Monday night brings us the ultimate test for your taste buds. Which is the winner? Salty or sweet?
Now for some, it could be both. While I tend to favour salty and really like potato chips, combining that with the taste of milk chocolate can be quite amazing. Taste buds start doing back flips in my mouth. But if I have to make a choice, it would be salt over sweet.
Treat size bags of potato chips should probably be considered one of the great inventions of all time. Sure, they seemed a bit small. This was at a time when you could buy a small bag of chips for a nickel. And there was a larger size for a dime. Someone came up with a slightly smaller sized one for Halloween. Although maybe they just started using the nickel size for Halloween. They did start to disappear around that time. And my memory is getting a little fuzzy around the edges.
But the treat sized bags of chips and cheezies saved us from things like apples and raisins. No kid really wanted those anyway. Even if those days, there would be warnings about checking candy and apples for foreign objects, especially apples. But honestly, no kid was eating an apple he had carried around the neighbourhood in a pillow case for a couple hours, bumping of trees and rocks and walkways. By the time you got home they weren’t really apples. They were bruises inside apple skins.
Or molasses kisses. I don’t know anyone who really liked them. They would end up being saved for last. Although I honestly grew to like them, largely because I knew my children didn’t care if I stole them out of the treat bag. They were still at the bottom of the list, although a Halloween classic in many ways.
And the little chocolate bars. Another great invention. Full marks to whoever invented those.
In some cases, you might find someone who handed out homemade fudge or candy apples. While candy apples are often a good test of the strength of your teeth, they are tasty. Although really sticky.
I guess rockets and sweet tarts and things like that would probably fall under the sweet part, even though the sour part kind of over rides the sweet. Still a lot of sugar involved.
But Halloween treats have certainly evolved over the years. And that’s a good thing. Bruised apples and molasses kisses left a little to be desired.
