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Comment by nielsbot | Hacker News Reader

Seems like using poppy seed instead of actual poppies is a big deviation from the original? (Or is that what the original recipe meant?) ...As well as omitting the licorice root. Then again, I love licorice but I understand not everyone does.

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The original's reference to "poppies" was likely referring to dried and preserved poppy pods, not the fresh flower. So although poppy seeds are not quite right, it's the closest you can get without moving into a legal (and medical) gray area, since poppy pods can potentially contain a pretty significant amount of residual morphine and thebaine alkaloids.

Like this? https://www.driedpods.com

Reminds me of feeding black licorice "Drop" to non Dutch people, make sure napkins or a trash can is nearby for them to spit it back out.

Are those the really salty ones? I like black licorice, but have only ever enjoyed it with a sweetener.

I had what may be an equivalent experience when I gave a bag of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups to my Italian hosts. One adventurous set of tastebuds out of the bunch had led me to believe they'd be a good gift. People were practically knocking each other over looking for a place to spit :-)

American and European chocolate are very different tastes.

https://www.gourmetboutique.net/blogs/tasting-room/17250043-...

very different is a pretty huge overstatement, and this article only describes the mandatory legal minimums. There is plenty of american chocholate (including easy to find mass market stuff) that meets or exceeds the european standards.

The chocolate in Reese’s replaces some of the delicious cocoa butter with something called PGPR. If you’re not used to it, it’s like eating chocolate flavored wax.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyglycerol_polyricinoleate

Probably more like to people not from northern Europe. In Sweden and licorice is very popular here, as well as in Finland to my knowledge.

It's also very popular in Italy (SAILA Lquirizia Purissima — very powerful stuff!), so definitely not the Northern thing.

The northern (danish/swedish/finnish) things are liquirice candies salted with ammonium cloride, not black liquirice. Very, very different taste.

It's still black liquorice of course, but yes, it's salted with ammonium chloride.

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