
Washington to declare a state candy because the “legislature has
designated specific symbols in a number of categories as the official
representative for the state of Washington.”

I agree that it’s time to declare a state candy—it’d be fun,
and it’d support the idea of a vibrant (and tasty) Northwest food
culture. We already have a state tree (western hemlock), bird (willow
goldfinch), fish (steelhead trout), even a state gem, dance, and fossil
(petrified wood, square dance, and Columbian mammoth, respectively).
But if Washington officially claims any candy at all, we cannot let it
be goddamn Aplets & Cotlets.

Just look at that pitiful list of official symbols. They all suck.
The fish is ugly, and there’s no way petrified wood should count as a
“gem.” And square dance? Seriously?

Are we going to add to that list a messy, globby pile covered in
powdered sugar that sticks to your teeth? Do we really want to brag to
the world about our love of unsophisticated fruit-flavored goo?

This isn’t the first time the legislature has been faced with this
issue: In 2001, a bill to make Tacoma-produced Almond Roca the state
candy was presented and denied. Thank Christ. Although tasty, Almond
Roca looks like something left in a cat box. That is not what we want
people to think of when they think of Washington State.

The introduction of this new bill has reignited the heated debate:
Almond Roca or Aplets & Cotlets? Cat poo or sugar goo? As if those
two sweets were our only choices.

Legislators of Washington are sadly overlooking far better options,
options that are a bit classier, more elegant, yet still fantastic
representatives of our culture and economy. Frango chocolates, for
instance, in their variety of flavors, have been a Northwest tradition
since 1918 (it says so right on the famous six-sided box). They were originally created by and for the department store
Frederick & Nelson, which went out of business in 1992. Then the Bon
Marche bought the recipe, continuing to manufacture and carry Frangos
through its evolution into Macy’s. Throughout many
decades of changes, tasty little Frango chocolates have
survived—that’s how awesome and beloved they are. Even though the
candy has gone national with Macy’s, the Northwest version is still
manufactured by local company Seattle Chocolates, and their roots lie
right here. Plus, they’re motherfucking delicious.

But maybe Frango chocolates have gotten away from us a little bit,
being no longer exclusive to the Northwest. What about Seattle-made
Fran’s Chocolates salted caramels? They’re pricey little treats (about
$6.50 for three), but they’re handmade in small batches and worth every
cent. With their pungent smoked or gray salt delicately sprinkled on
top, Fran’s are the best chocolate caramels I have ever eaten. They’re
gorgeous and delicious, sophisticated but indulgent. Their ingredients
personify what Washington is all about—the smooth caramel and
chocolate represents the dairy farms in Eastern Washington, while the
salt nods to the smell of the air as it wafts in from Puget Sound. And
just like Washington State itself, the salted caramels are dualistic in
nature—familiar and conservative on the inside with an
invigorating, progressive rind of spice on the edge.

Fran’s doesn’t have the same history as
Frango chocolates,
Almond Roca, or Aplets & Goddamn Cotlets, but founder Fran Bigelow
has been making candy professionally for 25 years and the company is
dedicated to using as many locally found ingredients as
possible—for example, Fran’s gets its cream from Fresh Breeze
Organic Dairy in Lynden and its peppermint from Yakima. (Also worth
noting: Both Barack and Michelle Obama have named Fran’s dark chocolate
with smoked salt caramels as their personal faves.)

Washington State is a state of innovators—Bill Gates, Kurt
Cobain, Jimi Hendrix. It’s time for our candy to reflect just how far
Washington State has come. We’re no longer as boring as petrified wood.
Our candy shouldn’t be either. recommended

This article has been updated since its original publication.

Megan Seling is The Stranger's managing editor. She mostly writes about hockey, snacks, and music. And sometimes her dog, Johnny Waffles.

101 replies on “Neither Cat Poo nor Sugar Goo”

  1. I prefer the Frangos. Not to nitpick but your history is a bit off. F&N developed the recipe and sold it to Bon when they went under. Now Macy’s owns the recipe and exclusive rights to the name. Fredericks did not evolve into the Bon. They were always competitors.

  2. I would vote for Fran’s salted caramels without question, but I also have to defend Aplets and Cotlets as being delicious, albeit weird. Almond Roca breaks what’s left of my teeth, so I have to abstain.

  3. Looking at the history of Frangos on wikipedia it just seems a bit to screwed up to name it the official candy of Washington.

    Almond Roca is still produced in its original location at the Brown & Haley factory in Tacoma. Their website states it can be found in 63 countries around the world.

    Personally I say have the Mountain Bar as the official candy. Now that is a good piece of candy.

  4. Aplets and Cotlets are strange, and they are unique. And they are made in a factory in the tiny town of Cashmere, Washington. For this, they are the most Washingtonian of all the Washington symbols, and deserve to be the State Candy, for no reason other than their very Washingtonness.

  8. umm, Frangos have been a Chicago wonder for many, many years, manufactured in the loop at the Marshall Field’s building for decades. So go find something else to prop up your egos with.

