A Pox on Tropical Candy

I have never been one to stand in the way of candy-related innovations. If anything, I welcome newcomers to the pantheon of sweet treats. However, in the rush to expand their brands, candy corporations often go down a dark path and develop the worst of all possible lines of candy: tropical flavors. Starburst, Skittles, Mike and Ike: these are among the brands that force their ill-conceived flavors upon us.

The problem is not necessarily that these expanded tastes do not live up to the original; indeed, as is generally the case, established candy brands become successful because their original incantations are so good. It is only natural that their sequels will pale by comparison. The Godfather IIs, Empire Strikes Backs and Wrath of Khans are the exception rather than the rule. (In the candy realm, examples of candies that have improved upon the original: the peanut M&M, the addition of the fruit punch Sweetart, and the gummi worm--worms are somehow better than bears.) Yes, the originals are almost always the pinnacle.

However, the tropical flavored candies do not even approach the appeal of the original brand products. Let's take Starburst Tropicals as an example. Was there a group of people out there clamoring for "Mango Melon," "Pina Colada," or "Strawberry Banana" chews? Or, in Skittles, was there a call for "Banana Berry," "Kiwi Lime," or "Pineapple Passion Fruit?" Or, in Mike and Ikes, a grass roots movement for the similarly-flavored "Kiwi Lime," "Strawberry Banana," and "Pineapple Banana?" I would think an answer of "no" to all of these questions is logical. However, all of these brands are pushing these inferior products into the market.

Yuck.

There are a number of reasons that I object to these creations. First, only the vaguest notion of "tropicality" ties the flavors together. Second, the American market is most likely not able to identify some of these flavors-- do we eat a whole lot of passion fruit or kiwi on a daily basis, to the point that we want a candy of those flavors? Third, because these flavors are largely foreign to most, candy producers have no real incentive to get the flavors right; and, since the formulations for these new candy flavors are not widely developed (as are orange or cherry, for instance), even those corporations trying to get them right often fail. Fourth, it seems that corporations do not trust the ability of any "tropical" flavor to stand on its own. Perhaps owing to their inability to develop "kiwi" or "passion fruit" just right, or rightly understanding that no one really wants those flavors in the first place, candy brands force together nasty duos of flavors - one flavor we know and one we don't know or like as well. Every tropical flavor is some haphazard hybridization of often incompatible tastes. Why spoil strawberry with the worst candy flavor possible- banana? Why force kiwi upon lime? Why mask pineapple, a flavor that Americans might know and like, with passion fruit?

Pass.

In the end, tropical flavors are an unfortunate result of the move toward brand expansion. Sure, the gummi Starburst is a solid product, and the Sour Skittle is a triumph; all expansion is not bad expansion. However, some arenas should not be populated, and tropical is one of them. Perhaps candy companies should have tried to expand into that market, but the fact that they persist is unconscionable.

Jelly: Peanut Butter Be Damned!

This one goes out to Spinner.

I remember the first time I got some jelly fish. It was completely by mistake, and I was actually quite pissed about the whole thing. You see, once again, I was in the candy aisle with my cousin – this time at Wal-Mart. As we often were, we were standing with eyes aglow, attempting to determine our maximum candy purchasing power. At this time, I was relatively new to candy, and I was especially enamored of gummi bears. How could I not be? For years, a whole world of confection had been closed to me, and then one day I got that silky, syrupy gummi in my mouth: the explosion of citric acid, the play of soft and taut, the tiny pieces breaking on the palate, bouncing against the inside of my teeth. But I digress…

The point of the story is this: I saw that a package of gummi bears weighing about 3 ounces went for one sum, while a 6-ounze package of what I thought were gummi fish went for the same price. “Two for one,” I said, to myself. “How could an error like this have slipped through the cracks? Do people find the fish form somehow less appetizing than the bear?” Perhaps in reaction to my lording of, well, a lot over him in the past or maybe because he, too, was fooled, my cousin said nothing as I grabbed the generic package of jelly fish, and he grabbed a sac of gummi bears.

My disappointment registered almost immediately when I opened the package in the car. There was no play of soft and taut on the teeth, only the even texture of a pallet knife cutting through sheetrock mud. I had gotten the wrong product, and as I feverishly turned the package over and again, looking for some explanation, I saw the word “Jelly” where “Gummi” should have been. One cannot fully understand the dismay of a young boy who has spent his last pennies on a bag of candy, only to realize that he has made a bad purchase. I attempted to make some unbalanced trades at the rate of 3, even 4 jellies per gummi, but my cousin was no fool. He knew after my free taste test offer that he had the superior good.

