My group of friends at the world famous Smokey Joe’s Cigar Lounge in Springfield, MA, talk about many things and food is one of the recurring topics.
We will talk about what we ate, where we ate it, what we would like to eat in the future, what various restaurants are serving and what stores are selling what specialty food items.
We politely argue over subjects such as who has the best hamburger and share information where we were served the meal of our dreams.
As an aside, I have to say I’ve had few meals more impressive than the tomahawk steak at the
Student Prince in Springfield. Don’t attempt it on your own – bring a friend with a healthy appetite.
I have to add though anything that comes out of Chef Wayne’s Cajun-on-the Go is memorable. Try the crab cakes.
Yes, we like food – a lot. It helps that several of the crew are food professionals who certainly know the local food landscape inside and out.
The other day we talked about the candies we ate as kids that today we wouldn’t touch. Now I was an idiot kid (and I’ve grown to be an idiot old man) and I tried just about anything with sugar.
Heck I ate “moth balls “ – an old fashioned candy sold at the Vermont Country Store that looked just like the poison that kills moths. It has a sweet, vaguely vanilla flavoring. After the first taste, I never tried them again.
Now I know your taste changes with age and let’s face it, we have no taste as kids.
I also checked with members of my staff about their candy memories.
Here are some of the childhood candies that we wouldn’t touch today:
Candy buttons. Remember how these little dots of hard sugar came on a strip of waxed paper? What the heck of was point of that? You could never get the buttons to properly separate from the wax paper and wound up eating the paper as well.
Waxed bottles. I saw these as a kid and never tried them, but a couple of years ago when my friends Stephen Bissette and Joseph Citro joined me for one of our old man tours; we stopped off in Northampton at Captain Candy. There Joe pointed out the waxed filled bottles, recalled them from his youth and we bought some to try.
Oh boy, they were terrible. Joe explained you bit open the bottles, drank the flavored liquid inside and then could chew the wax. Don’t ask me about the flavor of the liquid. I have no idea what it was supposed to represent.
That’s about as 19th century a confection as one could get.
One of my cigar friends said in Canada the bottles were filled with maple syrup. That sounded a little more palatable.
Circus peanuts. Those marshmallow confections shaped like peanuts the size of an adult thumb are fairly revolting.
Anything banana flavored. Although food scientists develop artificial flavors that are supposed to taste like the real thing, there are few more epic fails than banana flavored anything. As a kid, I would eat taffy, etc. with this flavoring and I never fully believe it was supposed to be banana.
I had the same problem with any artificial cherry flavor. Yecch.
Waxed lips. As a kid I just thought these were things you wore at Halloween. I was horrified to discover as a kid I was supposed to chew it like gum. Never did.
Pixie Sticks. So what’s wrong with pure sugar and artificial flavoring a kid pours into his or her mouth? Just about everything.
Sugar Babies. Speaking of pure sugar, these caramel gummy beans are nothing but sugar. I loved them as a kid and I couldn’t eat them now.
Well, despite all of these culinary challenges, we managed to survive childhood.
G. Michael Dobbs is the managing editor of Reminder Publishing LLC, and Prime’s local columnist.
