A Comprehensive Candy Treatise For Halloween (Reheat)

This week we're talking about a number of key candy issues with special guests in time for Halloween. You'll hear from a Colorado-based Eater whose highly comprehensive candy treatise is on our blog and a candy blogger who has a Kit Kat eating technique that is bound to cause sustained widespread controversy or at the very least an significant uptick in chocolate-smeared fingers.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Dan Pashman?

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• 0:44Dan Pashman?

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• 1:15Dan Pashman?

  It's Dan here, and I am celebrating Halloween this week. Are you celebrating? How are you celebrating? What candies are you eating? Are you eating too much candy? If not, you haven't eaten enough. Now, in this week's reheat, we're gonna go all the way back to 2011. Earlier this year, we celebrated our 15th anniversary, and for that, we rolled out some super, super deep old episodes from the Stone Ages of the Sporkful, and you all loved it. So we're gonna do some more of those. In this one, I'm joined by my former co-host, Mark Garrison, to take to the phone lines to discuss all things Halloween candy with our loyal listeners. Strong opinions and multi-page documents are shared. Kit Kats are eating like corn on the cob. Teabags somehow enter the conversation. We're gonna cover a lot of ground. Now, as always, if there's a Sporkful episode that you want us to pull out of the deep freezer and reheat, I want to hear from you.

• 2:00Dan Pashman?

  Send me an email or a voice memo to [email protected]. Tell me your name, location, what episode you want to hear, and why. Thanks so much, and enjoy.

• 2:10Speaker 01

  This is the Sporkful.

• 2:26Dan Pashman?

  This is The Sporkful. It's not for foodies, it's for eaters. I'm Dan Pashman, along with Mark Garrison.

• 2:31Speaker 02

  Hey there, Dan.

• 2:32Dan Pashman?

  We're about to challenge your assumptions about consumption and drop a sporkful of knowledge on you because we're obsessively compulsive about eating more awesomely and because if history has taught us anything, it's that the hosts of food shows need a lot of catchphrases. Mark Garrison, how you doing?

• 2:46Speaker 02

  I'm actually more energized than I thought I would because I had this leftover honey. Someone brought some, like, you know, because you know you have certain levels of honey and there's like the stuff that comes in a bear that you get at the grocery store like that. But every now and then, someone will give you like a gift of fancier honey, like, that was from a very certain crop and thing like that. So I had this, like, really good honey that was from New Zealand where they have a lot of amazing honey. I was there for my-- sorry, this was not supposed to be a pun, but I was there for my honeymoon.

• 3:09Dan Pashman?

  Zing!

• 3:11Speaker 02

  And we acquired some of that. And so I had that and it was actually quite tasty like that. So yeah, a good honey boost. All right, let's go ahead and get into today's topic for mastication and rumination, which is Halloween 2011.

• 3:27Dan Pashman?

  Last year, we started a tradition. We're gonna do a Thanksgiving show every year and with different guests and different folk-- folkai, foci.

• 3:34Speaker 02

  Foci, yeah. That's the plural form.

• 3:36Dan Pashman?

  Because Thanksgiving is such a food-centric holiday that for us to only do it once just seems incomplete. We want to make it a tradition.

• 3:42Speaker 02

  A lot of different angles we can cover on this stuff.

• 3:44Dan Pashman?

  That's right. And we decided we're gonna do the same thing with Halloween because that's obviously another food-centric event. So this is the first of what will be an annual show on Halloween. And to do that, we dipped into the mailbag at [email protected]. And Mark, what did we find?

• 3:59Speaker 02

  First, we want to get to Gabe Aponte. He is in Denver and he wrote to us with a treatise, really, multiple pages. And it was called "An Angry Twentysomethings Guide to Trick or Treat Candy Supremacy." Gabe, thanks for calling in.

• 4:12Speaker 03

  Yeah, thank you. Thank you for having me.

• 4:13Dan Pashman?

