by Steve Almond
“It’s hard to explain to people how beautiful the process is,” Joanne said. “The first time I saw this, it took my breath away.”
I was almost entirely tranced out at this point and I remember mumbling something about the chocolate and the steel, the strangeness of their collaboration, some kind of haiku really:
Brown rivers released
From cold silver machines sing
for a stunned wet tongue
Joanne walked me to the end of the line, where the Goo Goos were emerging from the final cooling tunnel. She grabbed one for me and took one herself and we went to town. What do I want to say? The bar was more like an extremely gooey pastry. I bit through the thick outer crust of chocolate, hit a cluster of peanuts, then another layer of chocolate, before reaching the caramel/marshmallow patty. Because of this double enrobing process, chocolate was the dominant flavor. But the bar had a distinct undercurrent of coconut as well, the source of which is the chewy filling. I know this because Joanne later gave me a naked patty to eat. The Goo Goo was an absolute sugar bomb. Aside from the peanuts, the ingredients were all super sweet. The Goo Goo Supreme, topped with pecans rather than peanuts, was even sweeter, with a mellow maple aftertaste. So Joanne and I stood there wolfing down our Goo Goos. Because they were fresh off the line, the chocolate hadn’t really had a chance to set, and this meant that they melted in our hot little hands. By the time we were through, we had chocolate on our fingers and at the corners of our mouths.
What struck me as most telling was the expression on Joanne’s face, a nervous joy awakened in the soft flesh around her eyes. For people like Joanne and Manny and Dave Bolton— true freaks—this was the allure of working with candy: watching a fellow freak eat your goodies. This was why they were forever thrusting candy into my hands and beaming expectantly. Watching me eat wasn’t just a vicarious affirmation of craftsmanship, but a celebration of the fundamental impulse toward pleasure. The world was a mean enough place, after all, especially if you worked at a struggling candy company.
Be that as it may, Joanne and I were now severely cranked on sugar, so we zinged along to the packaging area, covertly working at the bits of peanuts and caramel lodged in our teeth. Joanne had an unconscious compulsion to straighten the Goo Goos as they emerged from the wrapping machine. “An old habit from retail,” she explained. “I did the same thing with clothes on the rack.”
We watched a trio of Latin women packing the Goo Goos into boxes. They snatched two at a time off the conveyor belt, over and over, two at a time. Joanne was providing me efficiency stats (“We can produce 330,000 Goos Goos per day. Today, we’ll do 10,000 boxes. That’s an entire truckload …”). But I was watching the Latin women and thinking of this one photo of the Hershey’s factory from back in the twenties, all these female immigrants sitting around a table foiling Kisses by hand. Bring us your huddled masses! We’ve got candy that needs wrapping!
The peanut-roasting room was our next destination. It featured an industrial roaster of the same sort I’d seen at Goldenberg, along with a giant IV bag type thing hanging from the ceiling. It was, bizarrely, filled with caramel.
Joanne turned to me. “Do you like coconut?” she said.
“Coconut,” I said quietly.
“Oh, I just love coconut! Let’s go see how we make our Coconut Haystacks!”
There was no time for questions, or excuses. Joanne had hustled me into a warm room that reeked of coconut. On the far side was a machine I recognized as a depositor. A worker was dumping what looked like corn chowder into the hopper at the top of the depositor. Down below, this batter was blorping out onto pans covered with waxed paper. The idea, I gathered, was for the batter to be drawn up to a point, like a Hershey’s Kiss, or, more remotely, a haystack. But the consistency was far too watery. As they trundled away from the depositor, the haystacks flattened out into disks.
“It’s the beginning of the run,” Joanne said. “So Anthony, our quality control manager, is trying to make sure we got the batch proportions right.” Anthony was indeed staring at the coconut batter in a silent rage.
Joanne spotted a rack full of finished Haystacks.
“You should try one,” Joanne said.
“I’m really kind of full,” I said.
“Oh come on. Don’t be a wuss.”
She handed me a Haystack. To be honest, it did not look like a haystack. It looked more like a shrimp, though I will say that the thick shreds of coconut did suggest a certain Monetinspired haylike consistency. I popped the thing into my mouth, pretended to chew, and did one of those TV-commercial smiles.
Joanne said, “Good, huh? I love how buttery they are.”
I watched Joanne bite into a haystack of her own and waited for mine to dissolve. It was a long wait.
