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Comment by icedistilled | Hacker News Reader

Ah Then purpose of the salty licorice with ammonium chloride must be to prevent people from consuming too much in one sitting.

Usually I can only make it 2/3rd through a single piece before the ammonia flavor is too over powering.

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The origin of salty licorice was as a throat lozenge (same reason a singer might gargle salt water ever so often to keep their throat healthy) in cold/freezing fishing waters. (The salt was the important bit, the licorice was just the flavor the fisherman really like to make it sweeter and easier to chew.) It wasn't invented to be an appetite suppressor, though for a lot of people it certainly is. (Not many people like salty licorice, given a choice.) (Also, ironically, salt in general is not an appetite suppressant and there are documentaries about why salt was added to so many foods to increase consumption.)

> Not many people like salty licorice, given a choice

Whenever I read something weird like this I always need to remind myself to mentally add the quantifier "in America". Salty licorice is very popular in a number of European countries including mine (NL).

There’s a great type of Swedish salty liquorice called “djungelvrål”, or “jungle roar”. It has a screaming monkey on the packet. It’s a bit like licking a battery, and once I got used to it I found it delicious. I recommend it. The first bite is rough.

Are you sure it's "in America" and not "outside Europe"?

I live in Singapore, and whenever I bring some salty liquorice back from Sweden, my Indian friends are the ones who really enjoy it. I'm guessing that it's because it is a bit similar to Mukhwas.

So it's definitely not just Europe.

Yeah I think it's just an acquired taste that American's don't acquire for lack of exposure.

I'm American but was so intrigued after finding it so unpalatable the first time I encountered the salmiak lakrids despite people clearly liking them. I was keen on finding out if it was just a matter of getting used to it.

Now I actually enjoy it and like it. I just still can't handle letting the stronger ones dissolve all the way. It's also very fun to give other Americans to try (I warn them) and see their reaction.

I’m from Minnesota, and my wife is Israeli. We were in Denmark a couple years ago and had occasion to pick up some salty Lakrids licorice. I love it. She thinks it’s vile. To each their own (especially if it means I get more licorice—although clearly in moderation)

When I was in high school, one substitute teacher would try and get kids to compete over who could keep a piece of Dubbel Zout in their mouth the longest. I tapped into my Dutch ancestry and just calmly ate mine while everyone else seemed on the verge of tears.

Hyperpallatability is in part a function of achieving a particular ratio of sweet to savory that convinces some opportunistic mechanism in our lizard brains to gorge on this food because it's high-value and rare.

When they say "betcha can't eat just one" that's not a motto, it's a taunt (or a scientific fact, depending on your perspective).

> (Not many people like salty licorice, given a choice.)

That's about as sensible as saying "Not many people like salty popcorn".

One of the weird things I’ve found traveling internationally is that salt & butter popcorn is apparently an American thing. In Asia and South America popcorn is almost always sweet. Salt & butter popcorn is one of those things you don’t realize how much you’ll miss it until you go to every market and movie theater in town and can’t find any popcorn that’s not sweet :-/

This is just not true. Salty popcorn is very normal in both Europe and Latin America. The artificial butter component is something that is more American and rarer outside of the US.

I can’t speak to Europe, and admittedly my Latin America experience is somewhat limited to Argentina, Chile, and Brazil, and my Asia experience is mostly China, Hong Kong, Korea, and Vietnam. I’m sure there are places where it’s possible to get salty popcorn, but I have found it incredibly frustratingly difficult to find popcorn that is not sweet on my travels. Often if I do find salty popcorn it will be sweet and salty. I certainly don’t like the popcorn I do find, and I get the impression people from those areas wouldn’t like the kind of popcorn that I enjoy. Which I think was the whole point of this subthread, that culinary preferences are often very regional and things we take for granted in one area might be very different elsewhere in ways we don’t expect. I certainly never anticipated what a quest I would have to mount to find something that seemed so pedestrian to me growing up: salt and butter popcorn

Real imitation artificial butter flavor... (from some Looney Tunes cartoon)

The "salt" in salty licorice isn't table salt like you'd use on popcorn, FYI. It's ammonium chloride. Literally tastes like ammonia. I'm sure it's an acquired taste (I had my first experience with it early this year), but it's frankly awful to my palate.

