Talk:Flying saucer (confectionery)

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Picture

The picture looks like another type of candy, with small colorful hard candies inside an edible wafer shell (the same type of wafer commonly used as host bread in churches). The article however says that sherbet Flying Saucers would have a (inedible?) rice paper shell. —Paleo Neonate – 20:43, 27 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

What you are thinking of is probably these: https://www.oldtimecandy.com/collections/walk-the-candy-aisle-satellite-wafers The US version of flying saucers/UFOs/etc looks just like the British version, with some kind of edible but not very tasty starchy shell similar to a Communion wafer. But instead of being filled with sherbet powder, the US version are filled with little candy beads. (I'd much rather have have the sherbet powder!) 165.225.38.84 (talk) 20:25, 3 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Dubious surveys

The phrase 'the most popular sweet of all time' has been tagged as 'citation needed' since November 2017. This phrase was introduced when the article was created in 2011, when it was sourced to the Daily Mail:

"Our sweetest memory, a sherbet flying saucer". Daily Mail. London. 6 October 2004. Retrieved 3 February 2011.

The citation was removed and the tag added in this edit by User:Nikkimaria. I disagree with this edit. I assume that the motivation is that the Daily Mail is considered an unreliable source (see Wikipedia:Reliable sources). However, an unreliable source is much better than no source, and the citation should instead have been tagged with {{Unreliable source?}} or {{Better source}}.

I came here because of a link to this article in The Guardian, which compares Melania Trump's hat to one of those flying saucer sweets that literally nobody likes.[1] This is not a reliable source for this article, but it casts doubt on the claim that this is 'The most popular sweet of all time'.

The Daily Mail article says that the survey was by the website AQuarterOf.co.uk, which sells traditional confectionery. This is not an independent survey or a representative sample of the British population, and the article does not give the size of the survey. The website's current page for Flying Saucers[2] does not mention the survey.

In my view, mentioning the survey result in this way is misleading, we should either delete the claim or describe the survey and restore the source.

This leaves the 2009 survey sources to The Times. I managed to find this here (paywall):

Renton, Alex (10 September 2009). "Goody goody gumdrops". Times 2. The Times. London. pp. 8-9. template uses deprecated parameter(s) (help)

This describes the survey as Britain's top 20 sweets, according to an M&S poll of 4,000 adults in September 2009. This is a little better, although excluding children seems odd, and its unclear whether these are M&S customers. The top three sweets are 'Fizzy cola bottles', 'Cola bottles' and 'Rhubarb and custards'. None of the top 20 sweets are branded, with no chocolates, toffees or mints. I suspect that this bears little relation to sweet sales, this is a more credible top 10. I think this survey indicates the sweets that adults most remember from their childhoods. It is misleading to use this to describe flying saucers as 'the 12th most popular sweet in the United Kingdom'.

I will delete the description of these as 'the most popular sweet of all time', and rewrite the other survey result as:

Flying saucers came 12th in a 2009 poll of 'Britain's top sweets'.

Verbcatcher (talk) 20:02, 6 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with your change. Thanks, —Paleo Neonate – 22:14, 6 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]