Showing posts with label Candy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Candy. Show all posts
Like a peanut M&M you are.
Beautiful bright and shiny on the outside.
Everyone wants to touch and hold
and taste.
But brittle.
Tempted to bite in
eager to feel the smooth dark sweetness on my tongue.
Dissolves
too quickly.
What’s left is hard
but truly you.
That part wholly organic
that sprang green from the earth
and knew the yellow heat of the sun
felt the morning’s pure
white drops of dew
and the evening’s hot gray rain.
That part of you
neither sweet nor acid
just hard and true and perfect in itself
Roll it round and round
feel it soften
and savor its truth before biting in.
And know I had it all.
Labels: Candy, M&Ms, organic, peanut M&Ms, poetry
I thought I was in tune with my culture. After all, I have more than one e-mail account. I'm on Facebook. I have a blog, for Pete's sake. But my recent post about Peeps taught me otherwise. After I ranted about my discovery of "Holiday" Peeps, a friend pointed out that there were orange pumpkin Peeps at Halloween this year. Whaaaaa???
This news prompted a visit to the Peeps website, which I accessed through Google. You know, because I am culturally atune and all. What I learned about marshmallow treats just nearly blew my mind. (I know what you are thinking: For chrissakes, get a job! Get a life! Get a book off the shelf!) But I think I might just qualify as an expert on Peeps, and here are some highlights of what I learned:
Not only are there Holiday Peeps in the shapes of trees, stars, and reindeers, and Halloween Peeps shaped like pumpkins, ghosts and cats, there are heart and teddy bear shaped Peeps for Valentines Day, and stars and chicks for Fourth of July! I am not sure what chicks have to do with our country's independence, but I am positive that any man who gave me marshmallows for Valentines Day would not be getting any sugar in return!
I thought Peeps just tasted sickeningly like sugar, but no! There are grape-flavored Peeps! And strawberry! Vanilla! Cotton candy! Peppermint! Cocoa! Even the aforementioned alleged chocolate mousse flavored Peeps! Eureka!
Peeps are older than me. The website doesn't give a specific year, but says they celebrated their 50th anniversary in 2003. I celebrated my 50th in 2008. Wikipedia (yeah, I went there too) says they were introduced nationally in 1958, which is the year I was introduced locally.
In the early 50's, it took 27 minutes to make a Peep. Today, it takes only 6 minutes. But it's always taken an hour to actually chew one and swallow it.
Peeps were invented by a Russian immigrant, who also invented a machine to automatically poke sticks into lollipops. Do they offer a Nobel Prize for candy innovations?
The company website listed lots of "fun facts" about Peeps, but on Wikipedia, I found some frightening facts:
- There is a Peeps fan club. I thought about joining, but I'm afraid I don't have enough cavities to qualify.
- There are sugar-free peeps. Really, Peeps people, what is the point?
- In Canada, you can get red Peeps chicks. Red chicks? Obviously a communist plot. Hey, you liberal Canadian commies, get your own gross candy!
- Scientists at Emory University conducted a study of Peeps (forget about a cure for cancer or solution to global warming) and found they are insoluble in acetone, sulfuric acid, and sodium hydroxide. I don't know what sulfuric acid and sodium hydroxide are, but acetone is what you use to remove nail polish. I am sure I don't have any of those things in my stomach, so what exactly does it take to digest a Peep?
- There is a documentary called "Power of the Peep: A Marshmallow Meets America." I know I have written two blog posts about Peeps, but a documentary? Seriously?
- Somewhere out there, Peeps lip balm is available in grape, strawberry, vanilla and cotton candy flavors. No chocolate mousse? I'm soooooo disappointed.
- A "Peeps & Co." store was scheduled to open this year in Prince George County, Maryland. A store? For Peeps? Not only are they insoluble, apparently they are also recession-proof!
The Peeps website chirps that Peeps lovers can enjoy their treats year around! I don't think they meant that one treat would last a year, but I'm pretty sure you can start eating one today, and by next year at this time, it'll still be there in your gastronomical landfill. I'm just sayin ...
There I was, finishing up an afternoon of errands at my neighborhood CVS. Feeling good because I had gotten so much done. Looking forward to getting home, putting on some sweats, turning on the tree, lighting a candle, and listening to some Christmas music really loud. I was feeling positively festive as I worked my way down the candy aisle, looking for a treat or two that I could add to a gift basket. That's when I saw them, next to the Russell Stover hollow chocolate Santas. (btw, hollow Santas? We'll cover that another time). They were just below the Snickers Nutcrackers, to the left of Dove dark chocolate mint nuggets, and above the plastic candy canes filled with fake M&M's ...
I stopped dead in my tracks. My cart might have banged into the Whitman's Sampler display. I'm sure my chin dropped to the floor. I was stunned at the sight. Peeps. Holiday Peeps. You know, the love-em-or-hate-em, blow-em-up-in-the-microwave, neon yellow Easter treats, so sweet they make your teeth hurt, so mooshy they gum up in your throat no matter how long you chew them? Yeah, those. They are apparently not just for Easter anymore, and they are not just chicks. They are trees, stars, gingerbread men, even reindeer! And they claim to taste like sugar cookies and chocolate mousse! (Marshmallows that taste like chocolate mousse? Another topic for another time.)
I am not totally behind the times. I am aware that a few years ago, Peeps jumped onto the multicultural bandwagon: morphing into bunnies, turning from that day-glo yellow into sugary-sweet pastel shades of pink, blue and green, reminiscent of a baby blanket knitted by my grandma, if my grandma had ever knitted a baby blanket. But Holiday Peeps?
At the risk of offending my religious friends (both of them), I am going out on a limb and saying that Holiday Peeps are borderline sacrilegious. I know that both Easter and Christmas are about Jesus, his birth, his death, his re-birth. I got that. In five years of Catholic school, I got that. But in the gloriously commercial way that we celebrate our religious holidays, Peeps have no business on the Christmas candy aisle. I mean, Easter Peeps are okay, because Easter is, after all, about candy. But Christmas is about so much more: cookies, lights, tinsel, ribbons and bows, mistletoe, sleigh rides, and of course booze. Do we really need Holiday Peeps? Isn't that a little over the top?
And if we do indeed need Holiday Peeps, where are the Santa shapes? Where the Peeps people unable to secure the product license from North Pole Inc.?
But what really makes my head ache (along with my teeth) is that the Peeps people didn't even have the decency to call them what they are. They are not Holiday Peeps. They are Christmas Peeps. They do not come shaped like dreidels or stars of David. I mean, there is nothing, nothing, kosher about these tree- and star- and cookie-shaped Peeps .... I'm just sayin'.
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