What’s for Snack in YOUR Neck of the Woods? A Very Serious Discussion About Junk Foods

Chel Owens

America has a plethora of snack foods and desserts -or, so I have been told. My world traveling is nonexistent, so I feel inadequate at venturing an expert opinion. I have my suspicions whenever I shop, however. The section of Oreo cookies, alone, attests to …an unhealthy trend.

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Which leads to a topic that’s niggled at my curiosity (and appetite) for quite some time: what sorts of candy, sweets, and junk foods are ubiquitous, and which are unique to their area?

If I went to the store right now in the morning, I would see candy bars that include: Kit Kat, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, Hershey’s, Snickers, M&Ms, York Peppermint Patty, Whatchamacalit, Heath, Baby Ruth, Almond Joy, Butterfinger, Three Musketeers, Milky Way, Crunch bar, Mr. Goodbar, Caramello, 100 Grand, Mounds, Rolo, Twix, Payday, Dove…

Nestle and Mars Accused of Massive Candy-Bar Price-Fixing Conspiracy in Canada
©2021 Grub Street

Besides those listed, the candy aisle sells gums, candies, and chocolates. Snack aisles feature cookies, chips, crisps, nuts, crackers, and pretzels. I feel inundated with options, so much so that I don’t know which might be unique to mention.

Do you have Cornnuts where you live?

Cornnuts.com

What about chocolate-covered cinnamon bears? Peanut butter-filled pretzels? Caramel popcorn drizzled in white and milk chocolate? Gummy candies that look like a mouth but taste like wax?

This requires some serious thought.

So, what is a snack or junk food you’ve heard I might have? What’s a snack or junk food you only have around you?

—————-

I’ve not kept up on this, so here are my writings for the past week:

Friday, January 22: Why, a poem addressing my writer’s block.

Monday, January 25: Shared a quote by John Mark Green.

Tuesday, January 26: Encouraged y’all to be thinking about entering Carrot Ranch’s special fundraiser writing contest in honor of Sue Vincent.

Wednesday, January 27: Today

I’ve mostly given up on it, but there’s some stuff on my motherhood site as well.

©2021 Chelsea Owens

72 thoughts on “What’s for Snack in YOUR Neck of the Woods? A Very Serious Discussion About Junk Foods”

  3. A big difference between there and New Zealand is that we don’t use the word “candy” – although we know what it means. We call most confectionary “lollies”. Some candy I believe you might call a lollipop or lolly but we call everything (not chocolate) lollies. Your list didn’t seem to be that different in names from ours, although I’ve never heard of corn nuts. Having said that, I haven’t been down the lolly aisle in a store for maybe twenty years, so am not an expert! At Christmas and Easter I get some chocolate, but that’s usually at the entrance of the supermarket for a seasonal temptation. I would prefer a cold sausage to a lolly!

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Very interesting! I think you need to check out the lollies section for an update. 🙂

      Very locally, we refer to lollipops as “suckers.” ‘Candy’ is definitely a general term, used for everything from chocolate bars to jellybeans -although I believe most people use it for non-chocolate sweets. (And, again, we don’t really use ‘sweets’ to refer to sugar treats.)

      Myself, I like to eat chocolate as my sugar indulgence.

      Liked by 2 people

    2. Said like a true Kiwi. We Aussies are with you on lollies but we are fighting a losing battle with the increasing US hegemony over our language. Gee, that’s hard work on the barricades. Got a spare cold sausage? 🙂

      Liked by 1 person

      1. WordPress used to allow for both spellings of words either side of the Atlantic (and the Pacific). Now it underlines in red everything that is not spelt the American way. Maybe I pressed a button somewhere – but I used to like the way we all spelled our own cultural way and everyone on either side accepted it.

        Liked by 1 person

  6. Unique to my home State in Australia is the frog cake https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frog_cake and Golden North ice cream https://goldennorth.com.au/product/150ml-giant-twins-honey/ and Fruchocs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FruChocs and of course the incomparable Haig’s Chocolates https://www.haighschocolates.com.au/chocolates-landing . In Australia generally we have the ever-surviving Golden Gay Time https://www.streetsicecream.com.au/brands/golden-gaytime/golden-gaytime-.html and of course the favorite of pre-teen boys visiting the swimming pool, the Polly Waffle https://lookaside.fbsbx.com/lookaside/crawler/media/?media_id=1696725550570145

    Liked by 1 person

  8. Hmmm….We have so much here I can’t imagine not being able to find any snack. Even my dinky market has a British aisle, and I think every nationality has some sort of retail shop. But the snack that I’m guessing is truly nyc are black and white cookies

    Liked by 1 person

    1. 😀 😀 We are woefully inadequate in that category, especially if you keep in mind that we have a very large group of Hispanic peoples in Utah! I could suck it up and go to a specifically-Hispanic market and stop complaining…

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  10. I don’t eat snacks anymore, but I used to like popcorn. I would make it myself. Also corn chips while on the road. They seemed cheaper than potato chips. And donuts. Economically by the dozen.

    After my health issues I changed my diet. No corn. No sugar. No meat. That seemed to work. Now I eat nuts such as walnuts and a few dried figs between two meals of the day. I get these at Costco and, although I don’t have a spreadsheet to prove it, I think I spend a lot less on food now than I did in the past. Of course I weighed a lot more in the past.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. It’s amazing how much potato chips and donuts do NOT fill me up. I eat them like candy, notice their effect, then go off them for a while.

      I’m certain your spending and health have improved by your change in diet.

      Liked by 1 person

  11. I have given up on eating a bag of chips/crisps a day. I miss them, but my health needs to get better. I do eat air popped popcorn (no salt or butter). It satisfies the need for crunch and is low in calories!

    Liked by 1 person

  13. I really want Cornnuts now. I used to eat them all the time when I was a kid, but haven’t found them anywhere except at a single gas station in Pennsylvania even though I now live about an hour away from where I grew up. As for other snack foods, well, I haven’t been in a market, or really any other kind of store, in almost a year, so I only know what exists in my imagination. A delicious lumpy thing of chocolate, cake, and cookies.

    Liked by 1 person

      1. No, but maybe I should. All the crunching would be perfect for drowning out screaming kids. Temporarily, but I’ll take it. Very un-ratioed, but hopefully as delicious as I keep thinking it will be.

        Liked by 1 person

  15. I’ve heard of almost all of these! But I’m post half of those Oreo flavours are no sold in Canada! Oh, just remembering the day I could freely travel to the states and pick up some key items I couldn’t buy here? Your 0 calorie Minute Maid cans were always on my list (not to be confused with our diet ones 🤮) and cinnamon chocolate chips!! I can’t get those here but I crave them all the time.

    Hmmm favorite Canadian snacks? Poutine would be one. Another would be New Bothwell cheese which is so good it has quite literally made me gag on all other cheeses. Our smarties are better that any we buy in the USA, the actually taste good here! And in my opinion coffee is much better here 😃

    Liked by 1 person

  18. This post made me want a candy bar or bag of potato chips. Sadly, I don’t eat sugar or carbs, so that wipes out just about everything fun to eat. I can’t think of anything “unusual” we have around here, though you can get any flavor of jerky on the planet. 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

      1. I do chop up a quarter of an apple in my salad. And I eat crab and eggs. No bread, pasta, potatoes, or anything sweet. My hubs and I have been on the Keto diet for 2+ years. Hubby lost 85 pounds and was able to get off all his meds. Neither of us have even had a cold since we started this. All good…. but no candy. 😦

        Liked by 1 person

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