  Now, Gabe, and I mean this as a compliment, I may go so far as to call this document a Unabomber-style manifesto about Halloween candy. It's a--

• 4:23Dan Pashman?

  One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine pages. We're not gonna get into the whole thing talking with you right now, but we will post it to the website, but there are a few specific points in here that we want to get into with you. This document you have put together is entitled "An Angry Twenty-Somethings Guide to Trick-or-Treat Candy Supremacy." What do you do for a living, Gabe?

• 4:44Speaker 03

  I'm actually a graduate resident director at the University of Denver out here, and I also go to school full-time getting my masters.

• 4:51Dan Pashman?

  And what do you study?

• 4:53Speaker 03

  Higher education, college student development.

• 4:55Dan Pashman?

  All right. And the reason why I asked what you do for a living, Gabe, is because I was assuming that it would be something that would leave you with a fair amount of free time.

• 5:03Speaker 03

  (laughing)

• 5:05Dan Pashman?

  All right, well, let's start with the positive, because you have the top tier. There's about, just shy of a dozen here, but you have kind of the, what you call the Holy Trinity and the God candy. Now, I can tell you don't study theology, because I think some people in the Christian community would say that the, you know, the Holy Trinity is the three expressions of God, but, like, what's the God candy first?

• 5:27Speaker 03

  Ah, Reese's Peanut Butter Cup.

• 5:29Dan Pashman?

  Okay. And you also, you were very clear to say any form minus the Reese's Pieces. Now, what makes it so, you know, so much like the deity?

• 5:37Speaker 03

  Um, well, you know, I think that it's just the classic combination of, you know, peanut butter and chocolate. It just goes so well together, so much so that now even, if you look at like the Twix bar, which has been so successful with just its cookie bottom and caramel, now is going into like peanut butter, and now we're seeing, you know, M&M's makes a peanut butter version of their candy. And so, it seems to me that just, you know, the fund that came up with it first, you know, the Reese's Peanut Butter Cup, seems to have gotten it down to a perfect science of, you know, how much chocolate to peanut butter ratio will satisfy the cravings of an eight-year-old child.

• 6:12Dan Pashman?

  Yeah, ratios, I mean, you're speaking our language, that's very important here. And now, Gabe, you put the Reese's Peanut Butter Cup number one of all Halloween candies at the top of your top tier, and yet, you need to get all the way down to the bottom tier to find Reese's Pieces.

• 6:30Dan Pashman?

  You know, some people are gonna be, people are gonna bristle at that. Now, you know, Mark and I here, we're accustomed to being in the line of fire here, but you know, you're really stepping out with an opinion like that. What do you say to people who are gonna come down hard on you for that kind of a stance?

• 6:47Speaker 03

  Well, I'm ready for it, and you know, my friends came down on it, but I think, you know, most people will agree that the Reese's Pieces is just far, far below the standard of quality of a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup. I mean, it's smaller, it's trying too hard to be an M&M's when it should just be itself. They should just stick to, you know, doing what they do best and keeping it in cup form. And I'm of the opinion that at least, you know, if you eat a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup and then eat Reese's Pieces, that they taste nothing alike. There's something very cheap and just not textural, you know, about Reese's Pieces.

• 7:20Dan Pashman?

  That's a good point. The peanut butter, and I'm actually with you on this one, Gabe. I don't like Reese's Pieces. I think they're vastly overrated. And that, you hit it on the head. The peanut butter is very texturally different in those two candies. It's very soft and mushy in the Reese's Pieces, but in the peanut butter cup, it has a granularity that's quite appealing.

• 7:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, it is grainy as far as the stuff in the peanut butter cup, but I actually, I like Reese's Pieces a lot. And I think like, one of the things that you say in there is like, you know, instead of getting Reese's Pieces, just get some peanut butter M&M's, like as if these were even trying to be the same thing. Cause peanut butter M&M's have a layer of chocolate. That's a different attempt. I mean, so, I mean, certainly like, you're not gonna get the same experience with the Reese's Pieces, with the Reese's Cup.