Do these even look like gummis? Man, I was a neophyte...

I look back on that experience with a wry smile, because I am just as apt now to intentionally buy a jelly product as I am a gummi one. Perhaps I over-consumed gummis in a decade-long binge and now appreciate the variety of jelly; or, more likely, I simply understand that jellies are not trying to disguise themselves as gummis in some clandestine attempt to disappoint young boys. No, they are their own medium, with their own set of qualities to be cherished. Jujy Fruit, Dots, Fruit Slices, Swedish Fish, Cinnamon Bears… where would the candy spectrum be without these options? Well, I’ll tell you: nowhere.

While Spinner and I disagree on the relative benefits of various flavors in Swedish Fish, their appeal cannot be argued.

These may be the best of them all; and, notice how cinnamon bears dress up to meet their maker. That's class.

Indeed, the jelly is not the ugly step-child of the gummi, but perhaps, fittingly, a cousin, who only wants to be recognized in his own way, in his own place. “The world is too much with us,” Wordsworth once wrote; on that day some 20 or more years ago, I should have settled down, tasted the jellies I had, accepted them for what they were and become a better man for it.

It's Been a While...

It's been a while since I have purchased any candy. I cannot identify a reason, really, except that I haven't been in the mood. I always want a little of the sweets around the house, but recently, I have been stuck on donuts, brownies, ice cream-- no candy. Sure, there is some residual candy laying around, and every day or so, I eat a bear or a few beans. I have not gone cold turkey or anything. But I also have not bought any new candy in at least a couple of weeks, I think.

Granted, I have been super busy, so I have not had a lot of time to waste; however, as anyone with a crutch knows, the stressful times are the best times to relax with a nice baggy of the good stuff-- whether it be nose candy or the regular kind. But come to think of it, recently I guess I have been hyper-aware of the lack of variety in the candy aisle. Whereas in the past, a seeming plethora of options dazzled the eye and teased the imagination, now, most candy displays are all the same: plain, boring iterations of how some marketing model says that a limited number of candies will sell best. There is no variety, no style, no panache, and as a result, nothing jumps out at me and into my basket. Oh, I could pound down a box of Jujys, or I could force feed a score or two of Junior Mints, but where is the romance? Where is the narrative?

There could be an image here; however, I think I will allow you to project your ideal candy aisle in the space. Doesn't it look incredible?

I declare right now that this malaise shall not stand. I will find the passion again, if I have to search hill and dale. Somewhere out there, outside of the Krogers and CVSes of the world, there is a display of the kind fabled in my memory. I will find such a place, and I will plunder it. And the world will make sense again.

Looking Back: A Self-Reflexive Project

Anthony Giddens, a noted cultural scholar, argues that our ontological security is defined by how we define our own narratives. He says that we constantly amend, alter, shift how we think of ourselves and present ourselves to others, that all of our machinations are parts of a self-reflexive project of personal identity formation.

Anthony Giddens.

A friend of mine last night noted that this blog seemed to have a wistful theme, a pining for youthful days. This is undoubtedly true. First, the majority of my most poignant candy experiences happened as a wide-eyed youngster, and so, it makes sense that a blog about my-life-in-candy would highlight those formative moments. Also, though, I'd like to write myself back to a time when I was less cynical, more apt to be truly happy, unlikely to get, as I put it often, into "fuck it mode." As such, I'd like my narrative to drift back to happy times, when a fistful of candy and a lake swim or a tree seat meant nirvana.

However, just to show that this blog need not be all rainbows and lollipops, I will tell you a tale of my youth that I do not look back on through rose-colored lenses.

Once I became a bit older (I don't remember exactly how old), I got an allowance of 5 dollars per week for performing weekly chores-- dusting, vacuuming, washing the dishes, mowing the lawn. It wasn't a lot of money, but it allowed me to fuel my two young passions: baseball cards and candy. I was a huge Darryl Strawberry fan, and in a few short years, I had collected over 200 of his cards, over 100 of them distinct. Each week, my cousin and I would get our grandparents to take us up to the local flea market where a baseball card collector had a booth. Once he noticed that each week I would come in looking for Strawberrys, he would have any new or obscure cards he could find waiting for me. I was able to amass an impressive collection, indeed.

