A long-lost food - unfortunately, still lost

When I first went to college, back in the late 1980s, I was introduced to a candy I had never tried before, named  Laekrits.  Each piece was a small chocolate lentil, meaning it was the same size and shape of an M&M, but it was different for three reasons: one, the chocolate was a fine milk chocolate, akin to putting a Swiss or Belgian chocolate inside a candy shell instead of the relatively grainy and unbalanced chocolate of an M&M; two, the shell was black; and 3) the shell was licorice-flavored.

I adored these little lentils, but they were not easy to find and pricy to boot.  A package half the size of an M&M package usually cost twice as much.  Still, I enjoyed it when I could.  Then the manufacturer stopped making them.

I have eaten other candies in the meantime, but earlier this year I was excited to find a supplier of what looked to be a recreation of Laekrits.  I ordered a five pound bag and waited for it to arrive.

When my bag arrived I tried a piece of the candy secreted inside.  The chocolate was grainy and insipid, the mark of an American mid-grade dark chocolate.  The shell wasn't very strongly licorice.  When I looked at the ingredients list I knew why it tasted so wrong: high-fructose corn syrup and hydrogenated oil, two ingredients never present in the old lentils.  I gave them away, sad that I had not found the candy I'd missed.

Earlier today, when visiting an office, I saw two candy dishes.  One had Hershey's Kisses while the other had Jelly Belly jelly beans, including some licorice-flavored beans.  On a whim, I combined one licorice bean with a Kiss.  It wasn't the same as my beloved missing Laekrits, but it was a lot closer than anything else I've had in the last decade.

I still miss those little licorice lentils.