Olle W. Stråhle

If you´re a loyal SuperLounge reader you will remember my, almost frenzied, taste for superficial artifacts from the American continent. I´ve let you in on my fetish for fridges with icemakers, Mountain Dew soft drinks and Air Jordan sneakers. And, to tell you the truth, none of my hang–ups have vanished. I´m now stacking more than 300 Air Jordan´s in my closet, and my fridge always house at least ten cans of Mountain Dew.

But there is still one weird attraction I have left to share. Come to think of it, I´m guessing the reason I have kept it a secret up until now is because I constantly received frowns from my fellow Swedes when telling them about it.

What I´m talking about is the intense love for artificial cherry flavor. No, no, not the taste of a fresh cherry just ripe from its tree. But the chemical, synthetic taste you, almost solely, get from candy or groceries made on the other side of the Atlantic.

However, when the fridges, the Dew and the AJ´s got me hooked immediately, the love for artificial cherry took a while. I remember so clearly the first time I tasted it. It was in 1988, my first time in the US. I had just finished soccer practice and went with my friends to a small grocery store close to Mueller Park (Minneapolis, MN). Mind you, this is a time where candy from the US just couldn´t be bought in my home country Sweden. A decade before Gray´s American Foodstore. And no, Internet shopping wasn´t invented yet (ye ye, I know I´m old…).

Anyway, I remember myself being blown away by the range of __________________________________________________________________________

candies available. I just didn´t know where to start… I´m sure you understand that I left the store with more than one pack of candy. But amongst the M&M´s, the Milky Ways and the Big Reds there was a package of Starburst Original Fruit Chews. You all know them, right? Soft candy in the flavors of lemon, strawberry, orange and… cherry.

After having removed the wrapping, I remember liking the intense red color of the cherry Starburst. But the taste… phew, what was this? It tasted wicked to say the least. Nothing like the cherries on the tree back home. I gulped down the rest of the bursts and left the red ones in my bag. They just didn´t cut it.

A few days went by and I was introduced to the Jelly Belly Beans. This was about the coolest thing I had ever tasted (hey, I was twelve years old…). Small taste explosions – and some of them actually tasted like the real deal! I immediately fell in love with Watermelon. And Cinnamon. And Cotton Candy. And… "oh no, there´s that Cherry flavor again. Well I´ll give it another try."

This time, I loved it. It only took a few days, and now I felt as if I had missed this tasting sensation ever since I threw the red fruit chews in my bag. When I got back home I went fishing in my bag for the cherry bursts and found myself loving them. The artificial cherry flavor had now got me by its grip.

Days and weeks went by and I literally vacuumed the stores for cherry flavored items. Cherry Mash, Jolly Ranchers, Life Savers, Twizzlers. And it wasn´t only candy… there was yoghurt, cakes, cookies. Everything was available in this magic artificial flavor. Starburst still remained the favorite though. At least until I found the dream beverage #1. Cherry Coke.

Ok, ok. This is hard. Mountain Dew was, and still is, my favorite soft drink. But Cherry Coke is pretty much on the same level. They constantly fight about the number one place of my palate. And at that time the story was no different. From what I remember we were allowed one soft drink per day during the week and four in the weekends. Choosing one during the weekdays was the trickiest part __________________________________________________________________________