The Taste Of The Past – Traditional Sweets And Treats

Great-tasting sweets and treats are still easy to lay your hands on but often it is the classics that taste the best and that you want to relive with nostalgia for your taste buds. These sweets are not always easy to find but thankfully there are numerous companies that specialise in these treats.

Old school and traditional sweets are classics for a reason. They offered great taste and became the selling point of countless small grocers, village stores and sweet shops across the country. However, in recent years the big glass jars of different exciting sweets and candies has been replaced with the more commercial and conventional bags of sweets of Pick and Mix displays and a lot of the old magic of the sweet shop has been lost. Not only do these old-style candies bring back great memories for senior generations but they can introduce younger people and children to how sweets should really taste. In this way they can provide a great bond for old and young alike, sharing in something delicious and classic.

Traditional Sweets

These are the deliciously flavoured old school sweets that would have been typically found on high shelves surrounding the walls of a small town or village sweet shop, guarded from hungry children by the shopkeeper who would measure them out on an old set of scales into pink and white striped paper bags. It is a hugely nostalgic image for many people, whether they grew up at the beginning of the twentieth century or in the 1960s. They encapsulated a sense of adventure and excitement for little boys and girls from all walks of life. Some of the varieties on offer include sherbet lemons, aniseed balls, Army and Navy, mint humbugs, herbal tablets or pear drops.

Retro Sweets

The demise of small village and town shops meant that the classic display of jars full of multi-coloured sweets of every shape and flavour soon became a real rarity but these were replaced with a very different set of classics throughout the Seventies, Eighties and Nineties which hold a special place in the hearts of a different generation but for very similar reasons. These were the sweets that you shared with your mates down at the park or at the cinema and still evoke memories of a carefree childhood. Some of the most famous and memorable examples of these include kola kubes, foam bananas, Dip Dabs, Black Jacks and Fruit Salads and the hugely controversial (for kids, at least) Parma Violets. Like the old classics mentioned above, retro sweets still taste great and will be popular with people of all ages.

Thankfully, these great old school sweets, whether they date from the beginning or the end of the twentieth century, are still available thanks to a resurgence of high street sweet shops and online vendors that send parcels of great candies from across the decades either in bulk or in selection boxes to trigger great tasting memories. Those old treats are not lost.

AUTHOR BIO
Idania writes regularly on traditional candy for a range of food and drink websites and blogs. She has worked for numerous chocolate and sweets companies and has a comprehensive knowledge of the different varieties on offer. Cola flavoured old school sweets are her personal favourite.