Nougat, Nougat Everywhere, But Not A Drop To Drink

Apropos of the Halloweeney season, a post about candy.

So, I was surfing by the candy shack, which is the little area where we have free miniature candy bars and packs of gum, at work today. On a whim, I picked up a Reese's Fast Break bar, which is something I've never tried before. It was okay, as a confection. I've had better, I've had worse. It gave me a few calories and some sugar to get me through the end of the afternoon, all to the best.

I chanced to look at the wrapper, which is the bar graphic at the top of the candy's official website. Note the main ingredients: Milk Chocolate, Peanut Butter, and Soft Nougats.

This kind of blew my mind. For one thing, nougat has always confused me. What is it? Can you buy it at Safeway? Or is it one of those frou-frou things you can only find at Whole Foods? Alternatively, do you wander into 'Candy Bars 'R' Us' and say "Stout yeoman! I would like 3 pounds of your finest Lincolnshire Nougat!"

But this was definitely the first time I've ever heard of nougats. I always considered it to be one of those nouns, like 'lithium' or 'gravel', which never appears in the plural. You never say "I'd like three gravels, please", and I would never think to say "these are some mighty fine nougats in this here candy bar. Yee-haw!" Come to think of it, there are many reasons I would never say that, but I digress. The point is that I thought of nougat as, according to Wikipedia, what is referred to as a 'mass noun'.

And this leads me back, sort of, to the question of what the hell nougat is in the first place. Again, according to Wikipedia, it is basically defined as a substance which is sweet, and which ranges in texture from soft to very chewy, almost crunchy, and can be white or brown, and can have one or more of many types of nuts in it, or not. Which means, pretty much, that it can be kind of anything that goes in the middle of a candy bar.

So, no mysteries solved, really, but I am excited for Halloween.