Flavor Seekers

By Jeffrey Kluger
Oct 1, 1992 5:00 AMNov 12, 2019 4:49 AM

Newsletter

Sign up for our email newsletter for the latest science news
 

As near as I can remember, it’s been 20 years since I ate my last Chuckle. To be honest, I don’t miss them a bit.

You do remember Chuckles, don’t you? Vaguely pillow-shaped, jellylike candies, each about two inches long, covered with a crust of granulated sugar that could reduce your tooth enamel to its constituent molecules on contact. Chuckles came in the standard colors of the confectionery spectrum: red, orange, yellow, green, and black. The red through green ones you ate; the black one you stuck under your movie theater seat to be chipped away--and perhaps carbon-dated--by archeologists in the twenty-third century.

As a child I had an insatiable appetite for Chuckles, but as an adult I began to cool on them. Mostly it was the name that bothered me; something about it was just too chipper. For years I had been walking up to candy counters and saying--with a straight face--Chuckles, please, and for years they had been looking at me like I was ordering a clown. Frankly, it makes me uncomfortable when my food sounds like it’s in a better mood than I am.

What finally soured me on Chuckles, however, was their flavor. My epiphany occurred the day I was eating a bowl of cherries and it suddenly occurred to me that what I was tasting did not have even a nodding acquaintance with the red--cherry--Chuckles I had been eating most of my life. For that matter, green Chuckles did not taste even remotely like limes, nor orange ones like oranges, nor yellow ones like lemons. Whoever was naming these things was pulling some serious wool over our taste buds.

0 free articles left
Want More? Get unlimited access for as low as $1.99/month

Already a subscriber?

Register or Log In

0 free articlesSubscribe
Discover Magazine Logo
Want more?

Keep reading for as low as $1.99!

Subscribe

Already a subscriber?

Register or Log In

Stay Curious

Sign up for our weekly newsletter and unlock one more article for free.

 

View our Privacy Policy


Want more?
Keep reading for as low as $1.99!


Log In or Register

Already a subscriber?
Find my Subscription

More From Discover
Recommendations From Our Store
Stay Curious
Join
Our List

Sign up for our weekly science updates.

 
Subscribe
To The Magazine

Save up to 40% off the cover price when you subscribe to Discover magazine.

Copyright © 2024 Kalmbach Media Co.