• 8:01Dan Pashman?

  But isn't a Reese's Pieces chocolate-covered peanut butter?

• 8:04Speaker 02

  No, no, no. Reese's Pieces doesn't have chocolate. Yeah, the...

• 8:07Dan Pashman?

  What's the shell made out of?

• 8:08Speaker 02

  The shell is just candy. You say that like, not having the kind of granular peanut butter filling that you have in a cup, in the Reese's Pieces, having a creamier one. You say that's a bad thing, but I like, I like them both, honestly. But if I, if I had to...

• 8:22Dan Pashman?

  You would take Reese's Pieces over peanut butter M&M's?

• 8:25Speaker 02

  Every time, absolutely every time.

• 8:28Dan Pashman?

  Because the Reese's Pieces don't have chocolate?

• 8:30Speaker 02

  Uh, that's one part of it, but the other part of it is because the peanut butter that they fill into M&M's is not very good.

• 8:35Dan Pashman?

  And the Reese's Pieces peanut butter is good?

• 8:38Speaker 02

  It is, yeah. It's like creamy, I like the texture, and it goes really well with the, uh, with the shell.

• 8:42Dan Pashman?

  Mark, you are really stepping away from one of your long-held stances, which is that you're always against like crunchy sugar for the sake of crunchy sugar. You don't like sprinkles on ice cream, for instance. You know, you say, "I want something that's gonna bring some flavor to the table." Yet you will endorse Reese's Pieces, which have a candy coating that you can't, yourself cannot identify or describe beyond the fact that it's candy.

• 9:05Speaker 02

  It's, uh, it provides texture and sweetness, and that's all you need in that point.

• 9:09Dan Pashman?

  Well, that's what I said for sprinkles, and you said sprinkles are evil.

• 9:11Speaker 02

  No, but sprinkles don't have like enough flavor, and first of all, they don't, they don't have a structural purpose.

• 9:15Dan Pashman?

  Which do you prefer, Reese's Peanut Butter Cup or Reese's Pieces?

• 9:18Speaker 02

  These are different things, but if I were told, I, I, I like different aspects about them. But if I were faced with only having access to one for the rest of my life, it would be Reese's Pieces.

• 9:28Dan Pashman?

  What?

• 9:29Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 9:30Dan Pashman?

  Gabe, what do you say to that?

• 9:33Speaker 03

  Oh, I think it's just, it's just ludicrous here.

• 9:35Dan Pashman?

  Well, Gabe writes in his manifesto of Reese's Pieces, "I find it odd that the God candy would make an abomination version of itself." Gabe, on this front, I'm with you.

• 9:47Speaker 03

  Excellent.

• 9:47Dan Pashman?

  Another one you have in the top tier, which I really have to question, is soda.

• 9:51Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 9:52Dan Pashman?

  Now, you say another rarity. I mean, yes, it's a rarity in that you don't get it in Hal- in for Halloween that much, but I feel like soda, it's just sort of everywhere all the time. I, I can't imagine myself ever getting that excited to receive soda.

• 10:05Speaker 03

  Well, it's, it's one of those things where, true, I, I'm playing the rarity card on this one. And it's one of those things, it's, it's more of a refueling, cause you know, the thing I read that you should just go ahead and open it up and chug it down right there. So it's, it's a good like, you know, seventh inning stretch of trick-or-treating where you need that quick caffeine buzz to get you through the rest of the evening. I still have yet to, to get a piece of trick-or-treat candy that's, you know, take five with no doughs, you know, crushed into it or anything like that.

• 10:32Speaker 02

  And you have, you have on your list, you have kind of the, uh, the top tier we've been talking about. You have a middle tier and a bottom tier, and then beyond that, you have what you call like throwaway candy items. I'm, I'm gonna turn to that page right now. I, actually, no, let's talk about some things that are in the bottom tier. Um, why, why Tootsie Pops so low?