  9. Aplets and Cotlets are my favorite candy in the world. Every year I get myself a box of them for my birthday–usually I can get them at my local Armenian market in Watertown, but I discovered them in the great state of Washington and initially got them from a friend in Seattle. They are a subtle and elegant version of the classic candy Turkish Delight (which makes a famous appearance in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe). Turkish Delight is scented with rosewater and thickly coated with confectioners sugar. Aplets and Cotlets are less sweet and only delicately dusted with powdered sugar; they offer the walnuts and fragments of apple and apricot flesh that give them texture to American palates too often seduced by the sheer salt/sugar/fat appeal of candy bars and filled chocolates to our uninstructed hormones. The Aplet and above all the Cotlet will teach you, if you listen to your senses, the delicacy of your own taste buds and make you pause in your frantic push towards dinner and bedtime to savor the fine differences between those ancient fruits of the Fertile Crescent, beloved by Adam and Eve, the Witch of Endor and the BVM.

  10. I agree with “Candy” that the Mountain Bar would have to be my personal favorite Washingtonian treat. They have been manufactured by Brown & Haley in Tacoma since 1915 to somehow reflect Mt. Rainier… And they are wonderfully delicious in their own, almost too sweet to handle way. Unfortunately like the Roca, these treats resemble piles of dog crap. What is with BROWN & Haley in that sense???

  11. Frangos were originated in good old Seattle Washington and the name only was borrowed by Marshall Fields in Chicago – the chocolates have always been different. This is the 90th anniversary of the Frango in Seattle. I vote Frango.

  16. PS @ 1 You are not nitpicking a story when you point out a glaring factual error. You are instead providing services that The Stranger’s fact checking department clearly cannot provide. F&N was direct competitor to both Nordstrom and the Bon Marche. The Bon chose to keep Frangos alive by buying the recipe from F&N. Cheers to the Bon and jeers to MS and The Stranger’s editors for not fact checking her story

  18. Seattle Chocolates is clearly the only choice. Not only is the chocolate absolutely delish but the packaging is AMAZING! Has anyone seen the new space needle box? Now that should be on the desks of each of our legislators as well as in the home of every proud Washingtonian. I propose that the PEOPLE decide and the choice (as well as samples) be available in the next election.

  19. To be Sung to the tune of our state song “Washington my Home”

    This is my candy
    God gave it to me
    I will enjoy it, ever so tasty!
    Small towns and cities
    Enjoy this yum yum!
    Filled with our laughter
    Thy Will be done

    Aplets and Cotlets my candy!
    Where I be dandy!
    This is my candy my native candy
    Aplets and Cotlets my candy!
    With powdered sugar coat
    A sweet delicious note
    From mountain peaks to fields of wheat
    Aplets and Cotlets my candy!

    There’s peace we feel and understand
    In Liberty Orchards tasty brand
    We greet the day with our tummies full
    And never does that taste grow dull
    As happy as can be!
    With our delicous candy!
    This is my treat my tasty candy
    Aplets and Cotlets my candy
    This is my treat my native candy
    APLETS AND COTLETS MYYYYY CANNNNNDYYYYYY!

    Woo! By the Square Dancing rules! Shout out to the Tall Boys at the Tractor!!! woo!

  20. Aplets and Cotlets!

    (1) It’s impossible to go to Cashmere and not be utterly charmed by the fine folks at Liberty Orchards.

    (2) In this day and age we have to choose a candy that doesn’t cost over $2 a piece. Did you see Obama’s inaugural speech?!?

  22. As a child visiting all my relatives in Washington, we would bring my Grandma a Coffee Crisp bar from Canada (also over-the-counter codeine pills that we have here, but that’s another story). She, in return, would provide me with Aplets & Cotlets. They may not be sophisticated, haute-cuisine or even the best tasting candy ever, but the flavour takes me back to my childhood instantly. There is no doubt that they are the true candy of Washington in one perfect tooth-sticking bite!

  28. Frangos are awesome, but a bad pick. Frangos are made in, sold in, and loved by Chicago. Most Seattlites don’t even know what they are. Even though the originals were invented here, the majority of their history is in Chicago, and choosing them as a Washington State symbol would seem to dredge up sour feelings from having local dept stores and their products bought up by larger companies from larger cities (although somewhat ironically, Marshall Fields in Chicago has recently been taken over by Macy’s).

  29. Thanks to those who pointed out my mistake regarding Frederick & Nelson’s. We have updated the story to reflect the fact that F&N did, in fact, go out of business and the Bon Marche bought the Frango recipe from them. We regret the error.

  30. Applets and Cotlets used to be WAY WAY better. There used to be more fruity-ness and more nuts. Now they are a mass produced shell of their earlier form back in the 70s.

  31. I love Aplets & Cotlets, also Berry Delights and Fruit Delights. Also, I think Frangos (Chicago, at least) are now made by the Gertrude Hawk Chocolate company of Dunmore, PA.

