31 Days of Halloween: You can even eat the package!

Sticking with the tropical fruit theme from yesterday, today's two packages contain something modern and something traditional. Let's start in the future. Or present.

Mango is BIG here. Seriously, you'd think it was ambrosia. It might just be popular this year, because I don't remember seeing so much before this summer. Anyway, this is "Chewing Candy" in mango flavor.

They're like giant Skittles. No, seriously - the shape, the chewiness, and the thin candy shell are all like Skittles.The flavor is pretty strong too, with the citrusy tang you'd expect plus the unique flavor mango fruit provides. Now I'm craving a smoothie...

This is a box of "Bontan Ame" (Bontan Rice Candy), a traditional Japanese snack. The design of the box harkens back to an earlier time, and I'm all about nostalgic and vintage style.

Inside the box are five soft cubes which you might be able to see are wrapped in a clear plastic-like paper. That paper is actually edible (oblaat - a Dutch creation, to be specific), and dissolves when you put it in your mouth!

The wrapper isn't exactly tasty, to be honest with you. It's almost tasteless, not exactly the perfect way to start a piece of candy that you want to be sweet. Actually, oblaat is used to coat capsule medicines as well, which is a horrible correlation for your tongue to make.

But you get to the bontan pretty quickly. Bontan (or buntan) is a grapefruit-like citrus fruit, except it's much larger. I see them from time to time in the supermarket. The flavor isn't very citrusy, but I noticed it. I'm not a big fan of grapefruit, but the flavor here is milder and sweeter - possibly due to manufacturing, or due to the fruit itself being sweeter.

Note that this shouldn't be confused with Botan Ame, another candy that comes from Japan.