• 10:52Speaker 03

  Oh, I just, for some reason, I have a really hard time accepting the Tootsie Pop as a confectionery masterpiece. They're-

• 11:00Dan Pashman?

  But you'll take soda?

• 11:02Speaker 03

  Absolutely, I'll take soda over a Tootsie Pop. Any day of the week, I will take a generic, you know, Sam's Choice or Shasta over, you know, a Tootsie Pop that I'm gonna get maybe halfway through before I'm just gonna like crunch my way through it and break my teeth.

• 11:16Speaker 02

  You seem to have a lack of patience, as far as like, kind of breaking through the shell. Like, I feel like if you, if you take a little more time, you know, you don't have to lick it like an ice cream cone, you can just kind of like, you know, just do the mouth marination, let, let, you know, let it, let it dissolve, let it become thinner, and then you, you can have that real crunch and then go through. I mean, like, uh, so I assume, I assume this objection would also carry over to Blow Pops, the one that, the ones that have gum in, on the inside.

• 11:40Speaker 03

  I would actually think of Blow Pops, uh, as one tier higher because at least, at the end of a Blow Pop, you get a piece of gum.

• 11:47Dan Pashman?

  Way down in your throwaway items, you list wax lips, which I totally agree with, wax lips suck, uh, but you also list candy corn. Now, that's a, that's a sensitive spot. Mark and I are both big fans of candy corn. I, I, I mean, of all the foods, that's, that is the iconic Halloween candy. All those other candies, you know, are, are, are not associated in particular with Halloween, they're just candies. Candy corn is the Halloween food. What's your beef?

• 12:16Speaker 03

  My beef is that it's not a trick-or-treat candy. Sure, it's, it's, it's the icon that you think of when you think Halloween candy. And you think of it that way because everybody has leftover dishes of it well into March. But, you know, what I have to ask people is-

• 12:31Speaker 02

  Well, I, I, I don't, I don't know about that. I mean, you, you talk about like, you know, save it for your office and people are not gonna eat it all the way through Easter, but, uh, but I, I, I, the workplaces I have been, the candy corn does not last quite so long. So I, I think, uh, I don't know if you were still, you know, in, you, doing your, your studies when you came up with this idea, but I, I thought maybe you were working kind of the office of joy reduction or something like that. Where people are not like, you know, actually, you know, digging into some candy corn, unless, unless-

• 12:58Dan Pashman?

  Some of your colleagues have bought into the mistaken idea of the kind of the chocolatey candy corn, like which is really, really gross.

• 13:06Speaker 03

  You like it just based on the sole principle that you can only get it during this time of year.

• 13:10Dan Pashman?

  No, no, I also happen to think it's delicious, but I just feel like, you know, on one, I see a little bit of inconsistency here, Gabe. On one hand, you're putting dishes up into the top tier like potato chips and soda because you say that they're rarities. And the other hand, you're gonna bury candy corn, which is the one thing on this entire list that is traditionally specific to this holiday. So it's the rarity of rarities. I mean, up until recently, you could only get candy corn at Halloween. By the logic you use to put potato chips and soda in the top tier, I feel that I have no choice but to hoist you with your own petard and insist that candy corn be promoted, at least out of the throwaway category.

• 13:53Speaker 03

  All right, you've caught me.

• 13:55Dan Pashman?

  Yes.

• 13:56Speaker 03

  I am a candy corn hater and I'm proud of it.

• 13:59Dan Pashman?

  All right. Well, Gabe Aponte out there in Denver, Colorado, author of "An Angry Twenty-Something's Guide to Trick or Treat Candy Supremacy," which is a six or seven-page manifesto that Gabe put together one night, possibly while drinking. And his sister emailed it to us, and we decided to have Gabe on the show. We didn't get through the whole thing, but we will post it to the blog, which you can find by going to sporkful.com. Thanks, Gabe.

• 14:25Speaker 03

  Thank you for having me.

