Remember "Broke Candy?"

This is a concept I and my brother worked out a while back--"broke candy". This is the kind of candy everybody ate when we were kids because we didn't have any money and we didn't know any better. So, basically, any time you pulled your recess nickels together (or allowance money, or "Grandmom" dollars, if you had a Mee-Maw or other relative who occasionally spotted you a little spending-cash) this was the kind of cut-rate sugar product you got your baby-buzz on with. Also, "broke candy" is treats you accepted as edible even if they weren't necessarily--

I'm talking about those wax soda bottles, and wax lips, and those dots on paper that probably were loaded with dioxin and we will either get cancer or mutant powers from them?



Necco wafers are probably in the category of "accepted as edible". I don't think anyone ever ate those unless there wasn't any other candy about. I can't see them as anyone's first choice candy, anyway. Small twists of these were a popular Hallowe'en candy for what I'd call "mean sods" (after Kingsley Amis)--I ate them, but I can't say I ever finished a roll. I don't think the different colors represented different flavors. Maybe they were supposed to represent moods. Grey Necco Wafers represented how one felt about eating Necco Wafers.

Now, movie-theater candy was the good kind of broke candy. I'm not talking about Sno-caps, Goobers, and Goldenberg Peanut Chews--those are good candy that you probably even like right now. They are "worth the price" candy--not broke candy. I'm talking about Good'n'Plenty's , Mike'n'Ike's, Boston Baked Beans, and Lemon Heads. Jujy fruits. You know, the kind that came in a uniform-sized box that you could turn into a whistle if you knew how?



They make gift-boxes of that stuff now for the sake of nostalgia. You can even get them at Amazon. I don't even know if the kids (the kids! these! days!) have a concept of "broke candy"--cheap sugar thrills that just get your sweet-tooth off the right way.

As for me, I haven't eaten "broke candy" in a long time. When I want to get my "sweet" on, it's Lindts' or Scharfen Berger's (I call it "Scarfin'bunches") chocolate. Just a wee little bit.

Although I might still go crazy and get some Swedish fish or a baggie of All-Sorts--that is still primo cheap sugar--classic forms of the broke candy genre.