A Big Bowl of Polish Candy

is there a nurse standing by

this stuff is distinctly non-FDA approved

The gelatin one sounds a lot like those kosher-for-passover chocolate jelly things (which I don't much care for) - know what I'm talking about?

Roshen is a big Ukrainian company fwiw, and I notice some of those have cyrillic letters meaning they are probably not polish.

I want the apricot one so bad.

These do seem like Ukranian candies rather than Polish ones. But they are next to each other after all.

The apricot one looks like Polish.

Also, I looked up Bucuria (the "DoReMi" candy) and apparently it's Moldovan.

Yeah, first one is Polish.

you're right about the jelly passover candies MA; it's in the same family.

Now I have A Big Bowl of Polish Candy. That's probably not right. Much of it is not Polish, it hails from Moldova or Spain or other places whose name doesn't appear on the label. But for the sake of this exercise, I'm going to consider it A Big Bowl of Polish Candy.

(incidentally the apricot treats have chopped walnut inside, not almond; my bad)

Great thread. I've seen a few of these in my trips to Atlanta -- the Buford Hwy Farmers Market has a good-sized Eastern European section, including its own deli/cheese/bakery cases. They have most of an aisle of Polish/Ukrainian/Moldovan/Russian/Czech/Belarusian/etc candy and biscuits.

xp - lol goddamnit, I don't read anymore!

Love this thread. This is reminding me of when I was fifteen and on a school exchange in Russia, and they took us on a tour of the Red October candy factory, which seemed to mostly make little bite-size oblong wafer-and-chocolate candies. It was like a kid's fantasy of being let loose in a chocolate factory; you could just reach out and grab chocolates off the conveyor belts. But they cleverly took us past the cheapest, sickliest chocolates first, so that by the time we got to the truly wonderful dark chocolate truffle wafers at the very end, we were all too full of bad milk chocolate to eat more than one or two.

Cant help but notice a lot of this supposed polish candy is clearly of ukranian manufacture

can't believe nobody has mentioned Juggalo candy itt yet

If you bought it in America it’s American candy

if you bought it in Uruguay is it Uruguay candy or Myuguay candy

Now I have A Big Bowl of Polish Candy. That's probably not right. Much of it is not Polish, it hails from Moldova or Spain or other places whose name doesn't appear on the label. But for the sake of this exercise, I'm going to consider it A Big Bowl of Polish Candy.

if the first picture is the entirety of the candy you bought am genuinely amazed that 25 dollars got you that amount. seems insanely expensive.

I am so, so jealous of you. I had a girlfriend in high school whose parents were both Polish, and they'd bring back these chocolate covered plums from Poland when they'd visit, or find them at a specialty shop in LA. just impossibly delicious. thirty-odd years later I got to go to Poland and the day before flying from there to england I had enough time in Krakow to find a supermarket -- turns out these plums are an old-folks staple sweet at Christmas, and it was early December, so I hit the jackpot. sooooo good.

Yes, those are classic Polish grandmother treats:

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/proxy/j_JzS84k9SB3LXKA-7BEcVyY4zc2ACvYSJ6bq0z5vvM_MNBCCsxAPEEU-vpEyWag7ULpVnd3vtEdzkVrdbZ5TAyb4f18IfGBjQlCu0O4roQnUU0OTnhkTVYwdCpfI4ylhMmE_bX5weZGPSwSauEerVWqHz7ew15Jjfw-FyT_0SpEnDBz8i5sMpIXkLMZXnZpp7WoLXknu3XrE3cU1SY3rU7r82f3zg

damn, my polish grandmother would just give us unwrapped free cookies from the boat casino, claiming she'd baked them.

excellent thread, forks. looking forward to the next surprises. I can't criticize what my kids watch on youtube anymore -- I get it.

seems insanely expensive.

the polish aisle in my local supermarket is a favourite because it's significantly cheaper than english chocolate (and often nicer). polish particularly fond on wafers and coconut things based on the stock there.

tons of polski skleps locally too, but i'm never sure of the vegetarian status of things so...

(UK obviously closer to poland than the US)

I am somewhat addicted to Kucharek Universal Vegetable Seasoning but have never tried Polish sweeties, there are certainly plenty of opportunities to try them here!

http://i.imgur.com/4DL74lY.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/YtXJ1Dq.jpg
Here's the much requested chocolate covered plums. Well, prunes really but that makes them sound a lot worse than they taste. They do indeed hold up to billing: soft, juicy fruit and reasonable quality chocolate add up to a flavorful and tangy little morsel that anyone would love.
8/10, could definitely see having a small cache of these for visitors.

