Tag Archives: Chocolate

S’mores: Giving America Yet Another Reason To Love Fire

Posted on April 28, 2015 | Leave a comment

“No, you see, they’re called S’Mores because you always WANT Some…”

~No, we get it, you don’t have to finish

Camping is as American of a tradition as you can find among middle class people who take delight in purposely leaving the comforts of world behind so they can sleep under a pitched piece of fabric and try to stave off their urge to use the bathroom until the weekend is over, taking advantage of our nation’s surplus of forested wilderness instead of burning it to the ground to put up the Walmart that, let’s be real, will work around zoning regulations eventually. And when we go camping, we’re almost guaranteed to run into two American activities—having outdoor intercourse interrupted by murdering monsters, and sticking a marshmallow into fire and smudging it on some chocolate between two graham crackers.

Today we’re going to tell you the history of the most American camping activity of the two. No, it’s not the slasher film thing. Let’s take a moment to nurse the soon-to-be-burned roof of our mouths as we talk about…

S’mores: Giving America Yet Another Reason To Love Fire

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The World’s Largest Candy (That You Can Buy Right Now)

Posted on March 31, 2015 | 2 comments

“*begins seizing from sugar overdose*”

~AFFotD’s official product taste tester

America loves candy so much that we wrote a kind of annoying song about how much we want it back in 1965, and we’ve not shut up about it since. There’s something comforting about mainlining sugar into your veins, no matter how often Japan tries to ruin the concept.

And, in the gluttonous nature of American know-how that we like to champion, America also loves giant food that doesn’t need to be quite so giant. Naturally, these two schools of thought have collided on many occasions, because a giant candy bar is much cooler than a giant stalk of celery, mom.

In this enterprising spirit, we’re here to salute America’s giant candy confections, but we’re not going to simply stick with some Guinness book of world records bullshit.

Sure, we could spend a few thousand words telling you about the 12,000 pound chocolate bar made by Chicago’s World Finest Chocolates, or the 7,000 pound lollipop made by See’s Candies out in Burlingame, California, but what good does that do you, the reader?

It might impress you, but does it give you the opportunity to go out, find something horribly unhealthy, and devour it in one sitting in what will probably prove to be the last and greatest mistake you ever made in your sugar-shortened life?

Hell no! So we’re going to stick with the world’s largest candy items that you, yes you, irresponsible you, can purchase this very moment.

After all, you’re an adult, you can and have eaten cake for breakfast because you make your own rules and, hey, we’re all going to die someday, and overdosing on sucrose doesn’t sound much worse than drowning.

The World’s Largest Candy (That You Can Buy Right Now)

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Posted in America's Best Foods, Strange Foods

Tagged America, Candy, Chocolate, gummi bear, gummy bear, gummy worm, Hershey's, Lollipop, Peppermint Patties, Snickers, Sugar, World's Largest

A History of the Chocolate Chip Cookie

Posted on February 5, 2014 | Leave a comment

“I rather do enjoy the taste of cookies, I find them quite divine.”

~Cookie Monster

We love chocolate chip cookies. You love chocolate chip cookies. The person right next to you in the heavy winter coat and fingerless gloves loves chocolate chip cookies so much they’re eating one right now, which, Jesus Christ, how did they get into your office? How did security even let that happen? What’s the point in having a keycard if any random vagrant can just sneak in to eat baked goods messily over your own keyboard? Why do their gloves not have fingertips anyway, it does so much less to warm your fingers than regular gloves, they don’t need to use smart phones, and you’d have to imagine if anything fingerless gloves cost more than full ones? Man, all this thinking has really worn you out, you’d better recharge with a chocolate chip cookie and a tall glass of milk.

Chocolate chip cookies, just like everything else that is delicious and makes life worth living, is an American invention, adding yet again to the list of dishes that are actually more American than apple pie. And since you’re in the middle of a New-Year-resolution-shame diet while reading this, what better way to make you abandon your foolishness and intake a days’ worth of empty calories by emptying a Chips Ahoy! box than to show numerous pictures of deliciousness while regaling you with the storied history of an American treasure. The chocolate chip cookie.

A History of the Chocolate Chip Cookie

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M&M’s Grossest Flavors of All Time

Posted on December 12, 2013 | 35 comments

“They melt in your heart, not in your OH MOTHER OF GOD SOMETHING HAS GONE HORRIBLY WRONG.”