• 14:26Speaker 04

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• 14:33Dan Pashman?

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• 15:17Dan Pashman?

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• 15:37Dan Pashman?

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• 16:22Dan Pashman?

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• 16:41Speaker 05

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• 17:59Dan Pashman?

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• 18:18Dan Pashman?

  Welcome back to the Sporkful. I'm Dan Pashman, and this weekend, my friends at Sfolini and I are rolling out our limited edition Sporkful Holiday Pack of Pastas. These are very special pastas. We've never made these before. They're going to be limited edition, then they'll be gone. There's going to be Cascatelli, there's going to be Calabrian Chili Cascatelli. Not just the regular flavor, Calabrian Chili Cascatelli, Safran Vesuvio, and Garlic Quattro Tini. These are artisanal flavors infused into the pastas. They're really different and really delicious. Again, Calabrian Chili Cascatelli, Safran Vesuvio, and Garlic Quattro Tini. And to celebrate this launch, all these pastas are going on sale this weekend, 20% off.

• 18:59Dan Pashman?

  Also, all of my original flavor pastas and all the great pastas at Sfolini, 20% off, November 1st through November 3rd. No minimum, no code needed. This is a great chance to get a head start on your holiday shopping. So head to sfoglini.com. That's S-F-O-G-L-I-N-I dot com.

• 19:22Speaker 02

  Okay, right now, we're going to talk to Patty Woods. She is the woman behind CandyYumYum.com, a blog with lots of, especially, reviews of candy and keeping up on what's going on in candy, both like candies that you have known and heard of for a long time, and also some new things that come out that you have not heard of to check out. So again, that's CandyYumYum.com. Patty, you're joining us from Connecticut. Glad to have you on.

• 19:43Speaker 06

  Thank you. Thanks for having me. It's my pleasure.

• 19:46Speaker 02

  So, one of the things you wrote to us and mentioned that you had discovered kind of the correct or the most optimal way, in your view, to eat a Kit Kat. First of all, we need to establish the parameters of this. Are we talking about a four-bar Kit Kat or a two-bar Kit Kat? Because the two-bar is probably more common in the Halloween application.

• 20:04Dan Pashman?

  Or a double four. They make a double four.

• 20:06Speaker 02

  I haven't seen the double four. Oh, that's like the real, like...

• 20:09Dan Pashman?

  The big one.

• 20:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 20:11Speaker 06

  The big king size, yes. No, we're talking about a classic four-bar. And actually, I've learned the technical term is finger.

• 20:18Dan Pashman?

  Four finger, okay.

• 20:19Speaker 06

  Yes, four finger. And this happened when I was very young. I would say I was probably about five years old. And I was standing in line at Grand Union with my mother, and there was a little boy in front of us, and his mother handed him a classic four-bar Kit Kat, four-finger Kit Kat. And he unwrapped the outer paper liner, and this is back when there was the two wrappers, and he got to the inner silver one, and he pulled out the Kit Kat, and he just took a bite of the entire thing. And this has stayed with me my entire life.

• 20:51Speaker 02

  So, we're talking about the entire thing...

• 20:53Dan Pashman?

  And you were five years old when this happened, Patty?

• 20:56Speaker 06

  Yes, yes.

• 20:57Dan Pashman?

  And if I may be so bold, how old are you now?

• 20:59Speaker 06

  I am 41.

• 21:01Dan Pashman?

  So, this is nigh on 35 years ago.

• 21:04Speaker 06

  Yes, it is.

• 21:06Dan Pashman?

  And this traumatic childhood experience stays with you to this day?

• 21:12Speaker 06

  Absolutely. And I wish I could find this boy, who I assume is now a man, and tell him that this is...

• 21:20Dan Pashman?

  He's probably lying in a ditch somewhere. He doesn't disguise, probably got more issues than just how to eat a Kit Kat bar.

• 21:27Speaker 06

  That's true. It all stemmed from the Kit Kat bar.

