As a Hoosier (someone from Indiana, for the four people in the world who might not know this) of Irish descent, your author is a boy who loves his potatoes. Mashed, baked, fried, sliced, shredded, julienned, by themselves or in a salad or a casserole, I could eat a potato (or three) as part of every meal. But until recently, I was unaware that my beloved potato has been imitated in candy form – The Idaho Spud.

I recently shared a test of two different varieties of my favorite candy, French Burnt Peanuts. One sample was a gift from family, who had ordered them online from the Idaho Candy Company. Along with the peanut treat, my gift included an example of that company’s signature product, the Idaho Spud. If you are from the Pacific Northwest, you are probably aware that the Idaho Spud has been a thing for a long time. Until recently, I was with the rest of the country (world?) who had no idea that such a thing existed.

Thomas Ovard (“T.O.”) Smith started making chocolate candy in his Boise, Idaho garage in 1901. Successful door-to-door sales led to the construction of a larger scale candy-making operation in 1909. The chocolate products were branded as Owyhee in a burst of local pride over a local river and an Idaho county of that name. Although a little research shows that Boise is actually in Ada County, which is one county to the north of Owyhee County. Perhaps someone local to that area can clear up this mystery.

It was before 1920 that the company introduced a new product, a candy bar called the Idaho Spud. Sources differ – Company materials say the bar was introduced in 1913 while our friends at Wiki cite a source that dates the bar to 1918. In either case, the Idaho Spud has been with us (or at least some of us) for well over a century.

So, you might ask – What, exactly, is an Idaho Spud? First off, no actual potatoes were harmed in the making of these candy bars. Not that the versatile potato would be out of bounds as an ingredient in a sweet treat – I am aware of at least one old recipe for homemade doughnuts that calls for mashed potatoes to be mixed into the dough. Basically, the Spud is a cocoa-flavored marshmallow center coated with dark chocolate and covered with coconut sprinkles. Yes, there is simply nothing like it in my corner of the world.

I knew from the moment that I received my little Spud that I would be writing about the experience, so I saved it until I was good and ready. It is a small bar, and a lightweight one at that – only 1.5 ounces. I was happy to see that the covering was dark chocolate. Let us just put this on the table – anything made with dark chocolate is better than anything made with milk chocolate. So the Spud had this going for it before I even took a taste.

I will confess to some trepidation before I opened the package. I have not traditionally been a big fan of candy with either coconut or marshmallow. I do not dislike either of those things, but they are not in my top ten candy ingredients either. The first bite was intriguing. I was trying to place the flavor I was getting from the marshmallow and had to look up that it was cocoa. It is a light, delicate cocoa flavor and not at all unpleasant. The consistency was soft and almost creamy, but not so creamy that it would run. It is held together by the dark chocolate outer shell and the flecks of coconut sprinkled around the chocolate surface add a bit of texture and a slight accent for the bar’s flavor.

I will also confess that I cannot decide whether I am a fan or not. A second (or third) taste test is called for, and I was sadly limited to a single bar. It was a unique mixture of flavors and textures that was completely new to me. I can easily believe that additional samples could make me at least a moderate fan – after all, look at how popular the thing is in its own region. In the spirit of full disclosure, I will add that I shared a bite with Marianne, who promptly pronounced it as awful and asked for no more. Which shows either that she has a poorly developed sense of taste or far more discriminating standards than those of her husband.

I was pleased to discover that the company has not been gobbled up by Big Candy, but is now under only the fourth family’s ownership in its century-and-a-quarter history. In addition to the Idaho Spud, they offer some other old time products, including the Old Faithful bar (vanilla marshmallow covered in peanuts and chocolate, 1925) and the Cherry Cocktail (a maraschino cherry center covered with peanuts and chocolate, 1926). This company also seems to have been the birthplace of the Chicken Dinner candy bar, the now-discontinued depression-era treat. A modern addition is Huckleberry Gems, which are packaged as two pieces of huckleberry-flavored marshmallow covered in chocolate.

Perhaps I will need to order some more Idaho Spuds. We are all about fairness here, and a venerable regional candy bar deserves a fair shake. The company’s website offers a 10% discount if I subscribe to a monthly shipment, but this might be more of a commitment than is wise for me to make. Unless after further taste tests the Idaho Spud becomes as favored as the real potatoes that I crave. Which might or might not be a good thing for me.