Addiction

Hi-Chew.

I admit it. I have a problem with this sweet. Rectangular blocks of softly chewy, fruit-flavoured, mouth-watering scrumptiousness. They give such an intense citrus hit, it can only be engineered by the use of the most vile E-numbered chemicals - but I don't care: I just can't get enough of them.

I try not to eat a whole packet of them one after the other. I try to make each one last as long as I can. I try not to play the game of seeing how many I can fit in my mouth at one time. Mostly, I fail with each of these resolutions. I disgust myself - but I am hooked.

I suspect (dependency-forming chemical additives aside) that it is largely a nostalgia-driven thing. To my mind, they taste exactly like Fruitellas - which were one of my favourite treats from the Pick'n'Mix sweet counter at my local Woolworth's when I was a child. Fruitellas, oddly enough, are still available (well, they're available here in China; I don't think I've ever seen them anywhere else) - though now sold in tubes (like Opal Fruits), rather than loose. I don't know if my memory is completely up the spout, or if my perceptions are somehow being conditioned by the packaging, but it seems to me as if these modern Fruitellas taste like Opal Fruits (Opal Fruits, that is, back in the days when they were Opal Fruits; of course, now that they've been rebranded as Starburst, they just don't taste as good to me); I like them, but they're not the classic Fruitellas of old. Hi-Chews are.... or very nearly so.

Hi-Chews match the taste, consistency, and saliva-promoting intensity of the old Fruitellas pretty well - but they are a different shape and significantly bigger. However, my mouth is also much bigger than it was when I was a boy - hence the fascination, I think, with revisiting that childhood obsession with discovering how many it would take to fill one's mouth.

I am starting to regain some control in my life on this point. I am now limiting myself to one packet a month. One or two packets a month....

All right, I'll stop now. I'm sorry. I'm sure it must be the holiday season that brings on this flood of nostalgia.