Some might say you’ve gotta be a bit of a dum-dum to eat any food with “mystery” in front of it. It’s not as dangerous as you might think, however; these foods are typically just patched-together remnants of leftovers the chefs are using as a means of saving time and money. What makes them a mystery is that those remnants often change.
It turns out this applies to candy, too. Since the 1920s, Dum Dums have been a go-to sucker, a staple of doctor’s offices and unimaginative candy-givers on Halloween. It, too, has long included a “mystery” flavor, the exact makeup of which has never been fully discerned. Until now. A new video from Eater explains just how these mystery pops are assembled.
So, how does it work? Basically, by not stopping the machines in between batches. That might not sound gross, but the effect they were going for was a combination of flavors from each respective batch, meaning that the mystery creation was some amalgamation of the two. Considering the breadth of Dum Dum’s flavors, this mystery pop could manifest as any number of different concoctions.
All of which sort of implies that we shouldn’t eat them, but, hey, Kojak turned out okay.