Faster, Pixy Stix, kill! kill!

I’ve been reading again, always a dangerous habit, or so it seems in the current cultural milieu. Reading = Independent Thought and Independent Thought = Death—or at the very least = Fewer Dates. Guys don’t make passes at other guys wearing glasses, I'm told.

The latest attempt at self-improvement involves devouring Steve Almond’s book, Candyfreak: A Journey through the Chocolate Underbelly of America, a cheery-flavored tale of the author’s lifelong obsession with candy, particularly chocolate-covered candy bars.

Now this is an obsession I can get into. Some people have a lot of sex, some people drink or smoke a great deal, some people try to over-organize and over-direct the world based on their personal control issues, some fight, some play amateur chemist with their bodies. But Steve Almond is a self-avowed, pigging-out-makes-perfect Sugarbuzzaholic. And so am I for that matter.

Oh, I enjoy pretzels now that I’m in Pennsylvania and chips like everyone else (particularly Utz’s hand-cooked, kettle variety, another Pennsy favorite), and ice cream, too. But, to quote BowWowWow (and I often do), "I want candy." They were singing about chocolate bars, weren't they? I know at least candy makes me feel like I'm wrapped in a sweater. So good. So comforting. So satisfying. And, if you're lucky, no lint.

I think Mr. Almond would understand.

As you no doubt have noted by reading this blog, I live in Central PA, which is home to the chocolate monolith that is Hershey, Inc. (And here you thought New Orleans was the only chocolate city . . . .) While the author doesn’t denigrate Hershey, Mars, Nestlé, or the other major corporate confectioners, his interests lie elsewhere, namely, in conducting search-and-rescue missions for obscure candy bars and candies, made by Mom-and-Pop (or if you prefer, Adam-and-Steve) “sweet”-shops. In particular, he focuses on nineteenth- and twentieth-century regional U.S. candymakers, some of whom still are in production today—but are barely hanging on to their nougats in some cases.

Sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don’t, but, regardless, most of us buy from Big Candy—Hershey, Mars, Nestlé, and friends. Big Candy has more money and more muscle. It can advertise more, distribute better and wider, and can pay the exorbitant “slotting” fees (in the $20,000 to $25,000 U.S. range) that retail chains charge snackmakers in order to insure the sweet spot in the store, at the customer’s eye level. Big Candy is good, but it means Big Trouble for Little Candy—the Standard’s, the Sifer’s, the Palmer’s, and all the remaining others.

To his credit, Almond doesn't completely decimate the military-industrial complex that is Corporate Candy. Nonetheless, in addition to 21-gun-saluting his candy bar favorites, he does lament the all-or-nothing, survival of the fattest warfare waged in the chocolate battlefield.

I’m only halfway through the book, but I’ve already started to get my own candy freak on, by rummaging the racks of 7-11s, gas station stores, Dollar General, and, lawsy, even the Cracker Barrel. The latter came about from a tip from the author himself who mentions that the Candy Bar of the South, “Goo Goo Clusters” (http://www.googoo.com), manufactured by Nashville’s Standard Candy Company, are still sold by Cracker Barrel but generally aren’t available outside of the South.

Ha, the gods bless you Cracker Barrel, even with your historically apartheid hiring practices (which I trust have changed). The local CB does sell both types of Goo Goo Clusters, the regular kind made with peanuts and the “supreme” kind made with pecans. They only sell them by the box, containing 10 “clusters,” for about $4 per box, but still, they are there--and they are fantastically, deliciously addictive.

They also sell "Lookout Mountain Moon Pies," the original, not one of those knock-offs made with cheap chocolate or other bizarre-o coatings. (Banana? You are seriously sick in the head.) Now if only grits and sweet tea are on the menu at the Barrel, I may be able to live a prosperous and long (or at least well-fed) life in Yankeeworld.

In addition, CB sells lots of other types of “retro” (my word) or “nostalgic” (their word) candies in their adjoining “tourist trap of yesteryear” shop (not the official name), some of which I know, but many of which I am less familiar with or were completely new to me.

For example . . .

Chase’s “Cherry Mash” (St. Joseph, Missouri; http://www.cherrymash.com), a mound of chocolate, roasted and ground peanuts, and mashed, maraschino cherries, along with other ingredients you don’t want to think about too much. Really good! A nice combination of chocolate, cherry, and nuts. They even give you a recipe on the package, detailing how to melt two Cherry Mashes in milk and pour over ice cream. Seems like a perfectly good waste of Cherry Mash, but still, might be worth a try on a dare or when you’re overcaffeinated in the kitchen at 3 am.

Almond only briefly mentions the Mash, instead concentrating on a similar, Iowa-made candy bar, the “Twin Bing” (http://www.palmercandy.com).

Then there was Orlando, Florida-based Anastasia Confections’ “Coconut Patties Dipped in Chocolate.” Not much on descriptive nomenclature, but, nevertheless, I bought a package (includes two) but am saving these for another day. Not out of some sense of decorum or weight consciousness, trust me. It’s just that I need to save room for the Goo Goo Clusters . . . plus I already ate two other candy bars that I found at a Sheetz service station further down the road earlier in the day.

Namely . . .

Gardners Candies’ (http://www.gardnerscandies.com) “Original Peanut Butter Meltaway,” which consists of a bar divided into small sections covered with a rich milk chocolate and filled with a very liquidy (and I personally think, caramelly) peanut butter. Delicious! Really outstanding! I will be hording these when Three Mile Island blows again, I can assure you. I had never heard of this bar, produced in nearby Tyrone, Pennsylvania. Sounds like a road trip to me.

Goetze’s (http://www.goetzecandy.com) “’Original’ Caramel Creams,” which really isn’t a candy bar but a package of six or eight or maybe ten (I ate them fast while driving, so I didn’t bother with counting, just consuming) caramel and cream candies, similar if not identical to the Baltimore company’s “Bull’s Eyes.” I like the Bull’s Eyes a little better because they are individually wrapped and taste fresher and richer (as rich and fresh as anything off a conveyor belt wrapped in plastic can taste), but the six-to-ten pack’s contents are still quite yummy. Plus compare Goetze’s 5 grams of fat to Gardners’ 19 (!!!), and you can practically consider this a diet food—one without the torment of having to watch Kirstie Alley hawk it to you on the Jenny Craig plan. “Have you called Jenny?” Yeah, and I told her to find a new spokesmodel.

Obviously, I have my own candy freak coming on, or at the very least a renewal of my candy freak from childhood. After church (yes, this has been a very long time ago), my family would make a run for the Stop-n-Go on the way home, and we four kids were allowed one snack of our choosing.

My brothers, I believe, went for Three Musketeers sometimes, a Snickers, or a Zero. Maybe there was a Baby Ruth and a Milky Way in there, too. My sister, ever the iconoclast, craved the salty and savory--Wise’s cheese waffle sandwiches, filled with the most disgustingly delicious, fake, processed cheese food in the world.

My choice was, at least for a time, the gayest candy bar ever made, the “Milkshake.” How can a candy bar be gay, you ask? Because I always liked the shimmy-shaking, hoof-clapping, dolled-up cartoon cows in the TV ad for the candy bar. With eyelashes fluttering, earbobs dangling, and painted lips puckering, they sang together at the end of the commercial, “Milkshake! (clap clap) Milkshake! (clap clap)." And then at the very end, one of the cows, the Diana Ross one no doubt, breaks out in a solo. "It’s Moooooooolicious!" she bellows.

Sing it loud and proud, Miss Elsie and Miss Bossie. Drag cows after my own heart, even at a very tender age. Who says it's not nature but nurture? Ask the drag cows, honey. They know.