The Fleer rookie: once worth $30! The gold standard (excepting the Topps 1983 "extra rookie card," which I never could afford.)

Usually, too, if we had not spent all of our money on cards, we would ask our grandparents to stop at the local grocery store/drug store so that we could pick up some of the sweet stuff. When we went to the grocery store, we would go to the by-the-pound display of individually wrapped candies. You could buy samples for a nickel a piece (on the honors system, too--you just put a nickel in a box on the display!) or you could fill a bag and pay by weight. This was a Brach's display, and the candies available were unique to the display-- most could not be purchased in packaged form. Two varieties I remember distinctly were gumballs surrounded by a cherry candy coating (a blow-pop without the stick, but flavored differently) and a selection of caramel-like chews of all flavors. They were caramel-like in the texture, and some were actually caramel. But there were also maple flavors, chocolate flavors, fruit flavors within caramel, maple, or chocolate flavors, etc. Man, those things were so f*&$%ing good! Of course, you can no longer find them, and the world is worse for it. (Uh oh, there goes the wistfulness again.)

If we didn't go to the grocery store, we headed next door to the Rev-Co (later bought by Rite-Aid). There, of course, you could find all of the normal candies, pre-packaged and glowing in their brilliance. On one occasion I can remember, I steered away from my usual fruit-and-sour pick of candies and bought some chocolate: a Snickers bar and a Zero bar. {I have a great Zero bar story to tell later, so someone remind me of that if you don't see it soon...}

The Zero bar: the only time white chocolate is OK- and, the perfect combo of nougat and almonds.


Anyway, of course my cousin and I were steady woofing down some of our candy in the car. I went for the Zero bar, and my cousin (the misguided soul) went for some Twizzlers. Though the store is only about 3 or so miles from our house, we had each finished our first candies by the time we got half-way home. To my credit, though, I was trying to be good. I restrained myself from eating the snickers, opting to save it for later. If I could bring it out the next day, after my cousin had already eaten his candy, well, I could throw it in his face, couldn't I, moaning and closing my eyes in ecstasy as I slowly ate the chocolaty goodness.

So, once I got home, I put the Snickers under my bed, smiling about my plan for the next day. However, I awoke to a horrific experience. Immediately upon waking, I reached for the candy bar. It was there, where I left it, but something wasn't right. As my hand emerged from beneath the comforter, the issue became clear: the Snickers, and my arm, were covered in ants. Apparently, they, too, were candy lovers and had found their way into my room and had cut a small hole into the wrapper. They were all over the package AND pouring out from the hole. This was straight out of Hellraiser, ya'll.

A life cut short...

Indeed, I cannot fully explain to you the horror of this event. First, I absolutely HATE insects, especially ones that come en masse. Swarming or hording bugs make me ill. And second, of course, the ants had taken my prize. I danced around, shaking ants off me, throwing the candy out the door, itching all over. The rest of the next two hours or so was me on my hands and knees, my face down near the blue carpet, crushing ants. I am scratching myself all over as I write this. So nasty.

The moral of the story, I guess, is that when you plan to use candy for ill, fate has a way of punishing you for your hubris. Let that be a lesson to you all... and an example that not all of my young candy memories are happy ones.

So Eden sank to grief

We moved to that house in the middle of my third grade year. When we first visited the house the summer before, it was a mess. The neighbor spoke about how the previous owner had stood naked on the front porch and peed into the yard. I remember picturing the man relieving himself through the faded trellis that surrounded the porch. I also remember the wallpaper in the kitchen-- white with a blue, naked woman print. There was trash everywhere, and the yard was overgrown and wild. I wondered how we were going to live there, amidst all the filth. But once my Dad had worked on it for just a few months, it was the best of homes. He was a superman with a tool belt, and I could not worship him anymore. The neighborhood also loved him for recuperating the property, and we loved the relative serenity and isolation of our home.

Even though we were in a pretty populated neighborhood, ours was the only road off the highway for miles. We were at the base of the Appalachian Mountains. The summers were mild and the winters wintry enough to please a young boy who loved snow. Just behind the house, a massive hill rose up to what seemed to me a thousand feet. It was so steep that I could not even fully climb it. All along the hill were brambly bushes, prickly berry plants and thick undergrowth.

