Candy Bar Crazy

So I'm reading a book called The Emperors of Chocolate: Inside the Secret World of Hershey and Mars. And it's great! Good journalism here, and the author was not lying about the "secret world" part. Confectionary espionage at every turn! Very exciting, as well as mouth-watering. I am getting a mini-history of many candy classics, like M&M's and the Milky Way, and also the KitKat.

Okay, so. I love crispy chocolate things. Nestle Crunch was one favorite when I was a kid. The other favorite was KitKat. I am sitting here with a mini KitKat chopped into chunks, in a tea cup by my keyboard. As I type, I lift the cup and sniff it, then put it down. The smell is sweet milky chocolate, and an addictive toasty caramelized sugar note. That comes from the wafers. Amazing. Feeling a little high off of it.

Here's a sample of what Cybele - proprietrix of CandyBlog - has to say about KitKat:

"Japan is known for cars, Japan is known for electronics. Japan is known for cute. Japan is also home to some of the best KitKats in the world (okay, and some of the worst, but this is the price of innovation and an example of the bell curve)."

For example, some of the Japanese KitKat flavors are red bean soup, yuzu citrus, vanilla bean, strawberry banana yogurt, white chocolate, bitter chocolate, and green tea.

I just tasted an American peanut butter KitKat a few days ago. (Reading the book is driving me wild. I have so far sampled a Snickers, a 100 Grand, a Babe Ruth, two varieties of KitKat, Lindt 85%, 3 bags of almond M&M's and a very compelling Milky Way.) Who knows what bars I will ingest before the book is finished. I am reading at a feverish pace to conclude this unusual mouthwatering-ness.

In short, books really can be dangerous. CandyBlog had an article about Venezulan Chuao chocolate laced with crunchy sea salt granules and Japanese panko flakes. OMFG. My next book will be about something inedible. Perhaps it will be The Pursuit of Perfection, by Rothman.