Some years ago, I discovered that Danes have a special fondness for salted black licorice. I like salt and I like black licorice, I thought, I should try this. I ordered a popular brand of salty licorice recommended by a Danish friend. When it arrived, I eagerly popped one in my mouth — and just as promptly spit it out. Yikes!
The salt in the salty licorice isn’t the table salt that we’re all used to; it’s salmiak, perhaps better known as potassium chloride. The taste is utterly different, and I guess it’s the kind of taste you have to learn to love with repetition.
I later found out that foks in the Netherlands like their salty licorice, too, which they call “drop”.
While I was out browsing the stores here in Antwerp, I saw this jar of salty licorice covered in chocolate powder. Black licorice and chocolate don’t seem like a natural combination to me, but I decided to give it a try. Strangely, it worked!
The candies were like a little ball of chocolate coated with a layer of salty black licorice and then dusted with chocolate powder. And luckily, no salmiak, just good old sodium chloride. I tried to cut one in half to see the layers, but it’s hard to distinguish the chocolate from the licorice. Anyway, it was a fun experiment for those of us who happen to like both chocolate and black licorice — and a smidge of salt.
