Eats Across Europe: Candy Edition, Part One

Candy--okay, chocolate--is a food group unto itself, I think you'll agree. I had no particular plans to research (read: eat my body weight in) candy bars when I started this trip, but one fateful afternoon at a Prague metro station changed everything. (EVERYTHING!) I was hungry and shaky and so jet lagged and out of it that I felt like I was standing on a ship at sea, rocking back and forth, when in reality I was standing on the very solid and stationary concrete floor of the Malostranska metro station. With blood sugar plummeting and stomach growling, I grabbed the first candy bar that looked palatable. I had no clue what it tasted like or what was in it, but I took one bite and I was in love.

Unfortunately I was still starving and out of it, but the Great Candy Love Affair had began. Since then I've been seizing every opportunity to sample new candy bars. It's a sacrifice I'm willing to make for the sake of giving you, all six-and-a-half (Miss Jessalyn "I only look at the pictures"*) of my blog readers, a complete guide to European candy bars for your future travels. You are so very welcome.

Most of these (with the sad exception of Delissa) can be found in more than one country, so I've just labeled each with the country where I first tried it.

(*Jessalyn, best friend, I love you! Please keep looking at all my pictures. Kay, thanks.)

Kinder Milk Bars (Germany)
Yummy but inferior to KinderSurprise, which is pretty much the same in terms of flavor but of course comes with the added advantage of containing a prize. Apparently the US Customs will confiscate KinderSurprises, though, since they're choking hazards. (Really? REALLY?!)

Anyway, Kinder Milk Bars are standard but delicious milk chocolate candy bars with a white filling that is ostensibly like milk (albeit milk saturated with sugar and whatnot). Market Basket people, I hope this sounds good to you because this is what you're getting from me. (Bought a 30-pack at the duty free store at the airport for like 5€...score!)

Ritter Sport - Yogurt Flavor (Germany)
It really tastes like yogurt!!! I don't mean in the way people usually mean regarding candy, when they say something like, "This Fruit Roll-Up tastes like strawberries," when what they mean is, "It tastes like sugary [but delicious] strawberry flavoring." I mean that Ritter Sport Yogurt Flavor really tastes like yogurt sandwiched between layers of milk chocolate. It's got that perfect, sour yogurty tang to it. Which is good, because I bought it for breakfast at the duty-free store after sleeping all night at the airport. It was between the yogurt flavor and the cornflakes one, both of which seemed appropriate to the situation. I got the yogurt one because it sounded weirder. I sort of wish I'd gotten both. Über breakfast!

Delissa (Czech Republic)
Oh Delissa bars. I can't even begin to express my love for you in prose, so I won't even try. Poem time!

Chocolaty, wafery, hazelnut sweet,
I can think of no better candy to eat.
When I was hungry you came to my rescue,
To which all I can say is, "Delissa bar, bless you!"
Light and delicious with crispity crunch,
It is true that I once ate Delissas for lunch.
The nutritional value may be debatable,
But a candy this tasty is simply unhateable!

Noteworthy: autocorrect has learned how to spell Delissa. Not only that but it will correct other words to Delissa. My work here is done.

Also noteworthy: they come in white chocolate as well, but the filling for those appears to be coconut instead of hazelnut. Still good, but not quite as good as the original.

Knoppers (Germany)
Like layers of Vienna wafers but crunchier, alternated with a layer of chocolate hazelnut and a layer of milk cream. The bottom wafer is chocolate coated. Overall, Knoppers are all right but lack the poetry-inducing magic of Delissas.

Lion (France)
Made by Nestle, so my first thought was: why they don't distribute them in the US?! Upon reflection I realized it's probably because we already have them, we just call them 100 Grands. Lion bars are basically the same thing--chocolate outer coating, then a layer of crispy bits, then some weird but delicious caramel-nougat-hybrid sludge in the middle. I got a three-pack and ate one at breakfast time, one at lunch, and then one at senior citizen dinner time (4 pm on my stalled train). Lion: a candy bar for all meals!

Ritter Sport - Marzipan Flavor
About a month or two ago I bought some almond paste at Market Basket so I could make cookies. I had about 2 ounces left over, and those 2 ounces have been sitting in my fridge ever since, undisturbed except for when I'm craving something sweet but am trying to resist the urge to eat junk food. In these kinds of situations, I will slice myself off a piece of almond paste and happily snack away. Sometimes if I'm craving some chocolate I'll spread Nutella on top of it.

The Ritter Sport Marzipan bar tastes pretty much like almond paste with Nutella, except about a million times better.

Balisto (France)
Chocolate-coated honey almond wafers. I was hoping for a sort of wafery, crunchy Toblerone sort of situation, but no such luck. Had the consistency of chocolate covered graham crackers and was just sort of meh. (Full disclosure, though: this is the opinion of someone who doesn't particularly like chocolate-covered graham crackers. If you happen to be a fan of them, then I guess Balistos could well turn out to be your Delissas. Just something to think about.)

Daim (France)
Sort of like Skor or a Heath Bar: a thin wafer of toffee coated in chocolate. Simple but top notch. Would eat again. DID eat again, in fact, and was eating it with so much gusto that a stranger wished me bon appetit. Thanks, random train station lady who "only needed three more Euros for a ticket to Marseille"! I appreciate it!

And that's it for now! Fear not, I'll continue my candy crusade and be back to update you on the merits of some more foreign candy bars in the not-too-distant future.