Mauna Loa Macadamia Nuts
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Candy Desserts Hawaii

"If you're going to spend $4 per can to try these nuts, stick with our top picks unless you're a real big fan of salted nuts; if so, seek out places that sell savory versions to mainlanders."

With an annual physical scheduled in the near future, now might not be the best time to contemplate the glories of macadamia nuts, one of our long-time snack favorites that most Buffalonians only know in two forms: dry roasted and honey glazed, the latter more popular and widely available ten or twenty years ago than today. After all, macadamias contain "the world's highest percentage of monounsaturate[d]" fats - 84% - which is 8% higher than olive oil, and a quick look at the back of a can of these nuts shows that one cup can constitute 92% of one's recommended daily intake of fat. Bad stuff, right?

According to the latest science, the answer's actually "no:" macadamia nuts supposedly lower the dangerous type of blood cholesterol (LDL) and elevate the beneficial cholesterol (HDL) while diminishing triglycerides, the chemical form of most body fat. But since we're not scientists, and have all too often seen how today's good food is described tomorrow as a bad one, we're not going to dwell on the science at all. Rather, in keeping with our mission to help Western New Yorkers find great foods from inside and outside this area, we're just going to point you to some of our favorite snack foods.

Our December visit to Kauai, Hawaii offered a number of opportunities for culinary disappointment, but you can count on enjoying a wide variety of macadamia nuts no matter where you are in those islands. There are packages sold at the airports for crazy, stupid prices. And then there are the Mauna Loa brand ones, which can be found at any corner ABC Store or - thanks to the company's 2004 acquisition by Hershey's - online. We've loved Mauna Loa's macadamias for years, and if anything, they've only become more diversified as time has passed.

Let's start with the basic, plain version that you can find in supermarkets outside of Hawaii - even Wegmans. Described as "dry roasted," this version is nothing more than the basic nut, typically full-sized, almost round, and salted, possessing a characteristically soft, yielding crunch and a decidedly nutty taste that lingers a little in the mouth when you've finished. It's a nice flavor, but the salt tends to drown it out a little; a roasted but unsalted version is sold in Hawaii.

The Honey Roasted version is a lighter-tasting variant on the honey roasted peanut, emerging from the can almost sparkling with the dried honey glaze, which makes the first taste and every crunch a little sweet, but not overbearingly so. We like this version more than the plain salted one, but not as much as the ones with stronger candy coatings.

One step up the sweetness ladder is the Butter Candy Glazed Macadamia, which unlike the Honey Roasted actually shines with a seemingly polished glaze upon examination, and looks decidedly yellow and brown in coloration. Depending on how you eat it and what you eat with it, you may notice the sweetness before or after the taste of butter, which is light but not trivial, mixing nicely with the taste of the fatty nut inside. It's a nice flavor, but not our favorite.

That honor is currently being shared by two different macadamia nuts. For as long as we can recall, we've loved the Kona Coffee Glazed version, which predictably is dark brown in color, polished to a slight shine, and a really excellent balance of sweetness, coffee flavoring, and the underlying macadamia flavor. It's this can that we buy first, and most, when we have the opportunity - we dream of it when we haven't had it recently enough.

A newer and similarly excellent take is the Milk Chocolate Toffee Macadamia, which is unlike all of the others mentioned above in that it's closer to the candy category than a nut, even though it's served in the same-sized container. Every one of these nuts starts out globe-shaped, with a texture that feels like a remixed peanut M&M: the outside is lightly sugar-powdered, with soft chocolate, then a hard toffee candy shell, and then the nut at the end. If you can deceive yourself into thinking that the other nuts might be really good for you, this one offers no such opportunity for delusion: it is sinfully sweet, and the flavor is balanced more heavily towards the chocolate and toffee than the nut at the core. We had it for our first time on our most recent visit, and loved it, bringing more home with us; $4 boxes of exactly 11 Macadamia Nut Clusters, chocolate, caramel and nut candies similar to Turtles, were also big hits, albeit with an even lower nut to candy ratio.

As is obvious from what's above, not every type of macadamia nut is created equal, and there are flavors that don't do much for us. The Milk and Dark Chocolate Covered ones look like Whoppers and don't hold a candle to the Milk Chocolate Toffee version. But we especially dislike the "savory" flavors that have emerged over the years: a Wasabi and Teriyaki version found only in Hawaii overpowers the nut with a powdered dose of the sinus-clearing Japanese horseradish, while a cajun barbecue version called "Kauai Kajun," a salty "Sweet Maui Onion and Garlic," and other variants have done nothing for us. Hershey's appears to understand as much: the candied flavors are much easier to find than the others outside of Hawaii. If you're going to spend $4 per can to try these nuts, our advice would be to stick with our top picks unless you're a real big fan of salted nuts, in which case you can go out of your way to find places that sell the savory versions to mainlanders.