I live in Canada, where it’s a fact of life that many aspects of our culture are borrowed from our neighbors to the South – our TV shows, our chain restaurants, our food brands. And for the most part, we’re cool with that. The only problem is, we don’t get all of those things – just whatever sells well enough in the United States to be worth importing. (Vanilla Coke, Wild Cherry Pepsi, I miss you guys! Come back!)
So, when I got into this whole Internet candy thing a year or two ago, I was surprised to learn that many of my childhood candy staples like Coffee Crisp and Aero are not sold in the United States and, what’s more, they have legions of rabid American fans exchanging the addresses of obscure import grocery stores that carry the elusive candies – candies that are available at any gas station here in Canada. I’m too polite to say “Turnabout is fair play” – I am Canadian, after all – so instead, I’ll get right to today’s candy: the Cadbury Crunchie bar.
The Crunchie bar is technically of British origin, but it’s widely available here in Canada. (In the States, not so much.) Behind its extremely generic name, the Crunchie is actually pretty unique. It’s based on a traditional candy called sponge toffee, honeycomb, or cinder toffee, which is made by adding baking soda to molten sugar, causing the sugar to expand in a froth of bubbles. Once cooled, the foam becomes a light, airy, crunchy treat. It can be eaten plain or, as is the case with the Crunchie, coated in chocolate.
