8 Old-Fashioned Candies That Definitely Deserve a Comeback

Notice the incredible history behind some of the most-loved candies of yesteryear.

Cruise down a commercial highway in West Allis, Wisconsin, and you might not notice One-half Nuts. Hidden between a allurement-and-tackle shop and an empty lot is i of the country'south last vintage processed shops. Step inside and you'll encounter a store decked from flooring to ceiling with hundreds of old-school sweets. Retrieve Necco wafers, BB Bats, wax lips and lollipops the size of your confront. And the store has a pretty impressive selection of chocolates. (Got y'all drooling? Settle your sweet tooth with my favorite copycat candy recipe for chocolate truffles.)

During a recent visit to Half Nuts, I had an opportunity to glimpse the Willy Wonka-esque organization and encounter owner (and fifth-generation candy maker) Mary Ziegler. Shoppers frequently tell her they haven't seen some of these candies since they were v years onetime. As a 20-something, I constitute these candies all merely foreign. Information technology was time for a sweet, sweet investigation. Itching to get a taste of the past, I asked the store staffers to assistance me pick out some of the nigh pop candies.

Read along as I unwrap a few viscid truths (and incredibly sweetness factoids!) almost some of the country'due south nearly-love vintage candies.

Hankering to bring nostalgic desserts to your own kitchen? Endeavour these vintage recipes.

Abba-Zabba

Tear open up the checked wrapper and yous'll observe carbohydrate-sweet white taffy with a peanut butter heart-yep, y'all heard that right-peanut butter! I was sure the supersticky combination would exist next to impossible to eat. Thankfully, the candy melts in your mouth in the nigh satisfying way. At present I'm an Abba-Zabba believer-and I'm in skillful company, too. John Wayne was a big fan of the candy. In an interview with Closer Weekly mag, his daughter Marisa reminisced, "He used to keep a stash of Abba-Zaba taffy in his drawer."

Marpo Yum-Yum Marshmallow Water ice Foam Cones

This petite treat definitely deserves a candy comeback. Nestled atop of a sugar-wafer cone is a fluffy scoop of "water ice cream." OK-it's but a bite-sized marshmallow, but its pastel coloring makes information technology admittedly adorable. This fatty-free candy was created in 1936 under the name Captain Cone'southward Fun Fourth dimension Treats-though the jury's still out on but who Captain Cone actually was. Though that mystery remains unsolved, I was absolutely tickled to realize this processed had a shape-shifting issue; in the winter (or when humidity is low), the marshmallow's texture is hard and brittle. On the flip side, when information technology's hot and humid, the marshmallow turns pillowy soft. Either mode, it'south admittedly succulent.

Charleston Chew

Though you tin still find this chocolate-covered candy in stores, Charleston Chew has a rich past. The bar was launched in the '20s by the Fox-Cross Candy Co.-a business that started from a fleck of misfortune. Owner Donley Cantankerous originally was a Shakespearean actor. During a functioning he fell and injured his back, ending his stage career. Looking for other employment, he decided to start a candy company. A few years later, the Charleston Chew was built-in. (The candy was named for a pop dance of the time, the Charleston.)

P.S. I discovered the best way to consume a Charleston Chew is when they're frozen-kind of like our favorite freezer desserts.

Candy Buttons

Another confection I was introduced to was candy buttons. These elementary yet delightfully sweet hard candies attached to a strip of paper. Though mine were rainbow-colored, the original candies traditionally were red, yellow and blue. The large cloak-and-dagger: The blueish buttons are actually lime-flavored.

If you've ever had these, you lot'll observe the paper wrapping tends to stick to the lesser of each button. The fob? Lick the dorsum of the newspaper wrapper until information technology's moist. Wait a 2d and the candy buttons volition slide right off.

Pro tip: Yous may not want to share your buttons one time you've licked the wrapper!

Kits

If I told yous to think of a pocket-size, square taffylike candy today, Starbursts might come up to mind. Flip the agenda back lxxx-some years and the answer would have been Kits. In 1924, Fair Play Caramel Co. rolled out a candy product that featured 3 small squares of taffy in iv flavors-peanut butter, chocolate, banana and strawberry. Suggested retail at the time? A mere penny. Just the right price for a kid.

Mary Ziegler says Kits are amidst many of the low-cost candies the manufacture calls a "change maker"-a common processed-selling tactic yet used in stores today. You'll recognize alter makers as those bins of twenty-cent candies sitting side by side to the annals. The idea is that when yous receive your modify dorsum from a purchase you'll spend information technology on a handful of those candies.

Zotz

When I asked what the wildest candy was on Half Basics' shelves, a helpful clerk pointed me to Zotz. I took a bite and immediately knew why. It was like a scene from a Harry Potter movie! The processed sputtered and fizzed in my oral fissure. The hard candy shell contains a mixture of sodium bicarbonate (similar to blistering soda) and citric acrid. Made in Italian republic, the product came to the States in 1968, where pranksters rapidly made information technology popular. Information technology reminded me instantly of another popping product I've tried.

Fizzies

Another crazy candy from the past: Fizzies. Drop this candy tablet into a glass of water and you'll go a fruit-flavored sparkling soda. If this reminds you lot of Alka-Seltzer, you're not far from the truth. The processed was launched in the 1950s by Emerson Drug Co.-famous creating Bromo Seltzer, an effervescent tablet intended to relieve heartburn, indigestion and upset stomach. The scientists who created Bromo Seltzer wondered whether they could create a candy with the aforementioned bones structure. Ironically enough, Fizzies had the opposite event-they created upset stomachs instead of curing them.

Processed Cigarettes

Y'all didn't call back I'd skip over this i, correct? Long gone are the days when kids tin recreate a scene from Grease with a pack of candy. But whatsoever happened to these nefarious confections? Every bit smoking fell out of fashion, so did processed cigarettes. Back when they were popular, the candy copycats cleverly mimicked the look of the real thing. Research has shown that candy cigarettes may have swayed children to go smokers as adults and desensitized them to the dangers of smoking. Northward Dakota banned the product entirely from 1953 to 1967. Despite all this, candy cigarettes remain i of Half Basics' best sellers.

Craving a taste of the by? Y'all can club most of the candies mentioned from the Half Basics website. Or start a new tradition by learning how to brand your own processed.

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Source: https://www.tasteofhome.com/article/8-old-fashioned-candies-that-definitely-deserve-a-comeback/

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