Sugar Savvy

I don’t like licorice. I have never liked licorice.
Licorice has always been a head- scratcher for me. It has nothing to do with sweet, as far as I’m concerned. It’s not candy. It’s weird and bitter and acrid.

That said, I think I might be starting to like licorice.

Taste buds change as we age. It’s true. I also used to hate cantaloupe. Now, not only do I not pick it out of my fruit salad, I actually BUY it at the store. And while I used to lick cream cheese straight off a spoon when I was a young girl, I now circumvent cream cheese with great intention. I won’t eat cake with cream cheese frosting, only buttercream or a sugar glaze. I could go into more detail on the cream cheese aversion, but this is another story altogether.

So, back to the licorice. And why something so historically disagreeable to my palate has recently been garnering my appreciation. A recent post on Candyaddict.com generated much input. Opinions on licorice seem to be as strong as its flavor. You either love licorice, it appears, or you hate it.

First, it must be recognized that the only licorice I ever knew came in the form of a black jellybean, a black ‘Red Vine’, or a black Jujyruit. What business a licorice has in a box of ‘Fruit’ candies is an issue to be pursued with the Heide company, I suppose. Other early licorice offenders: Crows and Good and Plenties’ Plenty horrible-tasting, that is. And don’t even get me started on the oddly grey/khaki ice cream that would appear from time to time at the local scoop shop. Licorice ice cream? The WORST!

More recently, however, I’ve started to change my tune about this pseudo-candy. I’m starting to ‘get it’, mostly due to the fact that I’ve finally allowed myself to move beyond my early childhood experiences with those nasty, aforementioned versions. Even though there are endless varieties of cute organic and/or imported licorice, it never occurred to me to sample them because they were LICORICE, of course. But I’ve begun to realize that not all licorice is created equal. Just as there is milk chocolate, white chocolate and my preferred dark chocolate in varying percentages of cacao, there are licorice with as many complexities. I’ve discovered that a pleasing ‘non-licorishy’ licorice is one with more of a MOLASSES rather than ANISE profile. As an anise/licorice hater (two separate plants) and molasses lover, I felt compelled to open my mind (and mouth).

A visit to the Holland Store in Beaverton (a suburb of Portland) was a big factor in my licorice ‘a-ha moment’. This store stocks a fairly vast selection of bulk licorice; salty (’zoute’ in Dutch), sweet (’zoet’) and a few that were described as ‘in between’. The ’sweet/zoute’ category featured a banana licorice ape face. I’m not a fan of artificial banana flavor, but somehow these seem to work. Plus, they are pretty damn cute, a feature in candy that should never be discounted.

So, in the event that you’re plumb out of new candies to put in your mouth, here’s my list of licorice that I not only didn’t hate, but actually enjoyed?

From the Holland Store:
Apekoppen met Banaansmaak: the aforementioned, cute banana licorice ape pictured above.

Salmiak Rocks (in between): black licorice cylinder filled with brown molasses licorice.

Heksehyl (sweet): just like the Salmiak Rocks, but coated in sugar.

Trolledrop: brown and black twists. Again, strong on the molasses.

Griotten (sweet): caramel-colored, chewy cubes coated in sugar granules. Quite a bit more mild than the other varieties.

Drop Haring (salty): These look like black Swedish Fish coated in sugar, except that the ’sugar’ is actually salt. They may be something of an ‘acquired taste’, but one that I seem to be well on the way to acquiring. ‘Drop’, by the way, is the Dutch word for licorice.

From my local grocery co-op:

Panda ‘The Real Taste of Licorice’ Bar: A fairly ubiquitous product - smooth tasting, fairly soft.

Tubi’s Organic Soft Licorice

Kookabura CHOCOLATE-COVERED black licorice: Because, hell - when has dipping something in chocolate EVER made it worse? I could dip cauliflower in chocolate and be happy. This is like training wheels for licorice-eating.

Whether or not you have a Dutch import shop in your town, you can look here for a head-spinning selection of licorice from Holland and the rest of the world

For further incentive to choke down the black tar, here you can learn about the many medicinal and curative functions of the licorice plant. Need a cheap anti-spasmodic?

So, let me know if any of these don?t make you gag. Really, I’m curious if any haters will come around, if even slightly.

Thanks to hollandsedrop.com for all licorice shots other than the ape face, which was shot (poorly) by Joanna.