Disclaimer: I've always loved salty licorice and I'm American

Black licorice is already a contentious flavor here, throwing a big pile of salt on it (however delicious that happens to be) further reduces the audience)

It's not salt. It's ammonium chloride. It's really really good actually.

It's not "salt" as in table salt / sodium chloride, but it is a salt.

And yes, it's great!

As a person from a tropical country, I was puzzled with all those salty "candy" sold in the west. I ate one and thought who the hell would eat this horrible salty candy on purpose? So those are actually good for the throat on freezing climate?

From a Nordic country myself and have never experienced that effect, nor heard of anyone who would eat it for that. We just like it for the taste. Getting a little more cautious from reading all the comments here though!

Don’t eat too much of the stuff in one go and you’ll be fine.

What does being from a tropical country have to do with it? I know plenty of tropical country that like salt lassi to which I had the same reaction (who would drink this horrible thing on purpose). But they do. It's a staple.

There might be some little bit salty and spicy drinks, but certainly there is no strong salty candies from where I come from. GP mentioned it might be beneficial in colder climate, which is probably why the culture around here never develops that kind of candies because there is no real need for it. Instead, we have no shortage of sour and spicy traditional candies and snack though.

Is there a brand of this you’d recommend. I love black licorice and salty foods, so naturally I’m curious to try this (in moderation).

There's a bunch of suggestions in the threads around here, but the key word to search for is generally "salmiak" [1]. You can order just about anything on Amazon these days, but if you wanted to check for local stores, try for specialty candy shops, especially those with a traditional nordic background or an adjacency to a major shipping wharf.

(I learned about it myself during a photo scavenger hunt in Seattle in college. I'm still amused by the photo from that where the rest of my scavenger hunt team was dying from taste, and I'm the only one enjoying it. There was a well known wharf candy shop we were directed to as the easiest place to buy it and get that photo op [and they were used to and amused by college kids making the stop].)

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salty_liquorice

I loved eating that stuff as a kid growing up in Germany. Still do, but can't easily find it in Seattle.

It's a very acquired flavor... just like I absolutely cannot get used to the taste of IPAs.

Across the bay in Poulsbo, there's a little store with quite a few varieties of licorice, including some very salty stuff.

I grew up in Germany as well (Stuttgart) and love licorice, don't eat too much here but there are quite a few stores that carry it.

Most NW IPAs are nasty, enough said. Luckily the microbrewers are coming off their hops high and returning to drinkable beers again. Lots of great lagers in Oregon right now.

My understanding is that IPA are extremely forgiving compared to lagers, because the hops. If so, that explains to some degree why microbreweries like to make them, they're probably considerably easier to make in a consistent quality than a lager. It makes good sense to build a name and reputation on easier to produce items and use that to perfect more complex and demanding things.

Gotta love all the "German style" beers that still taste like watery IPAs and nothing like the German beer they pretend to imitate.

I hear the kind of hops and water they use may be partially to blame

Moved from Seattle to Asheville, and having good non-IPA options has been killer. I've talked to few folks here who say that sours are the new hotness. Not sure if thats a regional thing or a broader trend. Either way, suits my taste much better.

I love sours :) I'm jealous!

I've come across a few foods that appear to be heavily acquired tastes, and if you did not get used to it as a kid, it is very difficult to change your tastes. Licorice is definitely one for me, it makes me feel like I am eating tree sap. Others include perilla leaves (called sesame leaves in Korean cuisine) and cilantro (people who are not used to it says it tastes like soap).

I found it interesting that the coriander thing is genetic: https://www.britannica.com/story/why-does-cilantro-taste-lik...

> However, some people find cilantro revolting, including, famously, the chef Julia Child. Of course some of this dislike may come down to simple preference, but for those cilantro-haters for whom the plant tastes like soap, the issue is genetic. These people have a variation in a group of olfactory-receptor genes that allows them to strongly perceive the soapy-flavored aldehydes in cilantro leaves.

