Child Of The 1980's

This particular marvel of 80’s confectionary went by many names, but I always remember it as Space Dust. It was a curious looking concoction, being little coloured granules of various sizes from quite literally dust to pieces of a millimetre or so in diameter. It was fruit flavoured but the most important thing about Space Dust was what it did when you put it on your tongue. It would crackle. It would pop. It would make your tongue feel all tingly. Occasionally with a really big pop it might even hurt your mouth a little bit, but that didn’t stop you tipping a load more into your mouth later.

It was a strange sensation having this stuff sitting in your mouth crackling away, but you would sit there with it sat on your tongue until the very last crackle had occured, then you would swallow it down and repeat the process again. Another favourite was to take a swig of fizzy drink just after you had swallowed, as this made the drink froth up inside your mouth as it reacted with whatever small amount of the popping candy was left in your mouth. If you were feeling particularly dangerous you could eat the candy and drink the pop at the same time, which obviously had a much more impressive reaction.

Over the years this sweet seems to appear and disappear from our shops, but it sometimes pops up (no pun intended) in other sweets. I’ve certainly had chocolate bars in the past which have popping candy inside the chocolate. If you want to get some of the original stuff though, then take a look at A Quarter Of who have various different types and flavours available.

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This entry is filed under Sweets and Snacks and was posted on January 14th, 2008. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.