It might sound simple, but the taste is addictive. These were candies that we might sometimes fight over with friends as a kid. For me, the taste of Dumle has a hint of licorice, even though it doesn’t contain any. Tyrkisk Peber and How to Learn to Love Finnish Salmiakki (aka Salty Licorice) To most people, candy, or sweets, in the UK, are… well… sweet. Sure, there are exceptions like salt caramel but sweets are, as a rule, sweet. Salty liquorice is its own category of exceptions: available in countless varieties, flavours and textures. Now, as a Canadian who would rather eat toothpaste than liquorice, I had to call in reinforcements. Enter my accomplice: a genuine liquorice-loving Norwegian who helped navigate the treacherous, salty waters of this review. Tyrkisk Peber

First on our list is Tyrkisk Peber, a Finnish favourite. This two-stage taste explosion begins as a hard candy shell housing a powder liquorice centre. Tyrkisk Peber. Photo: Daniel Albert. The long answer is that yes, it is toxic, but so are many other things that we routinely ingest (like alcohol). In small enough doses, the harm is negligible, relatively speaking.Tell a Scandinavian that you like ‘red liquorice' and you’ll get a funny look. The reason for this is that in most of the world, liquorice (also spelt “licorice”) refers to candy flavoured with liquorice root extract. Every country has its typical candies. Here are some of the most popular candy classics that both children and adults love year after year. Karl Fazer Milk Chocolate – the One and Only It was only several years later that I discovered that salmiakk candy is indeed flavoured with ammonium chloride – essentially ammonia in salt form. You have probably heard of ammonium salts before, at least indirectly. I share my Fazer chocolate and salmiakki with friends, family and colleagues and am trying to build up a UK following for it.

Remember the smelling salts used to revive fainting ladies in costume dramas? Those are ammonium salts.I say bravado because Norwegians (and Scandinavians) are very aware that their love of liquorice is not shared by everyone, and will routinely serve salty liquorice to unsuspecting foreigners for the purpose of observing their predictably hilarious reaction. Tyrkisk Peber (Danish for “Turkish Pepper”) is a strong liquorice candy flavored with ammonium chloride (salmiakki) and pepper, made by the Finnish company Fazer and popular in the country. Tyrkisk Peber was originally invented by Per Fjelsten, his wife’s name was Elly, therefore the company name Perelly, in 1976 and made by the Danish company Perelly, which was taken over by Fazer. The red liquorice found in North America has other, non-liquorice root-based flavourings such as strawberry, cherry, raspberry and even cinnamon. It resembles actual liquorice candy only in shape and texture. ‘Red licorice' is something entirely different.