… is my favourite chocolate bar, although since 1990 it has masqueraded under the name of Snickers* (whatever that means).
I just find its’ unique mix of caramel, nougat, peanuts, and chocolate very alluring and tasty.
Lidl*** do a version which is rather unimaginatively called Peanut & Choco. It’s not bad, but it’s no Marathon.
Backing me up, Wikipedia (apparently ChatGPT was out on a date ) tells me the annual global sales of Snickers is over $380 million and is widely considered to be the bestselling candy bar in the world. Well, I’ve always had good taste.
I am a sucker for peanuts, although only figuratively you will understand, as I have never taken the time to find out how long it would take for a peanut to disappear by sucking one for long enough. Surely everybody knows by now the peanut is not a nut but a legume? I think this means it grows underground rather than on a tree.
Be that as it may, I can enjoy peanuts in any form, in chocolate, salted, in candy, roasted of course, and even as peanut butter, which I can eat from a spoon out of the jar at a speed dependent on the viscosity or as I like to think of it , the mucilaginousness** of the particular brand.
This is not a health issue as being without opposing thumbs, my dog is unable to open the jar and consume my delicious legumey comestible.
I used to prefer, and grew comfortable with the consistency of SunPat peanut butter, which I found to be firm and not at all oily. Then beginning to find SunPat a bit cakey, I bought one from Lidl which was apparently 100% peanuts with no added palm oil, (I understand this is an ecologically sound choice). However at the time I found the consistency a little cloying. As SunPat is only 97% peanuts, I eventually decided to go back to a 100% peanuts, peanut butter, manufactured by Meridian.
Again though, we are back to the problem of cloying. There have been occasions when the spoonful I have taken, has been too large. On those occasions however, I can say I’m almost certain I prefer this sensation of choking on peanut butter, (even though it can render one into feeling one is in a state between this world and the next), than the strange and dangerous modern predilection for choking during sex (which I am thankful to say I have only heard of, and never been involved in).
Honey is often something that helps the transit of peanut butter down the throat, however marrying the two is only experientially possible on a slice of bread toasted or uncooked.
You may feel we have moved a long way from the Marathon bar, however without peanuts this noble beast of a chocolate bar would only be a Mars, lasting a much shorter time, and being much less enjoyable in the mouth.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Marathon! Surely it is only a matter of time before this American beauty is awarded an honorary knighthood?
© adewils 2026
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* apparently named after a horse owned by the Mars family
** the quality of being mucilaginous, which means having the sticky properties of mucilage or resembling mucus. It describes a slimy and viscous texture often found in certain plants and substances
*** a supermarket brand of German origin with many branches in the UK