Boyer, the greatest knock-off indie label of candy?
In the days following Halloween I participated in a few conversations, with adults and kids, about candies collected through the trick-or-treating process. People who’ve known me for a while know that I’m pretty old school in my candy tastes. People who only know me casually and learn this fact about me are not surprised.
Although I don’t have much of a sweet tooth, I have strong opinions on candy. I’ve been known to rail against “reformatted” candies. This hang-up probably dates back to the launch of “bite-size” or “fun-size” candies, which I have gotten used to, thanks in part to those little Hershey’s Special Dark bars, which only seem to exist in fun size, thereby making them “original” candies. Reformatted candies are wrong for reasons of questionable character (ie, Who are you fooling by worrying about your diet as you shove a half dozen fun-size candies down your throat rather than a full-size candy bar?). The candy reformatting practices that will forever stick in my craw, however, are related to shape and flavor. For instance, I don’t want my beloved Reese’s Peanut Butter cups in any form other than the classic circular, with the ridges around the edge. Changing the shape of a candy redistributes the ratio of flavors as well as the sensations when it hits one’s tongue. My tongue can adjust to the ever-shrinking circumference of a Reese’s, for instance, and my tastebuds are not alarmed by the slightly smaller dimensions, but a change in a candy’s shape messes with both the taste and the sensation of eating it. Not cool!
