Another year, another Fancy Food Show gone. I will not regale readers with tales of miniscule hotel rooms, arrays of chocolate, the sauces, the spices, the mustards and gourmet snacks. I will not bother with the Tastemaker's events featuring Iron Chef and award-winning pistachio gelato, nor the fabulous Broadway shows we caught – "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels" (a must-see) and "Avenue Q" (a "see" only if you're properly sick-minded which, fortunately, we were). No, unfortunately this tale is inspired by the travesty of the Show, the goliath candy company that is slowly sinking into the mires of the truly bizarre. I am speaking, of course, of the Jelly Belly Candy Company.

Jelly Belly has been the forerunner of classic jelly beans that actually had distinguishable flavors. Beyond the sugary-sweet Red Dye No. 5, these tiny treats had distinct tastes and bright colors that mimicked their names: Juicy Pear, Red Apple, Watermelon and Bubble Gum. With such successes, they began to expand into more exotic flavors, colors and combinations like Margarita, Kiwi, Pink Grapefruit, Orange Sherbet and Strawberry Cheesecake. Then name-brands were big, so they went there with Tabasco Cinnamon, A&W Cream Soda and Dr. Pepper. Then sour candy became big, so they went there with Sour Cherry, Sour Grape, Sour Lemon, and Sour Green Apple. Then sugar-free candies were all the rage, so they went there with popular flavors like Buttered Popcorn, Tangerine, Sizzling Cinnamon and Licorice.

Then they got weird.

The old way of testing the market to try out new sugar sensations like Jalepeno or Ginger was called offering "Rookie Flavors." We at the Fancy Food Show were the willing public tasters of these sample packets. Sometimes they got a hit (Toasted Marshmallow), sometimes they missed completely (Strawberry Popcorn... ew). They have recently abandoned this system of test marketing, and it's a shame, because today, there are flavors that should never be found outside a bag of Bertie Bott's Every-Flavor Beans.

(I mean this quite literally as Jelly Belly is the purveyor of the world's actual adaptation of the Harry-Potter-craze candy. Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans boast such original flavors as Black Pepper, Vomit, Dirt, Grass, Sardine and Ear Wax. More recently, however, they have added such delights as Earthworm, Spaghetti, Rotten Egg and Bacon. The intro run was a good joke, folks, but no one really wants to eat these after the first laugh. Even the junior high boys get beyond the gross-out factor; why can't you?)

So the recent batch of bad decisions in flavoring the regular line I blame solely on this need to push beyond the limits of candy into the truly odd. Last year's flavors included Garlic and Cinnamon Toast. This year, it was Baked Beans. Not the Beantown candy, which is a burnt-sugar coating over a roasted peanut; that would make sense. I am talking about the cooked glop of tomato sauce, spices, brown sugar and red beans folks eat with bits of hot dog. That kind of baked bean. The show rep proudly proclaimed you could eat garlic and buttered toast to taste like garlic bread; add baked bean and you've got a meal! I looked at her like she was on fire. Not only did I pray she was kidding, but did it ever occur to these people I may not want a mouthful of sugary dinner when I reach for a bowl of candy? Or was the youth obesity epidemic too tempting to resist the challenge? What could have inspired this sort of insanity so far-flung from the classic jelly beans like Cherry, Grape or Pineapple? I mean, French Vanilla and Strawberry Daquiri are one thing, but Booger, Tutti-Frutti and Soap? What is the goal, here? I figure if you're trying to sell more of a product, like candy, you might try making new candy flavors that are actually appealing to eat. Silly me.

Today, there are entire sections at the Fancy Food Show that are like the bastard children of Jelly Belly hanging onto the fringes of their display skirts. JBz, the flavored chocolate candies like a gourmet twist on classic M&Ms (admittedly, the best of the bunch); Sports Beans, the Gatorade-inspired jelly beans which are larger, fortified with electrolytes and vitamins A & C, and taste terrible; and, of course, the true cauldron of the weird: Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans ad nauseum.

So, this year, given my particular sense of humor and twist of the norm (even when the "norm" includes such things as Cantaloupe and Caramel Corn), I present a small Jelly Belly Recipe Guide inspired by the nostalgic, ethnic flavors of one of the vibrant cultures of today's consumers: