Harry Potter books conjure up flavors

Kids are willing to taste the yucky jelly beans for the chance to get some of the good ones.
By ELISE MCKEOWN SKOLNICK
VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT
Diving into a bowl of jelly beans, Michael Ciccone, 5, of Poland, found them to be delicious.
"Mmm, mine is bubble gum," he said. A moment later, after choosing another one, "Yuck! I think I want to spit this one out."
With flavors such as toasted marshmallow, black forest cake and buttered popcorn, Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans aren't your ordinary jelly beans. The beans, patterned after the magical beans in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter books, take the unusual flavors one step further, however.
Black pepper, horseradish, sardine, grass and booger flavors are mixed in with the others. They resemble the good-tasting jelly beans enough that it is hard to tell them apart.
Choosing a black-pepper bean did not deter Michael, though. He continued to pick through the beans looking for interesting colors.
'Yucky' tastes: "This one tastes like grass," Lily Aey, 5, of Canfield said. After sampling cantaloupe, bubble gum and root beer, Lily said grass was her favorite, though she admitted it is an unusual flavor for a jelly bean. She said it tastes like grass smells.
Lily declared the booger-flavored bean "yucky." Seeing her sister's reaction to that bean, Isabel Aey, 2, also of Canfield, would not try any more of the unique beans.
Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans are manufactured by Herman Goelitz Candy Co., the maker of Jelly Belly jelly beans. The company plans new flavors -- vomit, mustard, dirt and a mystery flavor -- for the fall.
Alexa Ciccone, 5, of Poland, said that to get a chocolate pudding-flavored bean, she would be willing to risk getting a vomit, mustard, or dirt-flavored bean.
Michael agreed. "I'd take a little bite of every one and the one that was the yuckiest, I'd throw out."
Brandon Pluchinsky, 7, of North Lima said, "It was fun trying them because they tasted different." He added that the good flavors taste better than regular jelly beans. His favorite was the peppermint stick-flavored bean.
Some ideas: The kids suggestions for future flavors? Sweat, poop, pee, Brussels sprouts and broccoli for bad flavors and chocolate chip cookies, french fries, pizza, steak, and cookies 'n' cream ice cream for good flavors.
Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans are available at the Sweet Factory in Southern Park Mall in Boardman, Bed, Bath & amp; Beyond, and Linens and Things. Barnes & amp; Noble in Boardman and Borders Books in Niles have also carried the candy.
Colleen Villone, store manager of the Sweet Factory, said the strange flavors don't scare off kids. "That interests them, I think," she said. "Kids are in for anything that tastes weird."
Katherine Connor, general manager of Barnes & amp; Noble, said, "They flew out of here when we had them. [The buyers were] people who loved Harry Potter and were looking for something different."