• 21:30Dan Pashman?

  This was such an important moment in your life that it helped to inspire you to to launch CandyYumYum.com, is that right?

• 21:37Speaker 06

  It absolutely did, yes. I thought, I have to get the word out about how to eat a Kit Kat, and it just took off from there.

• 21:45Dan Pashman?

  In your esteemed opinion, what is the correct way to eat a Kit Kat bar?

• 21:49Speaker 06

  Okay, you break off one finger, then, this is a bit controversial, I understand, but I really think this is the best way to eat it. Take your bottom teeth and scrape off all the chocolate from the outside of the Kit Kat.

• 22:04Dan Pashman?

  From, from both sides of the Kit Kat?

• 22:06Speaker 06

  Yes, from entire perimeter of the Kit Kat.

• 22:10Dan Pashman?

  This is radical. This is a lot of work, too.

• 22:12Speaker 06

  I know, it is, but it's worth it. It makes it last even longer, and then you eat each layer individually.

• 22:19Dan Pashman?

  How long does it take you to eat a four-bar Kit Kat?

• 22:23Speaker 06

  You have to savor the experience.

• 22:24Dan Pashman?

  Are you, are you gonna do this with every bar, or is like, is every bar treated differently and kind of consumed in a different way?

• 22:29Speaker 06

  I do, I do, admittedly, I like to alternate it. So I'll do the layer technique, then I'll eat an entire finger, and then I'll go back to the layer technique.

• 22:37Dan Pashman?

  When you eat the entire finger, do you kind of break it in half and put both halves into your mouth? Do you bite one half?

• 22:44Speaker 06

  No.

• 22:44Dan Pashman?

  Okay, what do you, what do you do?

• 22:45Speaker 06

  I'd say I'd probably get three or four bites out of a finger.

• 22:48Dan Pashman?

  Okay, alright.

• 22:49Speaker 06

  Mm-hmm.

• 22:50Dan Pashman?

  Instead of that, why not just go buy some chocolate wafers and some chocolate? And eat those?

• 22:59Speaker 06

  It's an experience.

• 23:01Dan Pashman?

  Alright, that's fair. I mean, clearly you put a lot of thought into it, so...

• 23:05Speaker 06

  I have.

• 23:05Dan Pashman?

  So you, you insert the finger into your mouth and then pull it out while dragging your bottom teeth along the chocolate and to scrape the chocolate off?

• 23:14Speaker 06

  No, no, I, I sort of nibble along the edges.

• 23:18Speaker 02

  Oh wow.

• 23:19Dan Pashman?

  Oh, like a corn on the cob style?

• 23:20Speaker 06

  Exactly.

• 23:21Speaker 02

  Wow, okay.

• 23:23Dan Pashman?

  That requires not only some patience, but some coordination. Now Patty, I want to ask you, uh, tell me what is your pick for, uh, most overrated and most underrated Halloween candy?

• 23:36Speaker 06

  Uh, I would say, uh, overrated would be Milky Ways. I don't know, I just, they're, they're great, they're fine, but they're just kind of boring.

• 23:47Speaker 02

  Is it because there's no, uh, nuts? There's no crunch to it?

• 23:50Speaker 06

  Absolutely. See, I'm with you on the crunch thing. I am a big crunch person.

• 23:54Dan Pashman?

  But I feel like Milky Way is also not willing to go to the opposite extreme of pillowy softness like a Three Musketeer.

• 24:02Speaker 06

  Hmm.

• 24:02Dan Pashman?

  So, I, I actually agree with you Patty. I, I think, I, I love a Snickers and I love a Three Musketeers. But, but Milky Way is neither here nor there.

• 24:10Speaker 06

  Absolutely.

• 24:11Speaker 02

  I would say, I mean like, cause, cause the question was like underrated, overrated, like, I, I would say Milky, cause like, you, you often try to like, describe something as underrated or overrated, but every now and then something is just actually correctly rated. And I think Milky Way is actually, it's rated absolutely correctly.

