‘Gelty Pleasure’ gets nod over ‘Oy to the World’

By Donald H. Harrison

SAN DIEGO–When the  IT’SUGAR company of Deerfield Beach, Florida, offered Chanukah candies for sampling, I decided to turn to some local experts: my grandsons, Shor, 13, and Sky, 7; and Shor’s friend, Max Gideon, 13, for a knowledgeable evaluation.  The candy company had two chocolates for tasting. One was a box of individually wrapped Chanukah Gelt under the name “Gelty Pleasure.”   The other in candy bar form was called “Oy to the World.”

Clearly, somebody at that company enjoys punning.  But the question of the day was, would the panel of three experts enjoy eating the candy?  All three have had wide experience in tasting confections, and their memories were still fresh from the trick-or-treating hauls they took in over the years from annual Halloween sorties.

Gelty Pleasure bears the triangle-K dairy hechsher.  No price was listed on the sample box we received.

“While you are chewing it, it has a hint of the cheaper chocolate, but overall it is better than normal gelt,” opined Shor.

“Delicious!” declared Sky unreservedly.

“It has an after taste of dark chocolate, even though the first taste is milk chocolate,” commented Max.

Shor read from the label.  “It has soy lecithin in it,” he said. That is an emulsifier.

“Maybe that explains the after taste,” suggested Max.

We moved on to the next tasting: the Oy to the World candy bar, which bears the Orthodox Union dairy hechsher.

“Oy” is right; the tasters did not like the candy nearly as much.  They were put off by the $3.99 price tag for the bar, even though they thought the gold wrapper inside gave the candy an expensive ambiance.

“It’s pretty good,” said Max.  “Has an after taste like Hershey’s.”

“Definitely not worth $4,” said Shor.  “At that price it has to be really good.  This doesn’t have that extra goodness.  Hershey chocolate bars are less expensive and they taste better.”

Sky, who was silent up to this point, joined the older boys in declaring that of the two candy offerings for Chanukah, Gelty Pleasure was the one they’d prefer.

As for my wife Nancy and myself, we think no matter how the candy tastes, the company name, IT’SUGAR, is off-putting.  Gelty Pleasure lists these ingredients for milk chocolate: sugar was first, followed by cocoa butter, milk, chocolate liquor, soy lecithin, and vanilla.  The Oy to the World bar listed different ingredients: sugar, cocoa butter, whole milk powder, cocoa mass, soy, and natural vanilla extract. The labels of both candies noted that the product may contain peanuts, tree nuts, and wheat.

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Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World. He may be contacted via donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com

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