Lille Allen/Eater
It got me thinking: why not pass out global candy on Halloween? On TikTok, there’s already a fixation on Swedish gummies (if you were to hand these out on Halloween, I guarantee you’d be the most popular house in the neighborhood). But it’s not just about giving kids something that will excite them and provide a sugar rush. I see passing out candy from different countries as an opportunity for learning — about geography, cultures, and new flavors. These are the candies I’ll be picking up for my own trick-or-trs.
Hi-Chew is an easy gateway to candies from abroad. These chewy candies, comparable to Starbursts, are incredibly juicy and have grown in popularity over the past decade (especially in Utah, where Mormon missionaries discovered the candy in Japan and introduced it to fellow Mormons). The original flavors — strawberry, grape, and green apple — are approachable, but the fun thing about Hi-Chew is all of the experimental and new flavors that the brand continually introduces. There’s a ramune, or Japanese soda, flavor that is bright and even fizzes; a dragonfruit flavor complete with speckles reminiscent of the seeds found in the fruit; and new Hi-Chew gummies in both a sour and original variety.
I may be slightly biased because I grew up on these Thai tamarind candies, but I don’t think there is another candy as quintessentially Thai as Amira. A hard candy, it strikes the perfect balance between sweet and tart with the faintest whisper of salt. It’snot quite as punchy as actual tamarind, which makes sucking on one after another extremely easy. If you like anything tamarind adjacent, like a plate of pad thai or tamarindo agua frescas, you’ll like Amira, too.
Growing up in Los Angeles meant indulging in Mexican candy incessantly. I always begged my mom to go to the Mexican grocery store because I loved that there were candies that could be both sweet and spicy. Vero’s chile-coated mango lollipops are one such candy. These popular suckers have a mango-shaped, mango-flavored hard candy at their center and are covered in a tangy, spicy powder. I personally relished the exterior: licking through the tangy, slightly spicy shell to get to the sweet mango interior reminded me of a Tootsie Pop.
These Colombian lollipops boast a bubble gum center and an assortment of tropical flavors reflective of the country’s diverse array of colorful fruits. There’s mango, passion fruit, and tangerine, as well as lulo (or naranjilla), an orange fruit that looks vaguely like a tomato and tastes like a cross between sour citrus and kiwi.
