Candy and Me
Authors: Hilary Liftin
Tags: #Biography & Autobiography, #General, #Art, #Popular Culture
Also by Hilary Liftin
Dear Exile: The True Story of Two Friends
Separated (for a Year) by an Ocean
(with Kate Montgomery)
FREE PRESS
A Division of Simon & Schuster Inc.
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Copyright © 2003 by Hilary Liftin
All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.
FREE PRESSand colophon are trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
Book design by Ellen R. Sasahara
Illustrations copyright © 2003 by Patrick Barth
Excerpt from “The Emperor of Ice-Cream” from
The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens
by Wallace Stevens, copyright © 1954 by Wallace Stevens and renewed 1982 by Holly Stevens. Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf. Certain candy product names mentioned in this book are trademarks of their respective owners. Simon & Schuster is not affiliated with these owners.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Liftin, Hilary.
Candy and me: a love story / Hilary Liftin.
p. cm.
1. Liftin, Hilary––Biography. 2. Candy. I. Title.
TX783..L53 2003
641.3—dc21 2002192871
ISBN 0-7432-4953-4
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WARNING: The experiences described in this book are not recommended by dentists to their patients who chew gum. Please do not try this at home. |
For Chris, my everything
Call the roller of big cigars,
The muscular one, and bid him whip
In kitchen cups concupiscent curds.
Let the wenches dawdle in such dress
As they are used to wear, and let the boys
Bring flowers in last month’s newspapers.
Let be be finale of seem.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.
From “The Emperor of Ice-Cream” by Wallace Stevens
Contents
Conversation Hearts, the Reclamation
Old-Fashioned Marshmallow Eggs
A Heart-Shaped Box of Chocolates
The Truth about Circus Peanuts
Old-Fashioned Marshmallow Eggs: Drawing the Line
Introduction
Bubble Burgers
I
t all began when my brother entered the fourth grade. His new school let out too late for our carpool to the suburbs, so he had to take the city bus. One day he came home carrying a Bubble Burger. The Bubble Burger was a pioneer in the less-than-inspiring category of bubble gum shaped like real-world objects. I was still in the third grade, and I looked at Eric’s Bubble Burger with wonder.
“Where did you get it?”
“In a little store called Alban Towers,” he said nonchalantly, as if we’d had the freedom to buy whatever candy we wanted every day of our lives.
“How much did i
t cost?”
“A quarter,” he said with his mouth stuffed.
“Will you get me one?”
“Sure.”
The next day Eric brought me my first Bubble Burger. I chewed it, probably swallowed it (I always found the concept of gum frustrating), and plopped six allowance quarters down on his rug.
“You want six?”
“Yes,” I said. Eric shrugged. It wasn’t a total surprise. I had been stealing his Halloween candy for years.
I continued to supply Eric with money for Bubble Burgers until a thought occurred to me.
“At Alban Towers,” I asked him, “do they have other kinds of candy?”
He rolled his eyes. “Of course they do.”
“Like what?” I asked.
“Everything,” he said. I had no idea what everything was. I racked my brain to remember the kinds of candy I had seen at the grocery store. Finally, I dumped eight quarters on the rug.
“Just get me anything.”
C
andy is almost pure sugar. It is empty of nutritional value. It is an extravagance. It dissolves in water. It melts in your mouth, not in your hands. It’s the icing on the cake. Candy is so impossibly sweet and good that eating it should be the simplest thing in the world. So how can there be anything of substance to say about it?
And yet, candy’s meaning has more subtlety than its taste. It affords a fleeting spike of pleasure, sometimes guilty or elusive or bittersweet, like an impossible love affair. I’ve thought myself addicted and tried to quit. I’ve embraced my candy-lover identity and championed the cause. I’ve eaten it for joy, to relax, to celebrate, and out of boredom. I’ve eaten it through thick and thin and not-fat-but-not-thin. I love it, I hate it, and it’s always been there, through childhood, adolescence, and into my adult life. Candy, and its erratic, delightful, fattening, odd rainbow presence, is an obsession that has fueled and flavored my life. When I walk into a candy store, the shelf of assorted treats evokes a series of individually wrapped memories, ready for the tasting.
As I look back on my candy life, what has been most thrilling was to discover I haven’t been alone. Sure, there are people I’ve encountered who shrug off candy and go back to eating their pretzels. Others think that I’m a bit sick. But far more often, the mention of candy triggers long, enthusiastic exchanges about top candies, addictions and repulsions, flavors and habits. On occasion, with more people than I could have imagined, conversation turns to the emotional resonance that grows from a lifetime of candy eating.
Candy is important, and it’s about time it got its just “desserts.”
Part One
Sweet Tooth
Sugar