• 24:26Dan Pashman?

  No, it's, it's rated way at the top.

• 24:28Speaker 02

  I, I, I mean, it's not at the top though. I mean, cause like the most popular like Snickers bars and like...

• 24:33Dan Pashman?

  Gabe put it in the Holy Trinity. And you didn't argue with that.

• 24:36Speaker 06

  I would, I would agree with that, yeah, definitely.

• 24:38Speaker 02

  Okay, so, so, uh...

• 24:40Dan Pashman?

  You, you agree that it does belong in the Holy Trinity or does not?

• 24:42Speaker 06

  Well, no, no, no, I, no, I, I agree that it is, but I don't think it should be.

• 24:45Dan Pashman?

  Right.

• 24:45Speaker 02

  Okay, alright. Now, I, I, I think that's a good pick. I was struggling to think of my most overrated and I'm with you. I have a most underrated too, but I want to hear yours first Patty.

• 24:53Speaker 06

  Okay, underrated, I would say, hmm, I would say Take Five, which is, it's, it's a fair, fairly new candy bar.

• 25:02Dan Pashman?

  Yeah, Gabe spoke highly of that one too.

• 25:05Speaker 06

  Yeah, not a lot of people know about it, but it has everything. It's got pretzels, caramel, peanut butter.

• 25:10Dan Pashman?

  My pick for most, uh, underrated, I'm gonna go Hundred Grand.

• 25:15Speaker 06

  Oh, nice one, yeah. I can see that.

• 25:18Dan Pashman?

  Yeah.

• 25:18Speaker 02

  I would, for underrated, I'd probably go with either like a Heath or a Score. Like, any of the good, like, really toffee chocolate bars, I find to be pretty great.

• 25:26Speaker 06

  That's also a good one.

• 25:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 25:28Speaker 06

  They're rare, too.

• 25:29Speaker 02

  I love to like-

• 25:30Speaker 06

  You can get one or two in your bag.

• 25:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, they're tricky to find, and I love to crunch them up and put them into my cheesecakes as well. Works pretty well.

• 25:36Speaker 06

  Mm, nice.

• 25:37Dan Pashman?

  Do you have a most overrated, Mark?

• 25:39Speaker 02

  You know what I would probably say is most overrated, not because I dislike it, but just because I feel like it's, it occurs far too much in a bag, like, for the level of quality it is, but I think any of the, any of the either Blow Pops or Tootsie Pops, as far as like, any sucker that has like a soft interior like that. I think they're fine, and we talked about them with Gabe, and I think they're better than he thinks they are, but I don't think they're as great as they are, at least when I was growing up. Like, they tended to show up in bags, like, I feel like, way too much.

• 26:09Dan Pashman?

  One more issue to cover with you, Patty, which you raised with us. You asked, "Is it possible to be too old to go trick-or-treating?"

• 26:18Speaker 06

  Mm-hmm.

• 26:19Dan Pashman?

  What's your take?

• 26:19Speaker 06

  I will freely admit, one of the reasons I decided to have a child was so I could go trick-or-treating. I'm just laying it out there.

• 26:26Dan Pashman?

  I'm pretty sure that that's one of the Dr. Spock-approved reasons.

• 26:31Speaker 06

  I think so.

• 26:32Dan Pashman?

  For childbearing, yeah.

• 26:33Speaker 06

  It could be, yeah. So, at least I have an excuse, but the kids that are like the 18, 19, 20-year-olds that wear a baseball hat and a sports jersey and call it a costume, that bothers me, and I feel that that's not candy-worthy.

• 26:48Speaker 02

  And you wrote, I think you wrote you had kind of a two-tiered system of what you offer at your house.

• 26:53Speaker 06

  I do.

• 26:54Speaker 02

  Can you explain that?

