Behind the Scenes: Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans

December 12, 2011 by • Behind the Scenes • Tags: , , , , , • 26 Comments

[Harry] finally tore his eyes away from the druidess Cliodna, who was scratching her nose, to open a bag of Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans.

“You want to be careful with those,” Ron warned Harry. “When they say every flavor, they mean every flavor—you know, you get all the ordinary ones like chocolate and peppermint and marmalade, but then you get spinach and liver and tripe. George reckons he had a booger-flavored one once.”

—J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, pg. 103-104

My husband and I found them while on a quest for jelly belly jelly beans—Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans.

As huge fans of the Harry Potter books and movies, we couldn’t resist. Since any jelly beans we bought were going to be part of my mother-in-law’s early Christmas gift to us, we each got ourselves two of the palm-sized boxes.  

On the drive back to our hotel, I pulled a box from my bag and started reading the flavors. All the ordinary ones were listed—banana, blueberry, candy floss, cherry, green apple, marshmallow, lemon, tutti-frutti, and watermelon.

But the box also held some of the strange flavors like earwax, black pepper, and yes, even booger, that the Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans in the books are so famous for. I read them out to my husband.

“You don’t think they actually taste . . . bad, do you?” I asked. “Who would ever buy them a second time if they really do taste like dirt or rotten eggs?”

My husband, Harry Potter expert that he is, argued that maybe they would taste just as terrible as in the books. After all, not knowing what flavor you’re going to get, whether it will be delicious or disgusting, is part of the appeal of Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans.

Maybe if I was a 10-year-old boy, I’d agree with him. I can still remember being ten years old and being tricked into eating a sour gumball a boy in my class promised was coated in sugar. He laughed hysterically at my puckered face.

But I’m not a 10-year-old boy, and the mere thought of eating jelly beans that might really taste like earthworm or soap made my stomach turn.

I decided I’d start with the dirt-flavored Bertie Bott’s bean, and if it wasn’t too terrible, I’d move on to the sausage, working my way through the flavors.  

As we divvied up our boxes to make sure we each got to taste every flavor, the question became, if the dirt bean tasted like dirt, would I throw myself on the altar of providing the full story and try every one? Would I even try the vomit-flavored one?

But I thought I’d take a vote to find out if you’d like to know whether they taste good or bad 🙂 Send out a tweet, @ me in a Google+ post, or comment to let me know your vote.

Yes = Please tell us if the dirt bean really tasted like dirt, and if you ate the vomit, booger, and rotten egg beans anyway.

No = I’d rather not know.

If Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans really did taste like every flavor, would you still try them? And would you like to know if they taste good or bad?

The answer to the question Did I Eat All the Bertie Bott’s Flavors? is now posted!

 

Enter your email address: Delivered by FeedBurner