Remember that candy-bar letter I sent to my guy Jake and slogged about a few months ago? Well, a number of the featured candy bars travelled back to Seattle with him, and were eventually eaten by one or the other or both of us.

Except one: The Chunky bar, which was purchased for its adjectivial properties then left to gather dust in our hidden-on-a-high-shelf candy bowl. "Chunkys are disgusting," Jake said, and I believed him.

Then came last night, when a diabolical bong hit persuaded me that maybe I should just try one bite of the Chunky, so at least I can say I've tasted one. It's a candy bar, sold in the American marketplace—how awful could it be?

Fuck. It was so awful. Have you ever put a Chunky segment in your mouth? It is a bad, bad thing to have happen. The official ingredients of the trapezoidal Chunky are milk chocolate, California raisins, and peanuts, but the end result tastes like the crappiest American milk chocolate mixed with the contents of a dustpan. It tastes like candy issued by the county to orphans during the Great Depression. It tastes like jail. Background facts from Wikipedia only make things worse:

The Chunky candy bar was introduced in the late 1930s by New York City candy maker, Philip Silvershein. Looking for a name for his candy bar, then made with cashews, chocolate, raisins and Brazilian nuts, he decided on Chunky, the nickname of his "chunky" granddaughter.

It is not surprising that America's worst candy was inspired by low-level child abuse.