Regional Specialties - Candy Bars?
 

I was munching on a Peanut Butter Club Sandwich this evening, and realized I don't ever remember seeing them outside of Northeast PA. These bars are two saltine like crackers with peanut butter between them and then enrobed in chocolate.

I got to thinking, what other types of regional candy bars, like the Club Sandwich, are out there that someone visiting an area should try?

Not exactly what you're looking for, but if you like Kit Kat bars, they are sooo much better in Canada than they are here in the States. The chocolate is far superior.

I'm not looking for anything in particular, just interesting candy bars for people to try as they travel.

You are soooo right, Canadian Kit Kat bars are much better then US Kit Kat bar :)

I don't know exactly where they came from, but one of my FT Secret Santas sent a package of Hershey's Milk Chocolate Bars with Green Tea Creme. They are about 1x6" and are divided into pieces filled with a green tea flavored cream (think York peppermint patty consistency). The package says they are manufactured in Dubai, but the writing on the bars looks more like Chinese than Arabic - not that I would be able to read either. Definitely worth trying if you ever see them!

My absolute favorite were the toasted coconut covered marshmellows! Don't know if they were a midwest thing but I can't find them anymore.:(

And a peanut butter club sandwich? I've never heard of that. Who makes them???

They are made by Costas Foods Inc in Pottsville, PA and are very addicting.

Yes!
 

Have never found anything like them. Great!

I love Canadian candies as well and stock up on them when I am there. Off Topic: I stock up on Canadian Red Rose tea as well.

Have you tried a Goo Goo Cluster? This was the local Nashville specialty when I was growing up. Caramel, marshmallow and peanuts (or pecans, in the Supreme version) slathered with chocolate. Like a Turtle on steroids. I haven't had one in years, because I like my fillings to stay where they are.

In Europe, they have Kinder bars, which are casual (not fancy) chocolate, but for some reason, more delicious than the regular chocolate bars (e.g. Hershey's) here.

I like Canadian Smarties (like m&ms).

Crispy Crunch -- only available in Canada -- they're the BEST!! Aero bars are great too -- especially the mint ones -- but I've seen them in the States too -- but never the Crispy Crunch.

Does anyone have the dark and white chocolate Kit Kats as well as the regular were they live?
Minnesota introduced the Milky Way candy bar in 1923. Mars marketed the Snickers bar in 1930 and introduced the 5 cent Three Musketeers bar in the year 1937. It has never occurred to me that they might not sell these candy bars in every state.

I haul Coffee Crisp, Kit Kat, Smarties and Aero bars (dark, mint, regulur, chunky) into the US for friends ~ and ~ bring Pay Day bars back :cool:

I love aniseed candies -- and I've brought them back from south Pacific and UK destinations. They are hard to find in Canada -- not sure about the US.

I hauled a bunch of Hokey Pokey back from NZ only to have my offspring declare that is was 'zackly like a Crunchie bar (sponge toffee). I also brought 4 'L&P' soft drinks back (like Sprite or 7-Up but with a HUGE citrus kick) thinking it would be awesome with Canadian Rye Whiskey ~ I can't comment if it was or not --- the same wicked offspring drank them and begged for more.

Does anyone have the dark and white chocolate Kit Kats as well as the regular were they live? And peanut butter and caramel and maple and chunky ....:D

It's funny, Goo Goo Clusters were the first thing I thought of when I saw the OP. :cool:

I also enjoy some of the various KitKat flavors I find when I'm in Asia, and appreciate when friends bring them from their travels, too. And then there's Pocky... :)

Absolutely! Those mint Aero bars north of the border are indeed the best. And the fact that they come pumped up with air bubbles lessens the guilt trip.

And what's a trip to Canada without Glossettes....which blow the doors off Raisinettes. Or how about a gross ol' Big Turk bar.....better living through Canadian chemistry!

