Well Fed Network

Posted by Joanna Miller on Sugar Savvy.

When I was 3 years old, I “ran away” from home with my older brother, Ricky, and next-door neighbor, Jimmy (both 4). Well, we didn’t really run away so much as take a self-guided field trip to Tiffany’s Drug Store (no relation to the jewelry store, fyi) to load up on provisions, i.e., sweet, sweet CAN-TAY. The Palace Market was closer, but Tiffany’s provided a much wider selection of the two-cent candies, and being 3-4 year olds, we were on a budget. The source of our pennies was, and I do remember this quite vividly, an old pickle relish jar that my parents had stowed on a shelf in our green shag-carpeted family room.

I’m not really sure how this all happened (I swear, my mom was around somewhere, and she’d be so ashamed if she were reading this… she really was/is a wonderful and attentive mother), but we boldly helped ourselves to the relish jar pennies and surreptitiously snuck pre-school tushies out the front door, up a moderately steep hill, and then about a half-mile up a fairly busy road to the drugstore.

What stands out in my mind from this particular “pull,” in retrospect, the very first independent purchase (candy or otherwise) of my life, is:

1. Tootsie Rolls
2. Bubs Daddies (sticks of delicious apple-flavored gum)
3. Smarties

Smarties, then, were the first thing I ever bought. Ever.

That’s pretty cool. Cool that I know what the first thing I ever bought was, and cool that it was Smarties. I knew what I was doing.

Another cool thing is that Smarties have stayed exactly the same as long as I’ve been eating them. Pretty much, anyway. The packaging seems unchanged, and popping one of the powdery little vaguely fruit-flavored tablets in my mouth, it might as well be 1974 again. I appreciate a candy that doesn’t feel the need to “update,” but certainly don’t begrudge it when it tries to step out and try something new. Smarties, by the way, have been in production since the early 1950’s, by Ce De Candy, Inc. of New Jersey.

Which is why I was more than happy to check out the new (at least to me) “Tropical Flavors” Smarties. After such a lead-up, I feel a little guilty that I don’t have much to tell you about the island-style sugar tablets. The only (slight) difference is that they are less tart than traditional Smarties, something I only noticed once it was pointed out to me by a fellow taster. We were unable to identify any of the “tropical” tastes that I had imagined would be captured: coconut, pineapple, guava, mango (okay, maybe that last one was an unrealistic expectation). Basically, they taste like sweet, powdery sugar tablets that dissolve gently on your tongue after the initial bite.

In sum, I wouldn’t go too far out of you way to track these down, simply because they are not different enough from the original to warrant any sort of candy-seeking sweat on your part. But if you happen to come across a pack, check ‘em out and judge for yourself. It’s a small investment: $1 for a 7 oz bag containing 27 candy rolls. (Dollar Tree, Portland).

Oh, I forgot to tell you the end of the runaway candy-heist story. When we got home from the store, my mom was, naturally, completely hysterical and crying. She sent us to our room (which the two of us shared) and then laid us out with one of the only spankings of our lives. Seriously, I remember being spanked maybe 4 other times after that. But because she was so happy that we were safe and alive, she came back into our room after about 15 minutes (could’ve been 5 minutes or an hour, I was 3; it’s a little hazy) and hugged and kissed us and apologized for hurting our bottoms, but we still had to stay in our room for a little while longer. This last part, however, is not hazy: our neighbor and conspirator, Jimmy, somehow ended up with our bag of loot and proceeded to stand outside on our front lawn, taunting us with the goods. He was the 6th of 8 kids in a big ol’ Mormon family, who, apparently, hadn’t taken note of his little “mission.” We never got our candy back. Jerk.

Check out the website for more information, company history, and excellent merch, including a Smarties beer koozie. Sweet… and smart.