Furthermore: Where the Headlines Take You

Candy, the Gateway Drug

Several weeks ago, a friend brought a case of candy cigarettes to a party and passed them around to the delight of all of us who remembered them from childhood. They still had the poorly-applied red dye at the tip to give the impression of a lit cigarette and they still tasted as awful as they did when I was a kid and could buy a pack for a quarter. But that stretch of road on memory lane is about to be closed forever. The FDA recently announced that they will prohibit the production of candy cigarettes as well as all flavored tobacco cigarettes except menthol. The case of candy cigarettes my friend has is now contraband!

I'm not sure if the pseudonymous authors of the Sugar Needle zine have reviewed any candy cigarettes, or if they have any secreted away in what must be a pretty impressive candy stash. Corina Fastwolf and Icona Phlox write candy reviews of the strangest, most amazing obscure candy you can think of. They also do interviews including one with Dishwasher Pete about writing a book versus writing a zine and they ask his advice about how to clean burnt sugar out of a pan (soak it for days or chuck the pan). They also write about the candy industry, candy memories, great named candy bars (Plopp or Corny bar anyone?), and imaginary candies that they'd love to see. Each issue has a hand-colored cover and recalls the golden age of zines, when the biggest zines were handmade gems that covered one topic and one topic only, but exhaustively. I don't think I'm revealing too much with the info that one of the authors, Corina Fastwolf, is a Multnomah County Library Librarian. I wonder if she has candy on her desk?

Straight from the sugar-drenched mind of Ms. Fastwolf comes a recommendation for The Emperors of Chocolate: Inside the Secret World of Hershey and Mars. I read the excerpt that is available in our catalog when you click on the book cover and I was absolutely riveted. Joël Glenn Brenner provides an inside account of the business dealings of the two largest candy companies in the United States. The history of their companies is the history of candy and chocolate in America, and her portraits of the two very different founders, Forrest Mars and Milton Hershey, describe two divergent paths to power and corporate growth.

You may not like Steve Almond's Candyfreak: a Journey Through the Chocolate Underbelly of America. A mix of memoir and reportage about visiting candy factories, his book has some serious fans (me) and some equally serious detractors (I won't name names). Almond takes a most decidedly personal perspective on his visits and tells a larger story about candy through his personal lens. I know all about his likes and dislikes and some I agree with and some I'm definitely on the other side of the line. Candyfreak has made the rounds among my friends in the library and now we all know more than we ever expected to about The Enrober. What is The Enrober? The machine in the candy-making process that covers things in chocolate. Steve Almond is obsessed with The Enrober, so we learn all about it. And really, what isn't more mysterious and intriguing than how they get those candy bars covered in chocolate?