I sometimes traded cut up legs and arms to eat a few berries.

I liked to imagine what was on top of the hill, but I never dispelled my fantasies by getting up there. A lot of my time was spent in a young maple tree that grew about ten feet up the base of the hill. It hung over the tool shed that abutted the hill. By climbing up to the top of the shed and standing on the roof, I could climb into the tree and onto a branch that hung out over the shed and yard. I was so small and the branch so shaped that it made a perfect seat for me. I sat with my back against the trunk and my legs stretched across that limb for hours a day. If I looked straight out or to the side and not down to the roof of the shed, I was up about 15 feet, on top of the world.

When I wasn't in the tree, I was biding my time until Daddy sent me and my sister to the convenience store at the intersection of our road and the highway. It was the only store for miles. It had all the basics and a deli that made killer sandwiches. Usually we were just sent to pick up some bread or milk, but occasionally it was steak sandwich night. I still remember the smell of the meat on the flattop: a warm, garlicky cloud, with that milky, fecund smell of cheese melting on the grill. We never had that much excess money, so getting these sandwiches was a treat unparalleled. As a result, when we were sent to fetch these sandwiches, we simply hurried down, ordered them, ran home and ate hearty.

However, when we were sent to pick up various sundries, occasionally my sister and I would ask if we could pick up a treat for ourselves. At that time, you could still get Bazooka Joe's for a penny, Atomic Fireballs and Jaw Breakers for two pennies, and small boxes of Lemon Heads or Red Hots for a dime. We never asked what candy we could get- only if we could get some - but we durst not ever get more than those single or small packages. The $0.30 candy bars were way out of our range, and we knew it. We never got candy, and we were used to watermelon and cantaloupe for dessert. Only this convenience store even made us bold enough to ask for candy. We were there so much, and the aisle was so alluring, that there was an unspoken agreement between father and children that if we asked rarely enough, and if we showed proper restraint, we could all be happy.

My favorite of the small wonders was the box of Alexander the Grapes. Made by Ferrara Pan, they were the grape-flavored equivalent of the more famous Lemon Heads. A crumbly, sweet purple grape casing surrounded a chewier, sour center. The combination was heavenly, and there were a good 15 or so candies, even in that small box.

Just looking at this box makes me want to cry for lost youth.

The candies now go under the name "Grape Heads," and the formulation has changed. They can never approximate the joy they brought me all those years ago. Many a day, I sat on my branch, looking out over the street to the mountains in the distance, sucking on Alexander the Grapes until I could not stand it any longer, and bit into the center. So powerful, in fact, was my experience with candy from that store that I once let greed overtake my judgment.

On one of those special days when my sister and I were sent to pick up some sandwiches, I felt I could reach up and touch the sky. I had not asked my Dad if I could get any candy, and I had no reason to-- we were getting the sandwiches, an occasion not to be taken lightly. However, as my sister went to the counter to order the sandwiches, I wandered over to the candy aisle. I poured up and down, looking at all the options, wondering what so many of them tasted like. I wanted the total package-- sandwich, family, candy. I knew my sister, who had the money, would not give me even a penny for a piece. She had been instructed to bring home the change, and we would not steal from our father. Really, I would never even have asked her to. But as an 8-yr old, the pull was too strong. I was a slave to the call of the sugar. So, thinking to myself that I could palm a small piece of candy (a box was too big and would make too much noise), I reached down and grabbed a tootsie roll. Even as I turned and reached to put it in my pocket, I saw the cashier staring at me. "Did you pay for that, honey?" she said. There was no malice on her voice; it even seemed sympathetic. She was giving me the benefit of the doubt. How many times had I been in there, after all?

I Imagine me on the left side of this aisle, attempting to will the candy deftly into my pocket.

But I could not be concerned with her tone. My ears were burning, my father's disappointment was on me, and I felt the shame of a thousand criminals. I threw the candy back, ran over to my sister at the counter, and begged her to go. We did not have the sandwiches yet, and I tried to hide behind her until they came out. When they did, I let her go to the counter as I shrank by the front door. The cashier never said a word to my sister, and nothing ever came of that incident, but it must have been months before I would go back to that store. Ironically, the attempt to grab one morsel of candy probably stopped me from getting twenty times as much over the next few months.