~Rejected M&M slogan

In 1941, Forrest Mars, Sr., son of the Mars Company founder Frank C. Mars, patented a process for tempering a hard shell of chocolate around chocolate pellets in order to prevent the candies from melting. Production immediately began under the name M&M Limited (named for Mars and Bruce Murrie, the son of the president of Hershey’s chocolate with a 20% stake in the product), with an agreement to only use Hershey chocolate. These button-shaped candies exploded in popularity during the second World War due to their durability, and the shells were given bright colors such as yellow, green, red, and violet to go along with standard brown-colored shells. And with that, an American institution was created.

These “m” printed candies are now sold in over 100 countries, but remain the most popular to-go chocolate snack for Americans everywhere. The simple elegance of the coated milk chocolate delivers a burst of flavor with each individual candy, and just thinking about M&Ms while reading this article has you saying, “Goddamn it, I really want a bag of M&M’s right now.” And you should.

Throughout the years we’ve been sampling the best of America, we’ve learned through painful, gut-wrenching trial and error, that sometimes the best American ideas are cruelly marred by our at-times overzealous imaginations. Yes, the same good intentions and terrible execution that gave us Watermelon Oreos has befallen the perfection that is the M&M candy. And, as is our sworn duty, we are here to let you know that these mistakes exist, because it’s only when we see those we care about at their ugliest that we can truly learn to love their beauty. Or we just like telling you about terrifying candies. However you want to look at it.

M&M’s Grossest Flavors of All Time

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Posted in America's Greatest Fun Facts, Strange Foods

Tagged America, Bruce Murrie, Candy, Candy Corn, Cherry Cordial, Chocolate, coconut, Forrest Mars, Frank Mars, Hershey's, M&M, M&M's, Mars Bars, Mars Company, Mars Corporation, mounds, peanut butter, pumpkin spice, Revenge of the Fallen, Transformers, White Chocolate

Five of the World’s Strangest Chocolates

Posted on July 10, 2013 | Leave a comment

“I mean, sure, it’s good, but it’s BETTER when there’s booze inside of it.”

~American chocolate consumers

America loves chocolate more than just about everyone. Sure the Swiss might have us outgunned, but we still eat about 10 pounds of chocolate a year, per person. We don’t want to look it up because we have a specific AFFotD search engine that locks your computer for two days if you try to search for anything about vegetables, but we’ll just assume that this means Americans eat more chocolate every year than they do salad. You’d think chocolate is a relatively easy to acquire food item, but it’s actually surprisingly arduous to turn cacao beans into deliciousness—they’re naturally bitter, so they have to be fermented, dried, cleaned, and roasted before their shell is removed and the remaining nibs are ground into pure chocolate in its “rough” form, which is then separated into cocoa solids and cocoa butter, which is mixed in varying proportions, and often combined with sugar and milk.

If you stopped reading once you saw the word “fermented” while your mind drifted to visions of alcohol dancing in your head, well, it did for us too, so that’s totally understandable. The key is, chocolate is everywhere, and mankind has been ingesting it in one form or another since about 1400 BC, and while America doesn’t lay claim to any particularly revolutionary adaptation of it (with the possible exception of Hershey’s) just about every straight man in America has bought chocolate to appease their stressed out girlfriends, and most of them have subsequently gotten in trouble for saying something along the lines of, “Hey babe, this should help with the PMSing, right?”

It shouldn’t be surprising that we have more types of chocolate than “dark, milk, and white.” It’s not even surprising that some variations of chocolate might do a disservice to the original treat. We’re not here to focus on that. We’re here to tell you, the intrepid American who just finally finished the last of the base of your giant chocolate bunny you got for Easter, five of the strangest flavored chocolates in the world. Because you’ll probably want to eat a few of them, and you’ll definitely want to purposely avoid at least one.

Five of the World’s Strangest Chocolates

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Oreos: Encouraging Children to Play With Their Food Since 1912

Posted on March 20, 2012 | 1 comment

“What’s the deal with Oreos? More like WHORE-eos, amiright? This guy knows what I’m talking about!”

~Booo, you suck, get off the stage!

Recently, an American desert institution celebrated 100 years of tricking kids into drinking milk while making it easier for The Mighty Ducks to throw around racial jokes that have aged pretty poorly. Yes, soggy Oreos have been shoved down eager American gullets and made here in the grand U S of A since 1912. And what better way to celebrate this centennial with a good old fashioned fun fact about everyone’s cookie product (behind Girl Scout Cookie Thin Mints and Samoas ), the Oreo.

Tag Archives: Chocolate

S’mores: Giving America Yet Another Reason To Love Fire

The World’s Largest Candy (That You Can Buy Right Now)

The World’s Largest Candy (That You Can Buy Right Now)

M&M’s Grossest Flavors of All Time

Five of the World’s Strangest Chocolates

Oreos: Encouraging Children to Play With Their Food Since 1912

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