Next time I go to Poland I’m going to have to try the ice cream version:

https://i.postimg.cc/15DSRxNk/BE85-B858-FED5-4-EDF-9-D2-A-9-BC4-EF01402-D.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/N2QFBA9.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/wzv6SQe.jpg
The taste of the chocolate-covered Pomawka Poweh soft nougat filling is disarming: lightly floral, as telegraphed by the packaging, but mostly grainy, sugary caramel with a whiff of alcohol on the tail end. It's strong with remarkably long legs and coats your throat like congealed honey.
5/10, might be more into this if I could completely identify the flavor.

http://i.imgur.com/6o1ep5j.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/mYqCyJn.jpg
The by-now expected thin layer of soft chocolate gives way to a coarse tile of leathery halvah-like substance, a milky and rough slab of dense protein bar. You could probably live on four of these a day.
5/10, north of gross but south of enjoyable.

http://i.imgur.com/SgQ9dcA.jpg
Surprisingly delicate lump of puffed rice and nut butter filling in a chocolate-covered puffed rice shell embedded with tiny pellets of crushed nuts. Sort of a peanut butter flavored Ferrero Rocher with a vaguely coconut aftertaste? I'm into it.
7/10, nice find!

the roshen Pomawka Poweh things are described as

"A Crème Brulee fondant filling with cacao and cognac flavoring coated with a chocolate glaze. Imported from Ukraine."

it’s actually “Romashka Roshen”, because Cyrillic - meaning Chamomile Roshen (those Ukrainian candy guys again)

translating the names makes for some interesting results - would you say the name “Ladybug Soufflé” makes the milky and rough slab of dense protein bar above a) more or b) less appetizing?

The chocolate covered chocolate thing looks pretty good to me.

btw this thread surprises me. for many, many years I had Polish chocolate down as bad quality stuff, based on the specimen I was offered one time. it might be time to re-examine.

“Ladybug Soufflé”

The word for ladybird (Korovka) has the same root concept as it does in Irish - ‘little cow’ or ‘God’s little cow’, so this would be ‘little cow soufflé’, which is at least 6% more appealing.

I have Polish coworkers - whenever they visit our American offices, they only bring fancy boxed chocolates, never any of these exotic novelties

makes sense, was wondering why there cows and daisies on the wrapper but no actual ladybugs

xp

apparently daisy is also ромашка in Ukrainian, is that correct? a very flexible word indeed!

I had a day on the ground in Krakow a couple years ago. I was very tired, and in a weird emotional space, and my train only got there at 3-ish and I had to fly to England the next day. For my Dad's funeral. Still, I spent my downtime in Krakow finding a supermarket so I could buy as many of those plums as my luggage could hold.

Cognac and chamomile could definitely be the mystery flavor! Not sure that makes it any more palatable though...

"Ladybug Soufflé" is sort of the perfect name for that milky protein bar.

The word for ladybird (Korovka) has the same root concept as it does in Irish - ‘little cow’ or ‘God’s little cow’

I learned this just yesterday! Someone who came to dinner at my house mentioned it.

How do you say "...and garnished with lark's vomit" in Russian?

it’s the same in Dutch, come to think of it:
sweet lord’s bug (“little animal”).

the Dutch word for daisy appears to be derived from sweet virgin, in reference to Mary.

(Mary is also being the “lady” alluded to in the bug’s name - German and the Scandinavian languages make this explicit)

“daisy” was originally “day’s eye” btw!

xp

apols for this etymology overdose, probably time for some new eye candy

being

http://bella.media.mit.edu/people/foner/Fun/gravity.html

I am totally going to stop at the one little euro market in town and grab some sweets, which I usually avoid because I have no idea what the hell is going on in any of those boxes. Will ask for help finding choco covered plums! Then will proceed onward to tummy ache and will blame this thread!

http://i.imgur.com/wIZZjny.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/90F0LAs.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/Jd0nCHp.jpg
This is the biggest candy in the stash; I'm posting the cyrillic info on the back for folks that can translate. It's roughly the size of a chips ahoy cookie and three times as thick. It tastes like a fruity mallomar: a thin soft chocolate shell dotted with some tiny fragments of crushed nuts over a puffy and yielding marshmallowy base that yields floral and sweet aftertaste over vanilla top notes. As with a lot of these candies, a bit more subtlety would likely make this more palatable but it's the sort of thing you could split with a kindred spirit and share a moment.
6/10, a bit too much of a good thing.

http://i.imgur.com/RC2MkuS.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/GQfn0Ym.jpg
Korvika Roschen is a fingerlike slab of grainy, buttery caramel in spectacular packaging. I get the sense these would be better fresh and this one was most definitely not. Even so, the flavor intensity far surpasses Werther's, though the mouthfeel is stale.
4/10, I think I got a bum steer.

