Come and Get It Trivia Quiz

Answer: Pear drops

Lemon drops are a real sweet, and the yellow half of a pear drop does have a banana flavour, but pear drops got their name both from being pear-shaped and the pear flavour of the pink half, sometimes created using pear juice. The type pictured is the classic half-pink and half-yellow type, but you can also get packs of pear drops which are entirely pink or yellow. Stockley's, a sweet shop in Oswaldtwistle, Lancashire, which specialises in British classics, is home to Britain's largest pear drop, which is kept in a glass case (and not coated in crystallised sugar due to its sheer size).

Answer: Everton

Everton mints are so called because they were originally sold in Mother Noblett's, a sweet shop near Goodison Park, Everton FC's ground. Everton's then kit was black and white, so the mints matched the team colours, and before matches, a girl in a blue dress known as the Toffee Lady would throw mints into the crowd.

The humbug itself has been around since the 1820s, and are thought to have originated in the north of England. Another variety of humbug is the bull's eye, which is spherical instead of ovoid.

Answer: Pontefract

Pontefract cakes, while cake-shaped, are actually boiled sweets. They are also known as 'Pomfret cakes', Pomfret being the old name for Pontefract. Liquorice plants (many of which grew in Pontefract) were used for medicinal purposes originally, and Pontefract cakes started out as lozenges, before sugar was added by the chemist George Dunhill to make them into confectionery. Traditionally, they bear the castle lodge stamp, the symbol of Pontefract; the stamp was originally added manually by workers known as 'cakers', but now the sweets are stamped by machinery.

In 2004, a woman ate so many Pontefract cakes that she was hospitalised for muscle failure, caused by the active ingredient of glycyrrhizic acid, and doctors had to issue a warning not to eat too many!

Answer: Macaroons

The distinction between macarons and macaroons: the former are French and consist of discs of meringue sandwiched with a cream filling in various colours and flavours, while the latter are chewy coconut cookies of Italian origin. They are sometimes dubbed 'coconut macaroons' to avoid confusion.

They also contain ground almonds and can be sprinkled with desiccated coconut, covered in chocolate or topped with a glacé cherry. Many international varieties exist, such as the Philippine macaroon (which is baked in a cupcake case and topped with a raisin) or the Dominican Republic macaroon (flavoured with ginger and cinnamon).

As macaroons do not contain flour or leavening, they are a popular treat for Jews during the festival of Passover.

Answer: Sugar mice

In olden times, sugar mice were a popular stocking filler for children at Christmas. They are made from fondant and coloured with food colouring to indicate the flavour (which may be raspberry or strawberry for the ones in the picture). The fondant is made by boiling sugar and water, but some home recipes use egg white and lemon juice as a child-friendly alternative that does not involve cooking.

The tails can be made out of cotton or an edible substance, such as liquorice, and some varieties of sugar mice are covered with chocolate.

Answer: Tablet

Tablet is made of condensed milk, butter and sugar, and while it does look and taste similar to fudge, it is less soft and has a more crumbly texture. It is usually flavoured with vanilla essence, though some varieties contain whisky. Original recipes for tablet from the 18th century used sugar and cream, though modern recipes substitute condensed milk as it is less likely to burn than cream. My dad's side of the family are Scottish, and my auntie recalls making tablet with my gran as a child in Greenock.

Answer: Gobstoppers

If you've read or seen 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory', you'll remember Willy Wonka's Everlasting Gobstopper, a gobstopper which never got smaller no matter how many times it was sucked, and which had a constantly changing flavour. The real-life Everlasting Gobstopper doesn't last quite as long, but does have different fruit-flavoured layers.

The name 'jawbreaker' comes from the hardness of the sweet; it is supposed to be sucked, not chewed. As you can see in the photo, gobstoppers vary in size and some larger ones can last for days.

Their longevity has made them a popular choice over the years; they also take a long time to produce, due to the many different layers they contain.

Answer: Rock

Unlike American rock candy, which actually does look like brightly-coloured sugary rocks, British rock is generally sold in cylindrical stick form like the ones pictured here. A variant involves slices of rock with writing or a pattern like the one pictured in the centre.

Its usual flavouring is peppermint, but when I went to the 2019 Rebellion punk festival in Blackpool, I saw many seaside shops selling all kinds of rock, from ersatz Red Bull and Irn Bru to alcoholic flavours. Fans of Eurovision may recall that in 2014, contestants had to make their country's flag out of various materials, and Elaiza, a girl group representing Germany, made rock in the colours of the German flag!

Answer: Treacle toffee

Treacle toffee, as the name suggests, is a hard, dark brown toffee flavoured with treacle, often eaten on Bonfire Night. Honeycomb toffee, the toffee in the picture, gets its name from its yellow/gold colouring and crunchy texture; in the UK, Crunchie bars are bars of honeycomb toffee covered in chocolate.

It gets its spongy appearance from air bubbles created as a result of baking soda or vinegar being used in the mixture, releasing carbon dioxide during cooking. Hokey pokey is the name for the toffee in New Zealand, and a popular ice cream flavour of the same name consists of vanilla ice cream with small pieces of honeycomb toffee. Yellowman, the Irish variant, is a brighter yellow colour.

Answer: Anglo Bubbly

Anglo Bubbly was first made in 1932. It is sold in individual pieces, rather than packs of 5 like some of the other bubble gums mentioned there. It also has a banana-like flavour, rather than the artificial strawberry that is the default for other types of bubble gum. It is made by Tangerine Confectionery, which is based in Pontefract and also owns Barratt's, the company responsible for many favourites including sherbet fountains, jelly babies and marshmallow flumps.

(That's me blowing a bubble in the photo, by the way. And yes, the gum I'm using is Anglo Bubbly.)