Sweet Tooth II: Sugar Rampage

This post is a sequel to my previous post "Sweet Tooth". If you want to go back and read that one first, just click the link I attached to the post's name.

I have been to England three times now, and every time I go, I make sure to visit a candy shop in London called 'Hope and Greenwood'. It is a small candy shop that is very traditional looking with all the jars full of candy on the back wall and small tasty treats all around. (You can visit their website here.)

I just love the glass jars filled with colorful nonsense, and labels that all match with a striking penmanship. And the light 'clink' of candies falling into the small silver weigh machine. And the smell of sugar and cinnamon that floats around the shop. It just reminds me of the idea of joy. I never went into candy stores like this as a child, but I still cannot help but feel like one when I visit.

When I go, I usually get random candies that I have never tried before. Once I got rose flavored turkish delight (since Edmund on Narnia liked it so much) but that was a bad idea. It did not taste very good, although I am not sure if it was due to the rose flavoring or the fact that it was turkish delight.

But besides that one instance, everything else has been delicious. I have tried different types of truffles, gummies, toffee, chocolate, hard candy, and marshmallows. (This is mostly because I usually go with other people and we all try each others candy, but also because I try to visit more than once each trip to England.) Recently, I forced my roommates to come along with me while we were in England and I chose to try some pear drops and cherry bakewell. I later found out that Cherry Bakewells are also a type are desert, which is what the candy is based on.

The cherry bakewells are delicious. I got everyone hooked to them on the way home from the candy store. My roommate Amy and I also really liked the pear drops, which come in red and yellow. Luckily for us, Amy prefers the red, while I prefer the yellow so there was no issue with splitting them up fairly.

Yesterday we went back to Hope and Greenwood since we were in London, and Libby had not gotten to see the candy shop yet. (Also, I was out of candy.) While there we each took our time to decide what we would like to try next. Libby and I both got Birthday Cake hard candies, Austin decided to try Ginger Beer hard candy, and Amy went for Lemon Meringue hard candy. But we all got Cherry Bakewell to go along with it.

The store clerk found that rather humorous and asked if we had actually tried any real Cherry Bakewells, to which we responded no. He then told us what it was made of, and how they should be sold at most grocery stores since they are a rather cheap desert. We got into a small conversation mentioning that we were studying in Oxford for the semester, and I told him how I always have to come back to this candy shop every time I visit England.

He then offered for us to get another piece of some candy we had never tried in case next time we might like to get that one. Libby asked for 'Sunshine Festival', which he got a piece out for, but then he just went ahead and added three more; one for each of us. He also began picking other candies he thought we should try. We ended up getting a piece each of Sunshine Festival, Treacle Tart, Rose and Lychee, and Sugar Plum. Which he put into a small bag for us, with all the different colored candies poking out the top, just waiting to be chosen.

I have only tasted the 'Rose and Lychee', which is the one he actually went into the back to get for us since it is a new flavor that they have not started to sell yet. It was a light pink color and tasted like the smell of roses mixed with powdered sugar. It was very yummy. And it leads me to the idea that I just do not like turkish delight.

I have also visited Cadbury World, which is a small museum theme park for the chocolate company Cadbury. It was well worth the 10 pounds that it cost, and we ended up with four free chocolate bars, as well as a cup full of warm, melted chocolate. I was in candy heaven. Although, to be honest, the warm, melted chocolate was really good, but the cup of it was so big that I could barely finish it. Barely. I did, but I definitely had to take some pauses in between bites. (I would explain the candy bars we got, but they are ones I have already mentioned in the previous post.)

There are also some local milkshake places near by that I have visited. MooMoo's is really popular with the other American students that I cam over with, but I prefer Shakespeare's. MooMoo's has nearly seventy flavors to choose from, and their shakes are really thick. The main downside for me is that you can hardly read everything before you are suppose to know what you want, and the straws are really wide. I know that is a weird issue to have, but I do not like thick straws.

Shakespeare's on the other hand has a smaller menu to choose from, but most of the flavors all seem good. (Where as at MooMoo's I randomly picked a flavor I did not understand and ended up with a gross milkshake.) They also have milkshakes named after some of Shakespeare's plays, such as 'Othello', 'Much Ado About Noting', and 'Romeo and Juliet'. You can also get warm milkshakes there, which I find odd, but to each their own, I suppose. I got a cherry bakewell milkshake there and it was delicious.

Until next time...

Embrace the Odd,
Caitlin

"Television has done much for psychiatry by spreading information about it, as well as contributing to the need for it." -Alfred Hitchcock