No candy brings a smile to my face the way this one does: Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. I'm not saying it's the best candy out there, but to me it's the most fun--and when you are eating candy, that counts for a lot. The fact is, eating Reese's Peanut Butter Cups is an experience. It's not something you can do as you walk out of the RiteAid on your way to the subway. You've got two flat, circular cups to deal with. And not only that, they have paper on them. Talk about momentarily delayed gratification being all the sweeter! A Reese's without the paper on it would be like a velcro bra strap: much more convenient, about a thousand times less interesting.
Further, the fact that you get two cups in a standard package means that you can enjoy two totally different candy experiences. As the (pithy and insightful) old slogan had it, there is no right [or wrong!] way to eat a Reese's. You can eat the firmer chocolate edges on the first cup, and on the second eat the peanut butter middle. You can hurry through one, and take your time with the other. Ingestion permutations are almost limitless, making this a candy that really rewards the thoughtful eater.
(A quick note about the Big Cup, the super-sized single serving version of the conventional Reese's Peanut Butter Cup. If Hershey's packaged Big Cups in two-in-one wrapping, I am certain sales would more than double. No matter how big they make the Big Cup, you always feel like you are only getting one peanut butter cup--inevitably disappointing. It would be like McDonald's having the SuperSize menu feature only a bigger burger, and keeping everything else the same. If Hershey's wants to capture the obese/trucker/weed-smoker demographic, they'd do better to give them (us?) the option of buying a Big Ol' Pair O' Peanut Butter Cups.)
Finally, the taste of the Reese's Peanut Butter cup is the soul of elegant simplicity. Chocolate. Peanut butter. Boom. So, so much greater than the sum of its parts. KitKat, again, always leaves me feeling a little unfulfilled. Reese's, on the other hand, despite having even fewer ingredients, always seems like an indulgent candy event. Obviously, you can't give all the credit to Reese's--chocolate and peanut butter just belong together. But they may never have been joined so perfectly as they are in a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup.
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Question: Is this candy forum limiting the discussion to chocolate-bars and the like? (While Reese's peanut butter cup isn't strictly speaking a chocolate bar, I tend to put in that category, due to size and content.) The peanut butter cup begs the question... What about Reese's pieces? Or their more famous cousin... M&M's? I'll take a bag of peanut M&M's over a candy bar any day.
ReplyDeleteI'd like to see some non-chocolate represented and discussed as well... sour peaches? gummi bears? twizlers (which I hate)...
I was actually debating between writing about Reese's Pieces or Reese's PB Cups... In the end I went with the cups, because I like them better. But I think of candy in the broadest sense--everything from Skittles to Gummy Bears to Red Vines to Milky Ways.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I don't like Twizzlers, either, but I like them better than I used to.
I used to like Twizzlers before I worked for an insane old man (and legend of the publishing world) who used to eat the individually wrapped Twizzlers without unwrapping them because his cigarette yellowed ham hands were too bloated to tear the plastic. He would munch down on the stick and then spit the bits of plastic on his desk, inevitably combined with tidbits of gooey Twizzler, which would adorn any paperwork he handed me.
ReplyDeleteAny discussion of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups requires mention the Cups' special addition brother, the Reese's Peanut Butter Egg. The Egg is, without a doubt, the peak in Reese's Peanut Butter candy. The ratio of filling to chocolate is ideal with close to twice as much peanut butter as the regular cup. Now, imagine they put those in double packs. Ectasy!!!
ReplyDeleteI second the Reese's Peanut Butter Cup and Egg love (oh, that Easter only comes once a year -- I mean, Jesus DIED and CAME BACK -- there should be Reese's Eggs all year to celebrate that). Twizzlers are for sure foul, but I do love Red Vines, especially using them as straws for Dr. Pepper at the movie theater.
ReplyDeleteAnd now I am off to the vending machine....
what i find amazing about drinking soda through red licorice is that everyone does it and we all seem to have come to it independently. it's as if it were human instinct.
ReplyDeleteAll I can say is that the last time I ever went Trick or Treating, we played poker for candy afterwards. Bit o Honey and Mary Janes were obviously for antes; betting a PB cup was the equivalent of going all in.
ReplyDeleteThey're just that good.