A couple years after the incident, we moved away from that house, and I haven't been back since. Still, despite my shame, I have never really felt as comfortable as I did in our small little house, at the bottom of the hill, with a store full of candies and sandwiches at the end of the road.

You Are What You Eat...

I wrote a "poem" for a final project in high school about a man describing his love for a woman in candy terms. One especially compelling couplet was, "Your glowing eyes and flowing hair / Could rival even gummi bears." Also, if you remember, one of the early posts on this blog has me describing "Fructor," the god of candy-- he has licorice hair and jolly rancher fingers. These facts put me in mind of the axiom, "you are what you eat," and how I seem to keep returning to that theme in my thoughts.

It makes me wonder what candies I would ideally construct myself from, if such an awesome thing were possible. I would want to maintain a certain level of functionality as a candy man, but I also think that a flight of fancy requires some jouissance, throwing caution and impracticality to the wind. Additionally, I think that I would want to be able to enjoy eating myself if ever I was stranded without food, or when I felt my life had reached its proper end.

Not the Candy Man I am talking about...

All these things considered, I would want to have a variety of different tastes and textures for the big end-it-all. A completely sour or fruit-flavored body would make my last supper a bit monotonous and blase. Additionally, all hard candy or all soft candy parts would be texturally unsatisfying. Aside from these aesthetic concerns, however, the biggest thing to consider is the material from which the teeth would be constructed. One must be able to chew himself, in all his textures, in order to eat himself. My initial idea on that note is that the teeth should be made of a specially dense variety of Jolly Rancher. As candy eaters know, a normal Jolly Rancher might not be ideal, because the candy tends to shatter into shards when bitten. One would not want his teeth to splinter in such ways. However, if a denser JR could be constructed, that candy would make perfect teeth, because JRs are great to just leave in your mouth for a long time for flavor, and they tend to stick to your teeth when bitten. If one's teeth were made of JRs, not other parts, one would not have to worry about the JR parts of the body sticking to the teeth. I hope that makes sense.

Still not right...

Past that pragmatic concern, though, I am uncertain how I would construct myself per se. I have some basic ideas of what kinds of candies would HAVE to be a part of my candy-Voltron-type body (readers of the blog can guess what a number of those are) but the difficulty, I think, comes in the subtle details. When eating oneself, for instance, what surprises would one like to find? Would fingernails and toenails be of the same substance? If hair were made of licorice, say, would it be of one flavor or multiple? Would sets, like legs and arms, be matching, or would they be disparate? These and many other questions linger and make me think that the candied body is something that will continue to occupy my thoughts. Such a wondrous possibility must not be fired off in a matter of minutes for some high school poem. It must be more carefully considered.

Nope.

Birthday Candy

A couple of weeks ago, it was my birthday, and I celebrated by having dinner with some friends. I was already seated at the restaurant with a couple friends as two more entered with a gift for me: birthday candy. How did they know? Is it possible that I have spoken about candy in their presence? I must have, because the choice of candied gift was sublime-- Starburst Jelly Beans.

These little beans are the perfect blend of Starburst flavors and jelly bean texture.

The best part about the gift (aside from the fact that I got me some candy) is that my friends got me good candy, in a large bag. Those details mean they have been paying attention. Sometimes I prattle on, and it might be pretty easy to tune me out. However, my diatribes about hybrid candies and generous portions must have sunk in, as they avoided the surprisingly inferior Sweetart jelly beans and went with a proven, "family-sized" product. Though I wonder at the additions of Green Apple and Grape flavors (as these are not flavors of regular Starbursts) I find the Starburst Jelly Beans to be the perfect size-- small enough that you get more flavor than neutral jelly center-- and having vibrant and non-cloying sweetness.

While this gift reminded me of the importance of knowing your friends, it also puts me in mind of the joy of occasion candy. Already this year, I have received a ton of candy attached to special occasions. At the year's beginning, I was still munching on a few pounds of Xmas goodies. In February, I was home to visit the family, and I got a Valentine's assortment that included one of the strongest candies of all-time: Sweetart Hearts. The family was paying attention, too.

The gold standard.

Later, at Easter, friends and I gathered to share a tremendous meal and ate a couple of sleeves of caramel Cadbury eggs. Then there was my birthday. And coming up is Halloween and Xmas again. It is nice to think about what a place candy has assumed in American culture. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of diabetes. The candied life.