I like the Violet Crumble from Australia

and I'm not sure if you'd consider them candy bars, but here in Texas you can get really good pralines at the Tex Mex restaurants! :D

When in Switzerland, raid the chocolate section at a local COOP. Their store-brand chocolate is fantastic, especially the organic dark.

Other than that, get anything from Callier (sp?), Chocolate Frey or even Lindt. You wouldn't believe the difference between what Lindt sells in Switzerland and elsewhere, even if the label is identical...

In Germany, just go to Aldi (they have 4,000 stores in Germany, should be easy to find anywhere) and buy their Moser-Roth chocolates and pralines, especially before Christmas. Great quality, low prices.

I also thought of GooGoo's as soon as I saw this topic. I remember being disappointed in them. When we first arrived in Knoxpatch 20 years ago, we were given a box of them, maybe 24 in the box and I threw out 20. 4 kids and none would eat a second one.

I'm more a fan of long gone or almost gone candy like the Nestle Skybar or Necco Wafers or b-b-bats or Sugar Daddys.

Most candy bars overseas taste better than their USA equivalents. I was not aware of this until after marrying a Brit. She prefers candy from England, and she's exactly correct. A Mars Bar from England beats the equivalent Milky Way in the USA by about a mile. The Bounty Bar in England tastes so much better than the Almond Joy in the USA.

Even the soda pops in Europe are better than in the USA. My friends in Germany say they cannot stand to drink cola beverages in the USA because they can taste the chlorine in the water we use to make the drink. Well, guess what, so can I! It's especially noticeable on your very first soda when you get to Europe, and of course on your very first one when you get back to the USA.

What about the fact that we use High Fructose Corn Syrup instead of Sucrose (table sugar or just sugar) in candies and sodas?

End the embargo on Cuba and stop subsidizing corn and see what happens to our food.

Bassetts Jelly Babies and wine gums. Even though we can get them here in Australia, they taste BETTER if bought from the UK. Unique Australian? Tim Tams. Mum was sending me care packages when I lived in the UK made up entirely of Tim Tams and Natural Confectionary jellies - neither of which lasted very long once word got around the expat aussies at college taht I had a stash.

Mmmm - can your mom send me a care package? ;) I tried Tim Tams for the first time when we were in Australia in December, and brought 3 packages home with me to the U.S. They are so good, and I like how I can justify to myself that they are a tea biscuit, and not a candy bar....

[QUOTE=TIMP;9329120]Unique Australian? Tim Tams. QUOTE]

I get Tim Tam care packages from family in Aus ~ (rewards for being a GREAT Auntie, I'm told :D ) but we have a variety available here called Arnott's Biscuits and guess what?! Tim Tams by another name ;)

Two web sites to find some of those hard to find goodies

www:hometown favorites.com
has some of the older things we remember from past years

www.foodireland.com
has some of the canadian and european candies.

Fried Oreos are a personal favorite. They're at the fairs here in PA and I don't know where else...perhaps on the boardwalks.

I love Fran's Gold Bars...which I saw were sold at Whole Foods down in San Diego, too, so they might actually be more widely available than before. They're made in Seattle (or at least got their start here; I remember going to Fran's shop years ago, before you could get her stuff in other stores).

Love the KitKats in Japan...but oddly, never thought to try any in Canada. I'll have to give them a go! ^

And hokey pokey...I've been making them using Nigella Lawson's recipe and it's pretty daggone easy to do. Although I am still finding bits in mystical places in my kitchen, where the first smack on them with a mallet scattered pieces far and wide.

I have been wanting to order the original flavor hula hoops from foodireland but they are out of stock every time I check!

[QUOTE=YYCWoMaN;9330011]It was a friend from Canada who first turned me on to TimTams. FYI, she bought them at her local grocery store in BC and they were packaged as TimTams.