• 26:54Speaker 06

  I like to have little bags stuffed with all the top-tier candy bars for all the cute little kids, and then for the older kids that can't be bothered with the costume, I clean out my pantry and destroys my husband nuts, but I put in the tea bags, the granola bars that nobody wants, the, you know-

• 27:12Dan Pashman?

  Tea bags?

• 27:13Speaker 06

  Yeah, I know, I know, it's wrong.

• 27:15Dan Pashman?

  I hope you don't give them like a canned pineapple or something.

• 27:19Speaker 06

  Stranger stuff has happened. You know, so I know my house is gonna get egged some year, but...

• 27:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, I was about to say, because like some of the older teens, like they tend to be less shy about expressing their disapproval through semi-violent acts, so...

• 27:33Speaker 06

  That's true. I know, I know. It's a risk I'm willing to take, though.

• 27:37Dan Pashman?

  I'm gonna go so far as to say that there's no minimum or maximum age for trick-or-treating. I think everyone should be able to have candy on Halloween if they want it.

• 27:45Speaker 02

  It's not so much like ageism that I hear from you. It's kind of like, you know, hey, if you're gonna go trick-or-treating, like, bother to put on a costume.

• 27:52Speaker 06

  That's true. You know what? You're right. If these older kids did come with a full-fledged costume, I might be more forgiving.

• 27:59Dan Pashman?

  How do you feel about, let's say, like my friend Allison, who took her kids when they were eight months old and couldn't even eat candy, took them out trick-or-treating for about five hours, that she could get a pillowcase full of...

• 28:10Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 28:11Dan Pashman?

  Full of candy.

• 28:12Speaker 06

  Well, I gotta say, you know...

• 28:13Dan Pashman?

  But she did dress them up. She dressed them up in very cute costumes, so there was effort. How do you feel about that?

• 28:20Speaker 06

  I did it, too. I couldn't wait to get my son in a costume at 10 months old.

• 28:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think that sounds perfectly fine. Perfectly fine.

• 28:29Dan Pashman?

  Patty Woods from CandyYumYum.com, thanks so much. Happy Halloween.

• 28:33Speaker 06

  Thank you, gentlemen. You, too.

• 28:35Dan Pashman?

  All right, folks, well, that just about does it for this week. Thank you so much to the eaters who joined us as special guests today. We hope that this episode helped you to prepare for the wonderful day coming up, which, of course, is Halloween. Happy Halloween to everyone.

• 28:49Speaker 02

  As always, check out everything we're doing at Sporkful.com. You can find our blog, our videos, various social media things. We love hearing from you, whatever way you want to do it. Obviously, Patty and Gabe, they sent an email to [email protected], but we'd love to hear your comments on Facebook and on the blog and your tweets. You can connect with all of it at Sporkful.com. All right, until next time, I'm Mark Garrison.

• 29:11Dan Pashman?

  And I'm Dan Pashman, reminding you to eat more, eat better, and eat more better.

• 29:25Dan Pashman?

  This reheat was produced by

• 29:27Speaker 07

  Gianna Palmer.

• 29:28Dan Pashman?

  The team that produces The Sporkful today includes me along with managing producer

• 29:32Speaker 07

  Emma Morgenstern.

• 29:33Dan Pashman?

  And senior producer

• 29:34Speaker 01

  Andres O'Hara.

• 29:35Dan Pashman?

  Our engineer is Jared O'Connell. Music help from Black Label Music. The Sporkful is a production of SiriusXM Podcasts. Our executive producer is Camille Stanley. And hey, did you know you can listen to The Sporkful on the SiriusXM app? Yes, the SiriusXM app, it has all your favorite podcasts, plus over 200 ad-free music channels curated by genre and era, plus live sports coverage. Does your podcasting app have that? And there's interviews with A-list stars and so much more. It's everything you want in a podcast app and music app, all rolled into one. And right now, Sporkful listeners can get three months free of the SiriusXM app by going to siriusxm.com/sporkful. Until next time, I'm Dan Pashman.

• 30:18Speaker 04

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• 31:45Speaker 04

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