CHICAGO – Chuckles is a simple pectin-based jelly candy with sugar coating, sold in candy bar form. Echoing old Turkish jelly candies, it was an innovation for its ability not to get sticky. The candies are sold in groups of five; the classic flavors are (from left) cherry, lemon, licorice, orange and lime. The order [...]

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VIRGINIA BEACH – One of my first childhood memories is being on the kitchen floor of our garage apartment on 78th Street, looking at a corrugated Brach’s Candy box. It had to be before 1969, when we moved to a real house, and my parents got out of the business of beach cottage rentals. I [...]

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A few years ago, on a Delta flight, I recall an attendant handing out Lance peanut crackers, along with Cokes. How delightfully Southern and declassé, but in a good, circumspect way. I was curious how such a staple of the Southern diet, namely a Coke and Nabs, could be served on an airline that made [...]

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BLOSSOM, TEXAS – We hear from fans of the Peanut Rounder. It’s “soft and delicious” soft textured peanut candy made by Anderson Candy Company. Blossom is in Lamar County, in the northern part of the state. The company apparently has its roots in the 1940s, when a fellow named Dan Hearn, through trial and error, [...]

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Amazon.com Widgets Of the classic Christmas candy items, the Life Savers Storybook is among the best known. Question for readers. Is the selection inside the story book the same as in years past? This year, I see Five Flavors and Wild Cherry, but I cannot recall what other flavors have been among the selection in [...]

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Early this month, many in the billionaire club signed a pledge to give away at least half their fortunes to charity, all led by Warren Buffett and Bill Gates. And who can argue with that? It’s their cash and their right. But the story sort of struck me wrong after I looked up the ownership [...]

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SARASOTA – One night last week, I helped melt Life Savers in the oven. For my wife’s vacation bible school class, they made the week’s theme the stained glass windows in Church of the Redeemer. After seeing the windows of this Sarasota Bay church, the kids took cookies and topped them with “stained glass” chips [...]

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Frankly, we are usually on the side of the junk food purveyors. It is the excess that makes it wrong, not the idea. Like alcohol (and many other things), it is when there is too much, there there is trouble. But we saw a press release a few weeks ago from  the Center for Science [...]

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REVERE, Mass. – So tonight we bought some Necco Wafers, one of the classic American candies. And we were shocked when we looked at it when we saw new packaging. Gone is the classic Necco that you see in the picture below. In its place is a jazzy package that looks like junk. Furthermore, some [...]

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The Adams brand is one of the greatest in gum, equal to Wrigley. For decades, they were part of Warner-Lambert, they then became part of Pfizer and were later sold to Cadbury, to form Cadbury Adams. In the 1970s, they led gum, with brands like Dentyne, Trident, Bubblicious and standbys like Chicklets. Their Chiclets brand [...]

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