Taco Bell Black Jack Taco
Grade: B
Taco Bell may be trying to provoke with its new Black Jack taco ads, but the only thing that stands out with this taco is the shell -- and bummer for Taco Bell, black has no taste. The "zesty pepper jack sauce" really doesn't stand out in this taco. What you're getting here is a regular taco with a spiffy shell.

Rachel Been, AOL

Wendy's Bacon Deluxe
Grade: B+
This new bacon cheeseburger from Wendy's is big on applewood-smoked bacon flavor, which helps this sandwich rank well amidst the competition. Single, double or triple patty versions mean this Bacon Deluxe can try to satisfy the heartiest of appetites.

Rachel Been, AOL

Dunkin' Donuts Pumpkin Donut
Grade: A-
Imagine a cider-mill-style glazed cake doughnut with the gentle spices of autumn. That's what you have with Dunkin' Donuts seasonal 89-cent doughnut. Our testers found it to have a distinctly cruller-like consistency. Be warned: It's very orange!

Rachel Been, AOL

Dunkin' Donuts Pumpkin Muffin
Grade: B+
Our tasters were split on this muffin, with some calling it super moist and some thinking it to be super mushy. It tastes like pumpkin bread -- and that's good cause the muffin is the size of a small pumpkin.

Rachel Been, AOL

Dunkin' Donuts Low-Fat Apple Caramel Muffin
Grade: C-
Dunkin' Donuts says this is it's first low fat muffin, with only 3 grams of taste. But what they've created is a healthy monster -- a very dry, crumbly monster with veins of caramel and a heavy overcoat of sugar crystals. Tough, dry and chewy -- yum.

Rachel Been, AOL

Domino's Chocolate Lava Crunch Cakes
Grade: B
Remember when pizzerias did those awful sugary dessert pizzas? Well, Domino's has wised up and decided to forgo such nonsense for its new lava crunch cake. Our order arrived warm with its advertised "flowing chocolate fudge" looking a bit like glossy plastic. But it did well in the taste department, with our eaters likening it to brownie batter or warm frosting. The cake itself tasted like a crunchy chocolate cookie.

Keith Morrison

KFC Grilled Chicken
Grade: B
Pardon us, but where did these chicken snobs come from all of a sudden? Folks all over the country were a-cluck over Oprah's free grilled chicken coupon giveaway, wondering how dare she throw her considerable influence behind something so declasse and unhealthy. Were they planning on going home and slow-poaching some tilapia with a pilaf of quinoa and an acai infusion? Because really, this stuff (the portion on the left) is pretty tasty. It's smartly seasoned, nicely juicy, properly cooked and yes, while it might be a wee bit greasy, a paper towel quickly blots off the excess. We're crying fowl on the naysayers.

Rachel Been

Taco Bell Volcano Burrito
Grade: D
This burrito is all bark and no bite. Either the chef grabbed the mild sauce by mistake or the 'volcano' they're getting their sauce from is dormant. The whole thing is so tightly packed with beef, there isn't much room for anything else, save for random strips of red tortilla shell sprinkled throughout. We're assuming they're supposed to add crunch, but they ended up just being soggy from proximity to the greasy beef filling. Sour cream, supposedly included as a cooling agent really just adds a layer of calories, but if you're just in it for the beef, go ahead -- have a cow.

Rachel Been

McDonald's Snack Mac Wrap
Grade: C+
Meet the Snack Mac Wrap, the Big Mac incarnation of the fast-food wraps that are increasingly popular with folks who like thinking they are eating healthily. So what do you get? The signature Big Mac sauce with two squished down meatball patties, a sprinkling of iceberg lettuce strips and two dill pickle rounds. Yes, it is a little less carb and calorie laden but since when is a tortilla a satisfying substitute for the three buns a regular Big Mac packs? In the end, go big or go home. If you really want a Big Mac, eat one. Your taste buds won't be fooled by this wrap unless you're only in it for the sauce.

Rachel Been

Taco Bell Chicken Soft Taco
Grade: B
Lettuce, cheese and chicken in a folded tortilla -- Taco Bell is keeping it simple with this one. And at 89 cents, the only way to describe it is 'pretty good' for a fast-food taco. One qualm -- the filling barely filled the shockingly normal-sized tortilla. With the addition of one of Taco Bell's mild, medium or hot sauces, it might have been able to achieve a B+. Don't let the price fool you though; you need to eat more than one of these to actually be full.

from Steven Stern
Candy is dandy, but some venerable American treats have pretty interesting back stories. Here are a few for you to chew on.