To me coriander reminds me of the smell of a bug. So it took quite some time to get used to it, but now I like it, especially in things like Pho Bo.

> cilantro (people who are not used to it says it tastes like soap)

The soap taste of cilantro is attributed to genetics:

https://www.britannica.com/story/why-does-cilantro-taste-lik...

also the bitter brussel sprout: https://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2011/nov/01/brussel...

Something I've discovered is one way to acquire a taste for things you want to like eating is to narrow your diet substantially to where that thing forms a substantial component of your sustenance.

Obviously this isn't a great idea if that thing is a junk food snack or the like, but if it's a nutritious healthy kind of thing you just don't enjoy yet, in my experience this method acquires an appreciation and even craving for it within a few months.

It's as if the body learns this is the stuff of survival that's in season now.

Speaking of Koreans, when I lived in Beijing, we used to call cilantro "Korean Kryptonite". It's in many Chinese dishes but the many Koreans that lived in Beijing hated it with a passion.

There are some great YouTube videos of people around the world trying foods from different countries for the first time. Watching people gag on American staples like root beer is a lot of fun.

At least in california, cost plus world market sells some, or did last I was in there.

I actually enjoy the stuff, I just can't finish a whole piece.

What do you think of Waldmeister? I love that flavor, everyone around me doesn’t agree.

Haha Waldmeister - I love that flavor though the syrup is disgustingly sweet.

I have no idea what flavor it is even pretending to be...

> It's a very acquired flavor...

I don't think that it is actually "acquired". You liked it as a child, and still do. I find it to be vile and inedible, and always have. This preference seems to innate and fixed.

I didn't like beer, wine, whiskey or coffee at 16 or 18 and now do.

I don't know when I started liking black licorice but surely I didn't eat that as a toddler. I remember my parents giving it to me when I couldn't sleep pretending it was a sleep medication. It worked haha

Are you saying that you went from the "hate liquorice" to the "like liquorice" camp? At what age? I literally don't know of anyone who has "acquired" the taste for liquorice via exposure.

It's really nothing like "aging into" the preference for coffee, beer, whiskey or wine. It's more like the preference for coriander / cilantro, which is genetic.

I appreciate that your experience of liquorice is different to mine, but I ask you to stop explaining my experience of liquorice to me.

I don't think anyone is explaining your experience. You always hated it and still do. No big deal.

However you seem to reject the idea people can go from disliking it to liking it, which isn't the case.

Nobody claimed you can force yourself to enjoy it :)

> you seem to reject the idea people can go from disliking it to liking it, which isn't the case

I'm saying that I have never seen this happen when the person has the "liquorice averse" reaction, which is not simple a regular food preference or toddler with unfamiliar food thing. And so I am very sceptical.

You say it "isn't the case" but ... nothing more. Ok, that does not convince me.

Have you tried it more than 50 times?

If you detested it the first 49 times, why keep eating it?

familiarity breeds comfort.

A common hack to get your kids to eat anything, is to force them to try it at least 10 different times. They always keep spitting it out or crying they don't like it. Eventually one time you feed it to them and they get used to it and like it, as if they never threw a fit with it before. Not everybody's parents did this. That's why there's grown adults that eat nothing but pizza or steak and potatoes...

P.S. that being said, I still don't like broccoli.... Might be one of the only foods I've never liked in any shape or form...

P.P.S. I've had that salty black licorice before when I visited Sweden. I enjoyed it in very small doses.

Forcing your children to eat things they aren't comfortable with is not a hack. Please do not do this. There is a significant difference between providing a positive environment for your child to encounter new foods and forcing them, physically or otherwise, to eat them.

There's something to be said for this, but I also don't think the GP literally meant forcing them. Forcing children to eat something can cause aversion and eating problems. That said, I am a fan of strongly incentivizing thought promising a later treat for the first few times there's something new to try that I want them to give a fair shake to.

> but I also don't think the GP literally meant forcing them

We only have the GP's words: and at face value, as they should be taken, they do seem to literally mean that.

