Feed your wanderlust candy. Try these five popular confections to indulge in a globetrotting fantasy without ever leaving home.

The Country:  Turkey
The Sweet: Turkish Delight

Known as lokum in its homeland, this jellied sweet is traditionally flavored with rosewater or fruit. It is one of the oldest confections in the world. Picasso reportedly ate Turkish delight every day.

The Country:  Belgium
The Sweet:  Flying Saucers

These disk-shaped candies have a thin, rice paper or foamed corn starch outside that melts in your mouth, revealing either tiny candy beads or powdered sherbet candy inside. A company called Belgica invented these unusual capsules in 1900 as a way to deliver bad-tasting medicine to reluctant patients.

The Country:  Japan
The Sweet:  Konpeito

Taking between 7 and 13 days to produce, this candy starts with a single grain of course sugar that is repeatedly coated with a sugar syrup as it is rotated and heated in a large pot called a dora. The Imperial House of Japan presents konpeito as a gift to guests and dignitaries.

 

The Country:  Mexico
The Sweet:  Ates en Cubitos

Some of the most popular confections in Mexico are fruit pastes formed into small cubes. These candies are made from native fruits like guava, peach, and mango — slow-cooked and sprinkled with sugar. Sometimes the cubes are coated with chili powder for an eye-opening mix of sweet, spicy, and sour.

The Country:  France
The Sweet:  Calisson

Most calissons are made in the Provence region of France, specifically, in the almond growing city of Aix-en-Provence. This almond-shaped confection is made of a smooth paste of candied fruit and ground almonds coated in a hard white icing. Each year, in early September, there is a mass to bless the calissons.

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