.FOOrD BLOrG. Not everything has to change

Call it tradition or call it over celebrated repetition either way we humans love nostalgia. On a recent trip to the local market I witnessed a little boy with a familiar dilemma. His father brought him to the store and said that he could choose one treat from the candy section. Now the candy section there is about 8 ft long and about two feet taller than this child. That is a big array of options for a hungry-eyed child. He would look and then pick up something but then he'd see a better option and set the first one down. I know how he felt. I have been there. But something else struck me about that moment. At some point he might reflect on his choice that evening and feel nostalgic about it. Where he has when he ate it and how the evening air felt or that he was up past his bedtime chomping on candy so the parents could do boring parent stuff like talk. (It always seems odd to kids that parents just want to sit and talk....weird.) It is funny how powerful our senses can be and how something as simple as a sweet can bring us back decades to a finite moment when we were knee high to a grasshopper.

So I thought we would have a sit and look back on some classics (for some) and some oldies for others with hopes that maybe you'd remember a treat or an eat that you'd forgotten and can tell or share with someone.
Okay so most of this posts collective sweets came from the Troutdale General Store. Which is as expected, an old timey store with a sandwich counter, t-shirts, old candy, decorum etc...... The items in the above picture were all from the by the pound section. Now, I am not a huge fan of salt water taffy. It never really has a ton of flavor and it has the mouth-feel of sludge. I remember getting them as a child at the beach with my grandparents but I am not nostalgic about it. If they had been super sour then maybe but as a kid you eat any sweet really. What is the saying? "Any port in a storm." For their sheer pathetic existence I give them two skinned knees out of five.

So I moved on to the brown thing. Yep, the brown thing. I have no idea what it is called or why I chose it. It smelled like a caramel. It tasted, however, like grainy nasty cheap caramel and the white stuff in the center tasted and had the mouth-feel of Cinnabon frosting. I am serious. This is a fat mouth treat to the utmost degree. So gross. After the fourth chew I just walked over to the garbage and spit it out. Blech. Blech. Blech. The brown thing gets one-i pooped my pants how do I hide this from everyone, out of five.

Next we have "Sour Balls". Whose name makes me think of a put down an old person would use. "Oh that Clarence he is just an old sour balls." or "Oswald used to be the life of the party now he is just another sour balls." First of all, these balls are not sour at all. So whomever decided that these were sour needs to get their tongue checked. These are just ordinary sweet balls. Why do old people like hard candy so much? Is that nostalgia? Hmmm. Or do they just like the salivation process. I would also like to note that red and orange taste the same. LAME. Green, however, just tastes like crap. I give these sad balls a one run thru the screen door breaking it out of five.

Ok I included this because who was the bright person that thought "Man I love Smartees but whoa are they spendy?!?" "If there was only a generic version that was more approachable? Hmmmm" Guess what? Sassy Sours taste somehow crappier than Smartees which are just sugar pressed into tiny tablets. I didn't snort these. Just saying. I give these a .5 grounded for doing something totally worth getting grounded for out of five.
Necco Wafers are like a quintasential oldie treat. These are actually a different flavor than the normal roll. These are ice cream flavors. Now the original roll all tastes the same except that sick black disc. Ugh. This...oh...ugh, Hold on. This is just an original.....ugh roll.....I just ate the crappy black licorice one..........guh. Sick. Who mislabeled the bucket? Jerks. REALLY FUNNY....

In any case I hate necco wafers. They taste like they should be medicinal. I have tasted better homeopathic migraine remedies that were better than these grody sugar buttons. Coincidentaly that would be my name if I was a clown-Grody Sugar Buttons. *Honk Honk. I give necco a .o5 buried my toys in the mud and forgot where, out of five. Speaking of clowns.....
We have finally reached the heart of this post. The Circus Peanut. (SHARE TIME!) So when I was little there were few things more epic than a trip to grandma and grampa's house. One: they were totally awesome people. Two: they spoiled their grand kids. Three: candy tin. Yes. They had a tin of candy that rested on or near their television. It had a dented lid that hid its sweet sweet surprise from kid eyes. That candy tin was a mythical beast of treats. Cinnamon discs? Check! Butterscotch? You know it. Some weird pink tablet? You bet your sweet bippy! But my favorite was also one of my grandfathers favorite THE CIRCUS PEANUT. You may be thinking "I have had one and it was just spongey marshmellow that tasted vaguely sweet but nothing like a peanut." And you are correct but what you don't know is what I didn't know either.

See a few years after my grandfather passed I say these candies in a store and bought them for Nostalgic purposes. They were not as I remembered. Squishy. Well, then my father told me that his dad would buy a bag of them, open up the bag and put it up in the cupboard for weeks. What does that do? Only makes it totally awesome. It becomes stale. So moisture that makes the texture just squishy leaves and a skin kind of forms on the outside. Well not a skin so much but a shell. Yes a shell. Like a peanut. Genius! The whole texture of the treat changes and it becomes more than a one note snack. So I bought one at the store and I opened it up and put it in the top of the cupboard for 2 weeks. I just ate it. Some things are best left private. I will say, this is a sweet way to pay tribute, no matter how small a tribute, to an amazing person. Cheers gramps! Personally I give this a 5 mom said no more soda but I bet grandma will say yes, out of five. Thanks for your time now please do some reflection. Let me know what you come up with.

What? Oh that is just Morrissey with a cat on his head. Ain't nuthin. He is just provin' that he ain't no sour balls.