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Evan Lessler.

The Life and Times of.

RPBC.

In Food Evan

Fair warning… I love food and food-related discussion. This blog will contain many consumable-oriented posts. On the whole I am eating healthier these days due to my advancing age and waistline, so you may see some dietary twists and turns betwixt the musings– however you can bet your sweet country ass I’ll be returning to the Classics.

Behold – The Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup. I was dining on a pair of these accompanied by a tall glass of milk this evening as I watched the television, and I couldn’t help but be struck by their sheer magnificence. Beautiful, elegant, delicious. I would argue (and do argue) that they may be the single best dollar-for-dollar, pound-for-pound sweet treat in all of confectionary existence. Now when I say that, obviously there are instances where one might prefer another treat over a RPBC, but if you were on a deserted island and only had access to one candy to eat for the rest of your life…I guarantee you these would be on the short list.

What is it about the Reese’s Cup that makes it so good? So perfect? Well, I’m glad you asked, and I’m going to tell you. There are a number of factors at play. 

Taste / Flavor – This is the most important and obvious qualifier. Breaching the surface of milk chocolate and into that sensuous peanut butter is a divine experience unto itself. The chocolate to peanut butter ratio is absolutely perfect — it cannot be improved upon in any discernible way as far as taste buds are concerned. You can always sniff out a knockoff by its ratio — the other guys just can’t get it right.

Size – The size of each cup is also craftily important. They aren’t too big — in fact, they are slightly too small. A package of 2 is really not addressing a full, standard craving. A king-sized pack of 4 is generally what is required to full satisfy an adult male or hyperactive youth. This combination of deliciousness and lack of full satisfaction by volume result in a perpetual need for more. At the Vegas buffet Bacchanal in Ceasar’s Palace, if I gorge on king crab legs, at some point I will sour of them and push them away in disgust. However rarely in my life do I find myself sated of peanut butter cups to the point of wasting any of my allotted portion. And one can’t help but marvel at the audacity of the packaging — the standard package is a RECTANGULAR shape housing 2 CIRCULAR cups. Using my rudimentary math skills / understanding of volume and ratios, I would discern that this packaging method would leave a substantial amount of wasted space around the edges of the cups that your standard chocolate bar would gladly fill in to create a rectangular whole. But Reese’s? They don’t care. They’re gonna completely and utterly waste that space, and your gonna like it, and not only will you like it, you will beg them for more wasted space for just one more hit of the good stuff.

The Ridges – Ever since I was a young boy one of my fondest memories is the feeling of those whimsical ridges along my tongue prior to biting into the cup. They play an even more important role in the mini peanut butter cups, which are taller and have more pronounced ridging along the perimeter.

The People’s Champ – If you aren’t already convinced of their dominance, you certainly don’t need to take my word for it — time and time again Reese’s ranks in the top 3 if not the top Halloween candy by sales. Numbers don’t lie. Chocolatey, peanut-buttery facts. Google it, bro.

The only real fault I find in them is that their absorption of milk leaves something to be desired, a quality I feel is important when considering chocolate-oriented sweets. The smooth hard outer shell does not lend itself well to absorption, so unlike a chocolate chip cookie or Oreo, you aren’t going to get that element of soggy, milky goodness permeating the treat. Additionally, they don’t respond well to the heat generated by say, being left in a pocket for too long, however this of course would not be a quality exclusive to Reese’s.

When I think about foods, there are certainly many that really have no place in my life, nor in the lives of I think most of us. If tomorrow they vanished, never to be heard from or tasted again, I don’t think we’d bat much of an eye. If tomorrow Reese’s were to leave us, I think the world would become a bit less sweet.

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