  32. I love frangos. I love giving them as gifts and I have been known to eat a whole box on my own. But because they have a tie to Chicago it wouldn’t quite work as a state candy.
    There is something kind of cool about aplets and cotlets. It has such a sweet American story. Started by immigrants, they decided to make something that was from their childhood and they have kept going for a million years. Plus I like them a lot. I even get people who aren’t into turkish delight to like these. They are good with really strong tea.
    Plus they won’t cost you a possible trip to the dentist like the damn almond roca will.

  33. Aplets & Cotlets and Almond Roca are delicious and always remind me of living in Washington. I go out of my way to find them over the holidays as my entire family feels similarly…either or both, as a born and bred Washingtonian, well, I don’t really care so long as I can still buy them across state lines.

  34. why do all the nw candies resemble feces? Mountain Bar, Almond Roca, and if you break open the Cotlet it looks like undigested fruit-

  35. Frangos come from Chicago, not Seattle. They were manufactured on the top floor of the original Marshall Field’s department store (featured in the film epic, “Mannequin,” remember the hanggliding scene?) Field’s started manufacturing them in the 19th century, long before anyone in Seattle ever heard of them. Also, Macy’s does not own the recipe – it was purchased by Hershey’s in (I believe) 1996 or so, and as a result, the quality of the candy went down the drain. I was living in Chicago when it happened, and it was huge news that all those sweet old ladies who had been making these delights for decades were now going to be unemployed.

  36. There’s still a Northwest version of Frango’s made in Seattle by a the same company who makes Seattle Chocolates (which are basically Frango’s in shiny, different colored wrappers).

    So it’s true some Frango’s are made in Chicago, but some are still made here in the Northwest.

  37. This article wouldn’t be happening if Aplets and Cotlets were produced in Western WA rather than Eastern WA. Typical Seattle “fuck you Eastern Washington” snobbery.

  38. I grew up on the east side of the state; Almond Roca and I never played nice, and I didn’t hear of Aplets and Cotlets until practically out of college. But I *did* know about (and majorly consume) Mountain Bars! Sure, they look way more like a steaming turd than even Almond Roca does; but that’s one tasty turd, and a true Washington original!

  39. Megan, you are totally right. Aplets and Cotlets cannot be our State candy for the same reason Almond Roca cannot: they’re icky. Frangos could be our State candy; they’re wonderful for sure, but the Bon lawsuit and weirdness therein makes them a more complicated pick than the pure heaven that is Fran’s Chocolates caramels. Those babies are worth their weight in salt.

  43. Dear god, Megan! Give it up. The Stranger doesn’t have to go all “I’m so fucking sophicisticated ‘cuz I live on Capitol Hill and drink doppio machiattos” on everything!

    Look: the hicks of Washington want apples and–what, fucking cots?–named as the state candy. What ever! You don’t have to have a goddamned protest for every stupid thing that offends your stuck-up hippy-shit sensibilities!

    This is the first year I didn’t purchase heavily in StrangerCrombie. Why? Because the Stranger continues to be fucking ridiculous about the superiority of the Capitol Hill and Belltown neighborhoods over the Eastside. And my response? Fuck off. You want me to vote for gay rights? You got it. (Hell, you deserve it.) Marijuana legalization? No problem. Freaking stupid protest measures? Sure, why not, tell the idiots in Oly a thing or two about the block party mentality.

    But can’t you give them the fucking state candy? IT DOES NOT MATTER ONE WHIT. Don’t sweat the small stuff. Really. Save your indignation for the fight to make Naked Vegan Lesbian Ganja day into a state holiday.

  44. Retail refugee: Re-read the article. They don’t claim F&N morphed into the Bon, but that the Bon morphed into Macy’s.

    And BakerB…they may be available there, but they originated HERE.

  46. What a waste of print space. A lot going on of importance and this is utterly irrelevant. Work for a local TV station if you want to put forward stories like this. The Stranger should be news.

  47. Do we really have to choose? So many of the comments posted here are negative. I’ll tell you what – if you put a basket of candy in front of me right now – there were aplets and cotlets and frangoes and fran’s salted caramels and almond roca – I’d definitely eat one of each. These are all good, can’t we just enjoy them all? They’d each make my Washington Candy Hall of Fame.

  48. Either Frangos or Almond Roca is better than those nasty gummy Aplets and Cotlets. And the state gem should be the Ellensburg Blue Agate.

  49. I’ve lived in Washington my entire life and love candy; how is it even remotely possible that I’ve never had a mountain bar? I must seek one out tomorrow.

    Furthermore, yeah, what the fuck with “you are now entering green apple maggot quarantine area”? I remember passing that sign an infinite number of times throughout childhood, and still am not really sure what that’s about.

  50. Also, Aplets and Cotlets may not be chic, nor very tasty, but they sure are Washingtonian. As a born-and-raised Western Washingtonian, I have to say that probably not all of Washington agrees that smoked-and-salted caramel is the essence of our state. However, I’d bet that at least 96% would agree that salted caramel beats the shit out of A&C in a deliciousness contest.

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