Kaylie

[Viktoria]

Yes I tend to digress!
Kali was usually bought in little cornet shaped pointy bags which got soggy from wet fingers or liquorice sticks, but we ate it all anyway!
                                             Viktoria.

[Henry7]

So where did the name come from?  An old long-vanished trade name maybe, or something to do with potash (kalium)?  This use of the name 'kali' for (more or less) sherbet powder, seems to have been used in only a small area of Britain.

Maybe it was made by some Lancashire firm, like Owd Mally Toffee, or Uncle Joe's Mint Balls, with only a fairly local distribution area.   

[Viktoria]

It is odd but my Dad used to say of someone the worse for drink that they were “ kalied”.
Sherbet comes from  what used to be Persia  or Turkey where it is used to make a fizzy fruit drink which is very refreshing by all accounts.
Rhubarb dipped in kali was something else!
OK when dipped in sugar if Mum could spare a bit from the rations .A finger surreptitiously dipped in the jar Mum decanted the tin of condensed milk into was sheer bliss.
My teeth are aching at the memory and some of them are crowns-no wonder is it really,condensed milk!
Babies dummies used to be dipped in condensed milk,those horrid big brown rubber ones,oh the flies that swarmed round such babies when they were put out on the pavements in their prams to get fresh air.

Ah well they survived and grew into children who loved kali and sherbet.
Viktoria.

[Henry7]

"'E were right kalied!" - yes, I remember hearing that.  Maybe about some neighbour who'd been spotted staggering out of the pub. 

But long ago - before 1952, when I left Lancs.  I expect it's an expression that has died out by now.

[Viktoria]

Who remembers McGowan’s toffee bars,sheer bliss,caramel so tasty.
Marked out in squares for breaking up and wrapped in waxed paper.They were called Highland Cream Toffee bars,with a picture of a highland cow on the wrapping. It all comes flooding back.
I used to get one on a Sunday morning at the paper shop when I went to pick those up,the shop also sold chocolate in bars,unwrapped. If you can imagine the shape of a Toblerone bar but without being in the small triangles the whole thing was one long triangular shape. I believe it was army chocolate but how it got to. Our paper shop I can not imagine.
Oh gosh ,what memories come flooding back.
Viktoria.

[Henry7]

Highland Cream Toffee with a Highland cow on the wrapper?  I thought they still sold it.  I'll have a look.

Harry (now living in Scotland.)


 

[Viktoria]

It is I think the sort of toffee usually sold in small shops,we have a sweet shop near me but I have not seen McGowans,the stock is more of the old fashioned loose sweets in big jars.
Supermarkets don’t sell it hereabouts.
I ought not to think about it because although I am not diabetic my blood sugar levels are high,so I try seriously to avoid sugary foods.
I can imagine how hard life is for diabetics,I’d rather elect ,myself ,to do without than be forced to.
All this talk of sweets,ooh its agony Ivy(as a long ago comedian(comedienne) used to say.
That is me dated!
                      Viktoria.

[Henry7]

As I thought, the name was actually McCowan's. 

Their Highland toffee seems to be extinct now because of company takeovers.  I must have last seen it about ten years since.  Time flies.

Sorry Viktoria.

[Rupert DeBare]

In Walsall (used to be part of Staffordshire) in the Black Country, we called it "kaylie", too. Whether the stuff is still available, I have no idea, but folks around here still get "kaylied" all too often...