Thanks to Candy!

On this day of giving thanks, I give a shout out to all candies. Even the nasty ones like Good & Plenty. Hey, G&P, we know that you are trying. It's not your fault that you taste like chalk and butt.



Happy Thanksgiving, faithful reader(s)!

Food or Candy? Chocolate as Hybrid Treat

In my last story, I hinted at a real dilemma for me: is chocolate best categorized as candy or food? Of course, I understand that this question is rather ridiculous, because if you consider food anything that provides nourishment or (minimal)nutrients, then all candy is food. So, perhaps I should ask whether chocolate is dessert or candy... but perhaps that question does not really un-muddy the water, either. Regardless, I think that the subtext of these questions is valid: is chocolate candy? Perhaps a more direct question would help:

Is a Snickers bar more closely related to Jujy Fruit or a brownie?

For me, the answer is clear: the Snickers lives in Brownie County.

If you read my examination of whether gum is candy, "A Rose by Any Other Name," you already know that I understand that marketing is a key determinate in the cultural understanding of what constitutes candy-ness. So, let's leave that piece of the argument by the wayside for the moment. Of course, chocolate is marketed as candy.

My argument on this issue is more linked to the eating experience, the most important aspect of any discussion of candy. When I eat a handful of Reese's Cups or pound down a Mars bar in like 5 seconds flat, I equate that experience to eating a brownie or noshing a Little Debbie cake. That experience is dessert. It is a sweet treat, but it is not a part of the Candied Life.

Does this dessert look like a "candy" bar to anyone else?

I think that perhaps for me, the key is that the flavors of chocolate "candies" can very closely be replicated at home. Sure, one cannot quite get the nougat or milk chocolate exactly the same as Mars does in the Snickers bar, but really, isn't milk chocolate with peanuts and caramel pretty easily reproducible? Again, I reference the brownie, and add to the list fudge, german chocolate cake and any number of other carriers for these flavors.

Now, I also know that one can, for instance, make his own gummis. Friend to the blog Seamus McGee once sent me a recipe for said. However, it is very hard to perfect the proper ratios of artificial flavors to red 40, and it is those ratios that relay the true gummi experience. Also, I don't know how one would ever reproduce the chalky brilliance of a SweeTart or the puckering sourness of a Sour Patch Kid.

In addition, eating chocolate is simply a more filling experience. There is more foody substance to these things, and when I eat them , there is a limit to the bulk I can put down. Eventually, there is a limit to how many gummis I can eat, but usually, we are talking jaw fatigue or teeth pain as the determining factor to my cessation. 7 or 8 ounces of chocolate and I am done for the day.

All this is not to bash chocolate or to give it a complex. Granted, it will never ascend to the rarefied air of the fruity candies, but it should not feel bad about that. In the world, there are people that write ridiculously entertaining candy blogs, and then there are the rest. It's the way of the world.

To be fair, Haribo ain't never had no ad as sweet as this...