To a degree. Hyperbole and idioms are a normal part of communication, as is learning to decipher meaning from them.

If someone said something along the lines of "I would kill my son if they did that", would you take that literally, or as a hyperbolic idiom meaning they would be mad at them and punish them?

I think the actual meaning of the statement in question is ambiguous given the above, and providing for the option that you misinterpreted someone's meaning when condemning their speech likely does a lot to keep the discussion civil and useful.

parents actually killing their child is rare. Parents actually making their child eat specific food, with threat of physical force, not so rare. You don't have to search for a figurative meaning where none is needed.

> familiarity breeds comfort.

That's manifestly untrue in some cases. If you like coriander / cilantro, and your child does very much not, would you just feed it to them regularly so that they "get familiar with it"?

That would be bad parenting, and also pointless cruelty to force them to eat "soap" fifty times. Show some empathy, and recognise that your tastes are not necessarily other people's tastes.

https://www.britannica.com/story/why-does-cilantro-taste-lik...

Yeah it's odd. I didn't like coffee much until I got a job stacking shelves as a teenager. I'd walk past the instant coffee section a lot. One day a customer bumped the display and a large jar smashed open on the floor. Cleaning it up and smelling it, I suddenly realised I now liked it.

This doesn't have much to do with polarising tastes such as liquorice.

>Have you tried it more than 50 times

Over the years, I must have. It's invariant. This is _not_ an "acquired taste" thing, it is simply unpalatable to some, and you can kindly stop pushing it.

I don't care for it, but I don't hate it. It's kind of "meh". Don't see what the fuss is, either way.

> I don't care for it, but I don't hate it. It's kind of "meh".

Therefor, if there is a gene that makes one sensitive to the extreme pungency of liquorice in bad way, then you don't have it. You just fall somewhere on the range of preferences that you might find for any taste.

Sort of like Jaegermeister. I can't believe people drink that by choice.

Americans think that Germans drink a lot of Jaegermeister or love that stuff. I only ever saw old people drinking that in Germany, or people on a dare...

I am pretty sure Jaegermeister is more popular in the US than Germany

There are a lot of "digestif" [0] alcoholic drinks experientially very similar to Jaegermeister, it's kind of a thing to be medicinal.

The American pracice of drinking Jaegermeister to excess I get the impression is done because it tastes so bad, like it's fun because it's so gross and we're sharing this exceptional though still mild form of suffering while getting wasted. Misery loves company as they say.

Social drinking to excess in general has always struck me as a form of shared suffering, Jaeger is just on the extreme end of emphasizing it. Very few alcoholic beverages actually taste genuinely good IMHO, unless it's a cocktail full of flavored syrup like a liquid Jolly Rancher.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ap%C3%A9ritif_and_digestif

It's good for a single round of shots, just to add some variety and the shared experience thing. It's definitely not something you'd want to drink all night.

I don't like the taste of alcohol, but clearly some people do, so I'm thinking it's either an acquired taste (or psychological dependency) or some people just have different taste buds or something. I think it's recently become a bit more acceptable to admit that you only drink to be social, though.

It’s very tasty if you like the taste of licorice and cough syrup. :)

It's so strange to me as a Scandinavian to read this. We love that stuff

Growing up In Finland it was the only candy we would really want to eat, and if given a bag of mixed sweets would first fish out all the salmiakki (salty liquorice), and in the end reluctantly go on with the other, more lame sweets in the bag.

Can't imagine why someone from the land of fermented shark flesh would like the flavor of ammonia.

In Denmark we mixed in some pepper with the salt, making salty licorice with pepper inside (Tyrkisk Peber). People love that stuff.

I just ate a bag of it tonight in Sweden, I love that stuff!

I used to eat bags of it. It's my favorite.

TBF ammonium chloride tastes as much like ammonia as sodium chloride tastes like chlorine.

Scandinavia isn't a country.

The licorice pipes were not the super-strong shiny black variety but the somewhat sweet, softer black licorice that, when torn, is a dark brown inside.

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