http://i.imgur.com/txevX5E.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/w7Xq2nx.jpg
Hem-Kola - Starburst-sized wrapped squares of toffee. Hasselnötter original is caramel, Chokolad is chocolate. Both are fine and would easily surpass most of the “original” big bowl but in this company it’s middling at best. 6/10


http://i.imgur.com/YBHcBgW.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/w5Qc27W.jpg
Marianne - Thin white peppermint shell over a chocolate shell for the red ones and over caramel for the blue ones. The blue ones are fine but it’s the red ones I love. The temptation is to crunch these, which makes them into lightly chocolate flavored peppermint candies but trial and error has taught me to breath them as lozenges to suck on. The peppermint is mild and sweet and eventually gives way to a now mostly liquid core of chocolate that gets much more flavorable now that it’s body temperature. I just bought a quarter pound. Blue ones are 6/10, Red ones are 10/10

http://i.imgur.com/bvj1Wjv.jpg
Pim Pim Klubba - Mellow strawberry flavor lollipop. Super-dense candy, not a chewing lollipop but a legit sucker. Not bad, but not the way I prefer to consume candy. 6/10

does removing this from Poland kill the interest? Who woulda thought.

I've a swedish colleague that occasionally brings back marabou bars. The black saltlakrits are particularly great. I've read and enjoyed these updates.

no, this is gold. xp.
always wanted to try maleco pastellfiskar.

I find the soft, salty licorice things smell faintly of urine, like the sheep kidneys in Ulyesses

This thread is great... thank you for sharing these candies.

i am avoiding the salt licorice stuff tbh; i've tried them once and it was like eating shoe leather in curdled piss. not something I'm looking to repeat.

lol

but do u like regular black licorice?

standard licorice, when either mild or particularly raw anise, is fine by me. That licorice thing upthread was pretty tasty!

as long as i have your attention: where can i get grab bags of foreign candies online? Or better yet, buy them for me and then send them to my home. I will eat them for your amusement.

https://www.candywarehouse.com/international-candy

??

not sure if they sell samplers tho

Not so much. Once Omicron blows over, maybe I can start going to places in the city.

Polkakola is my favorite name, but I would love to try the Mariannes.

my mom got me 6 months of universal yums for xmas and the first month is polish. i haven't opened it yet, though.

http://i.imgur.com/MSaBkyc.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/pzTuRKK.jpg

This elegant looking, ballet branded block of candy is sold as kinda premium chocolate and it mostly lives up to the price hike: silky chocolate, ground hazlenuts, no chemical aftertaste or overly harsh sugar flavor. Sort of a milder, richer Ferraro Rocher. 7/10 would eat again but could probably get better for the money.

http://i.imgur.com/0dAwh1C.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/fs8BcK9.jpg
Another sort of hazelnut whipped, airy chocolate center, somewhat sweeter but without chemical aftertaste. 7/10, good and better than a lot of prior offerings in this thread but a little undistinguished.

http://i.imgur.com/aesbaPb.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/qvjNHUn.jpg
Chocolate-enrobed lemon creams. As you might imagine from past reports, the lemon is outrageously sweet and somehow creamy. It avoids the dreaded evocative scent of floor wax, but really only barely. Its tastier than I'm giving it credit for but the INTENSITY of the goddamn thing is such that half of one might be a better snack. Eating a whole one (and they're the size of your first pinky knuckle) coats your throat in saccharine citrus. 6/10, a little goes a long way.

are you ready for the next one? I wasn't.

http://i.imgur.com/wtpyXW3.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/F6GFEYF.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/ocEAjxm.jpg

At $12 a pound, wrapper and all, the Boletto Premium was the most expensive item in the candy counter and, if not for this thread, I surely would've skipped it. But curiosity set in, so I got one. Imagine my surprise upon opening this treat to discover that the external advertising was all too accurate. This thing looks just like a mushroom and slips out of the cellophane with a pre-moistened glisten of lubrication. Alas, it turns out to be made out of the aforementioned and generally disgusting "bird's milk souffle" marshmallow, a dense and coagulated lump of oversweet hog fat. The "head" is covered in thick milk chocolate and the "stem" is inexplicably crawling with a generous smattering of poppy seeds and then split up the middle. This is presumably to allow for sharing but the effect is near-pornographic. 1/10, everything here is a bad idea and i feel bad for eating the little bit that I did.

Oh no.

Creamy mushroom souffle, hat covered with chocolate glaze, leg sprinkled with poppy seeds.

Unfolding the wrapper you will see just a 100% copy of this fungus)

Very original design.

A wonderful idea.

Incredibly delicate taste.

I don’t think it’s meant to be sweating like that.

it was not very inviting

IRL LOLs, thanking u

harbl, you need to post pix