Luckily I found a few spots in NYC that now carry them. ^

Before that I had them shipped in from of all places.....Arkansas :D

Coffee Crisp afficianados, never fear: http://www.coffeecrisp.org/coffeecrisp/sightings.asp is here. You can find locations by state. The site started a petition in 2000 to bring Coffee Crisp to the U.S., and was successful. Other countries have other flavor variations: caramel, triple mocha, french vanilla, orange, maple, etc. -- even yogurt and ice cream. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffee_Crisp

From their "News" page: "2006
Nestle Launches www.Nestle-CoffeeCrisp.com:
Along with their US launch, the folks at Nestle created Nestle-CoffeeCrisp.com. The site lists several chains carrying Coffee Crisp as well as a request form for the public to petition their local store into stocking Coffee Crisp.

Nestle Sells Coffee Crisp Nationally:
During the early summer of 2006 the petition received tips that Nestle might finally be marketing Coffee Crisp nationwide. The rumor was confirmed when we were contacted by the firm responsble for marketing Coffee Crisp in the U.S. At long last, what the petition was created to do and made noise for six long years [since 2000] had finlly been achieved. To boot, as the only Coffee Crisp "fan" site on the web, Nestle was generous enough to ship the petition eight cases of Coffee Crisp bars, four of which we decided would be given away in a contest. "
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Now I go by British shops, and other ethnic stores influenced by that culture and find Chicken-flavo(u)red chips and other chocolates mentioned in this thread.
If I could only find Shreddies without going to www.canadianfavourites.com or http://www.canadaonly.ca/ or http://www.snowbirdhelper.com/canadian_foods.htm (the new home for www.alwayscanadian.com) or www.britishdelights.com . Wikipedia says they are "sold in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada and New Zealand". That new rule about charging for an extra suitcase will -kill- me when trying to take 4+ boxes of the stuff back in my luggage at Christmas....
Nanaimo Bars I can make from scratch...

And the Belgian Chocolate they have. Heavenly.

Something totally different and from Minnesota, USA. Pearson's Salted Nut Roll.

Nothing screams "regional candy bar" more than the...


IDAHO SPUD! <---click me

Surprised no one has mentioned a Moon Pie. Even better, an RC Cola and a Moon Pie. :)

I clicked it, and now I have to ask the question. What on earth is an Idaho Spud?

I bought some recently at the Hershey's Store in Times Square - about $5 for a box of six bars.

I Googled the same question!

Cherry Ripe from Australia, cherry & coconut under dark chocolate; a friend from down-under would provide them to us for Australia Day (Jan. 26).

http://www.cadbury.com.au/sites/cadb....php?pageId=59

Minnesota Pearson's Candy Company sells Nut Goodies (a concoction of chocolate, maple, and peanuts) and Salted Nut Rolls only in the midwest. They also sell a mint patty nation-wide. All three are wonderful.

Years ago they used to also do a 7-up bar - a long chocolate bar with 7 little squares along it containing 7 different flavored (cherry, coconut, caramel, fudge, jelly, maple, and Brazil nut). Sort of like a little box of chocolates all in one. And that was back when my finances were severely limited so a big treat was to go to their outlet store and buy the seconds. A loose bag of these bars where the squares weren't lined up neatly enough or maybe there was a missing one or the bar was short. They came in both light and dark chocolate. Probably my all-time favorite, even the factory outlet "seconds".

Romelle

I know. Makes them really hard to get but they are still a great memory from my exchange student days in Apple Valley, MN.

at halloween, they sold bags of mixed miniature kit kats which included the white and dark versions, but i've never been able to find single, full sized bars of dark or white on the west coast. i'm a fan of the dark chocolate ones. I think they only sell it in certain markets.

I miss the old Marathon bars. we used to freeze them, then wack them on the counter into small pieces.

I love the Charleston Chews which are getting harder and harder to find.

We have buckeyes here too and those are addictive. I found a recipe to make homemade.

As far as other regional things, my SILs are from Cali and turned me on to Mothers cookies! Here they are called Archway but she still has her family send her the real originals.

Strawberry Kit Kat (regional marketed)

Cherry Mash (southern US)