Russ Sifers / New England Confectionery Co., Inc.

Ring Pop
The lollipop you wear on your finger has its origins in the disco era. The Topps company, of baseball card and Bazooka gum fame, introduced the Ring Pop in 1977, but the sugary gem really came into its own in the age of bling. Madonna, Lindsay Lohan, and Fergie, have all sported it. Most recently, Nick Cannon proposed to Mariah Carey by offering her an engagement Ring Pop. Though Mariah's, unlike the ones you'll find in a store, had a 17-carat diamond hidden inside.

Visit topps.com

Milk Duds
The appealingly saggy shape of the popular movie treat was a bug, not a feature. The original manufacturer, the Hoffman Company of Chicago, was trying to make perfectly round chocolate-covered caramels. Candy technology in the 1920s wasn't up to the task, but the makers decided to sell the "duds" anyway and a new brand name was born. Famous Chicago restaurant Lou Mitchell's took up the cause of the Dud early on and to this day, hands out free candies to women and children.

Visit hersheys.com

Chuckles
Don't you hate it when your jelly candies sweat? Well, you would have if you were a pioneering confectioner. In 1921, candy maker Fred Amend solved the sweaty jelly issue with his own formula, and Chuckles were born. Originally sold in a hand-rolled strip, the five-cent, five-flavor package of chewy jellies were advertised as the "Best candy buy in town." Chuckles got a higher profile in the 1970s as a major sponsor of daredevil Evel Knievel, who attempted to leap the Snake River canyon in a "Sky-Cycle" emblazoned with the candy's logo.

Visit farleysandsathers.com

Abba Zaba
Introduced in the 1920s by the Cardinet Candy Company of Alameda, California, the taffy-and-peanut butter Abba Zaba has attracted an alternative West Coast following. Psychedelic music legend Captain Beefheart wrote a song to the candy, and based the back cover of his 1967 album Safe As Milk on the distinctive black and yellow checkerboard design of the Abba Zaba wrapper.

Visit annabelle-candy.com

Cherry Mash
The Chase Candy Company of St. Joseph, Missouri introduced its signature chocolate-covered peanut and maraschino cherry candy in 1918. While today the company concentrates most of its efforts on dominating that crucial cherry candy niche, once upon a time Chase was a big player in the Midwestern confectionery scene, introducing hundreds of products in the first half of the 20th century. The Cherry Mash is the winner of a process of sugary natural selection that saw the extinction of Chase products like Candy Dogs, the Opera Stick, Mammy's Pride, Nutrol, and the Mint Barber Pole.

Visit cherrymash.com/

Chick-O-Stick
Despite its name, the bright orange peanut and coconut log from Lufkin, Texas is completely chicken-free. The Atkinson Candy Company hasn't always played down the poultry associations, though. The candy's original wrapper featured a cowboy hat-wearing chicken mascot. When the company first started making the product in the late 1930s, such chewy stick candies were known in Texas as "chicken bones." Going national in 1954, they discovered another company already owned the Chicken Bones name, and settled for a more subtly chicken-y handle. The Atkinson Company has experimented with various flavored sticks over the years, but they've always stayed away from chocolate, for practical, climate-related reasons.

Visit atkinsoncandy.com

Dum Dums
Dum Dum Pops, made by the Akron Candy Company since 1924, always include a "mystery flavor" in each bag-usually a hybrid of two of their regular flavors. This is a clever way of making a virtue out of necessity. The production lines that make the candy run continuously, so when they switch from one flavor to another, a batch comes out mixed.

Visit spanglercandy.com

Nicole Goksel

Goo Goo Clusters
Created in 1912, this Southern sugar bomb was originally a real breakthrough in chocolate history: the world's first "combination candy bar." The Standard Candy Company mixed peanuts, marshmallow, caramel, and chocolate into thick mounds, and delivered them to stores by the case. It took the company a few more years to figure out how to wrap the unusual shape. A Nashville hometown favorite, the Cluster has advertised on the Grand Ole Opry radio show since the early 1960s.

Visit googoo.com

Hershey's Kisses
The iconic chocolate drop was invented in 1907. The origin of the name is something of a mystery, but the going theory has something to do with the smacking sound made when the chocolate was extruded from the machines. The familiar foil wrapper has been a Kiss feature since the beginning, but for the first fourteen years of its existence, packaging had to be done by hand, one at a time. The requisite machines weren't developed until 1921.

Visit hersheys.com

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