Candy Ramadan: Day 4

World Market fails me for the second day in a row with White Rabbit Red Bean Creamy Candy from China. It's an unholy alliance of corn starch syrup, cane sugar, butter, milk and red bean powder. I was wondering if some lead paint was in here too, but I think if there was it would have been much more tasty.

I took the wrapper off of one of these things, ignoring the fact that the inside of the package smelled just like turpentine. When I pulled off the wax paper (which, I should mention, had a picture of a rabbit that looked like it was pooping beans) there was a kind of clear plastic wrapper covering the candy, which I couldn't get off. So I got mad and threw that one away and tried a new candy, hoping that one would be more cooperative. It wasn't, so I tried to bite into it to see if I couldn't get it off that way. It was so damn hard it almost shattered my molars. My co-worker took out his pocket knife and cut another one in half, seeing if we couldn't get the plastic wrapper off that way but that didn't work either (and it sent a hunk of Red Bean Candy shooting off the table, nearly blinding him). Finally I just stuck one in my mouth to see if I couldn't suck the damn wrapper off.

The clear plastic wrapper, it turns out, wasn't made of plastic but rice paper, which dissolves into slimy tentacle goo before you swallow it. The candy itself tasted just like refried beans. It was barely sweet and did I mention it tasted like refried beans? It was so filthy, but going along with the philosophy of Andrew Zimmern from "Bizarre Foods" (and the knowledge that I just spent like $3 on a bag of this crap), I decided to try it twice to make my final judgment about it. And... it was still redolent of refried beans. What made matters worse, the bean taste stayed with me even after I ate my emergency piece of chocolate I keep in my lunch bag. I finally had to buy a coffee to get rid of the bean flavor.

If this is what passes for candy in China I feel so sorry for them. Who the hell thought of using beans as a candy flavor anyway? That's just some twisted shit. But in a world that allows a company to manufacture Celery Soda, I guess anything is possible. I think I am going to start a charity to send Mallo Cups and Cow Tales and Twizzlers to Asia. For 25 cents a day you can make sure a child in China receives the proper candy he or she so desperately needs. I think I will call it the Reese's Piece Corps.

In my heart, I know I'm funny.