Okay. The worst "candy" I've ever eaten is something known as
salmiakki. If you follow that link, you'll know more than me going in.
Anyway, here is the train of events.
I showed up to the break room of my place of employment to find a mysterious tin. It was a round paint tin covered in Cyrillic lettering (the Russian alphabet), and the only indication of what was in was a stylized picture of a man breathing fire. Being a far too curious sort, I pried open this tin (literally pried open the tin like a paint can) to see what was inside. What was inside was a pile of hard diamond shaped candies that smelled strongly of black licorice.
Now, a normal person would or should have stopped there. Me, I popped one of these things in my mouth.
A lot of people don't like black licorice, but I'm okay with it. These were the most overpoweringly black licorice things I've ever eaten. But that's not enough. The reason there was a picture of man eating fire on the tin was because the candies were loaded with citric acid. That's right, they weren't hot because they were loaded with capsaicin, they were hot because there was so much citric acid in them that they would literally demolish the mouth of anybody eating them.
So the already objectionable black licorice was made much worse by being loaded with acid. Yes, literal acid. But it gets worse.
Like any hard candy, there reaches a point when you're sick of it and you simply bite down and crack it open. I reached that point, and as soon as I did I reached the final kicker of the candy. The liquid core of the candy was concentrated ammonia. I don't know if you've ever found yourself in that situation, but surprising ammonia is never pleasant.
So, yes, black licorice, an overload of acid, and ammonia. That is the candy that is known as salmiakki.
The only reason I know so much about it is because I was literally worried that I had just poisoned myself.
I sent out a strongly worded email about "who the hell left the ammonia-based licorice fire candy in the break room?"
Turns out my boss had been visited by some librarians from some Scandinavian country, and they had brought her these candies. Naturally, she thought they were terrible, so she inflicted them upon us without telling anybody.
Apparently, salmiakki is a candy people enjoy there. Not me. It boggles my mind that anybody would find them enjoyable. But people do.
For me, it's not only one of the worst candies I've ever had, it's one of the worst things I've ever eaten.
Salmiakki is the worst candy. The worst.