Our last stop was the fruit room, where Standard produced a chew called ABC Fruit Chomps, which were sort of like a cross between a Tootsie Roll and a Starburst. These were not in production, though the room still smelled strongly of various fruit flavorings, jugs of which sat atop a worn-looking batch roller. The factory was, in this sense, sort of like a giant game of Clue. Each room had its own name and its own potentially lethal weapon. (It was Anthony in the Coconut Room with the Nut Applicator.)
Joanne led me through the warehouse, gingerly stepping over palettes strewn on the ground. She seemed to know everyone in the factory and, more astonishing, they all seemed delighted to see her. I myself liked Joanne, despite the fact that she had, more or less, force-fed me coconut. She had a firm grasp on the function of the basic factory machinery and used words such as gunky and wuss. The only dispute we got into was over how many Goo Goos I should take home with me. She felt I should take three boxes of six. I argued for two. “You can give them to the flight attendants on the plane,” she said, pressing the third box on me.
“You’re a bad person,” I said.
“I am a bad person,” she said coyly.
“You’re suggesting that I bribe the flight attendants.”
“I’m doing no such thing.”
Her office was overflowing with promotional materials, so we settled into the conference room. I had noticed, on the way back, a big in-store display featuring a pile of candy bars I had never heard of before. These were brightly wrapped bars with generic sounding names which (somewhat predictably) Joanne asked me not to divulge.
Joanne explained that these were knockoffs of brand-name bars that Standard manufactured for a dollar store chain, which, in turn, sold them four for a dollar. Joanne assured me that these bars were often just as good as the brand-name products they mimicked. Having tried half a dozen of these bars, I must vigorously dissent. The Snickers rip-off, for instance, contained a mere smattering of peanuts and a thin band of caramel. Most of the bar was composed of a sickly sweet nougat that exuded a queer chemical aftertaste. Indeed, most of the bars suffered from the same unfortunate preponderance of corn syrup (as opposed to sugar) and dearth of chocolate. They were fascinating to sample, however, because they illustrated just how particular our taste in candy bars is. Although we rarely give it any conscious thought, we are acutely aware of just how many peanuts a Snickers should have, how thick the chocolate coating should be, what flavor the nougat ought to exude. And any deviations from this formula are glaring. Our taste buds are a finely calibrated in strument. The same was true of the ABC Fruit Chomps. They tasted funny. But they tasted funny because my palette has come to define Starbursts as the standard of normalcy when it comes to fruit chews.
I asked Joanne, point-blank, if Standard could survive without the contract work. She shook her head. Goo Goos had a nice mystique. They were a solid nostalgia item, and they did make some money, but not enough to keep the business going. Like officials at other smaller candy companies, Joanne lived in fear of a price war between the Big Three. She had already seen several regional candy companies go under, including Brock of Chattanooga, where she got her start.
Slotting fees were another issue. Standard ge
nerally couldn’t afford to pay them, which had limited Goo Goo distribution to a variety of smaller grocery chains and alternative venues such as Dollar General and Cracker Barrel. They had no regular presence in Wal-Mart, the industry giant. And there was little chance, Joanne conceded, that they would ever expand north, beyond their core market. This was sad. It was sad to see a distinguished old company, with a rich history and a sensational (if sloppy) candy bar, reduced to cranking out diet bars and off-brands. But they didn’t have the money to expand the market for Goo Goos. This was the bottom line.
Before the mood could turn too lachrymose, Joanne asked me if I wanted to meet Jimmy Spradley, the president of the company. I didn’t really want to meet Jimmy Spradley, but I figured it would be best if I said yes, so I did and Joanne led me to a large office just beyond the lobby. Jimmy was on the phone. His hair was slicked back and he was wearing a suit that looked like it cost more than my entire wardrobe. He took one look at me, in my wrinkled oxford and khakis, and squinted. His expression conveyed the basic message: This is a journalist? I felt a little embarrassed on Joanne’s behalf. It was the sort of moment that made me wish (momentarily) that I was a billionaire.
Joanne offered to drive me to the airport, but only after loading me down with Goo Goos and a pecan log she insisted would rock my world.
And I did, in fact, attempt to give away one of my boxes of Goo Goo Clusters to the flight attendants on my trip back. I waited until after they’d come by with beverage service, then snagged the friendliest looking of the crew, an older woman with a tired looking fusillade of auburn hair.
She listened to my spiel with a vacant smile. “Goo Goo whats?” she said finally.
“Clusters,” I said. “Goo Goo Clusters. They’re like the official candy bar of the South.”
“Is that so?”
“They’re really good.” I pulled out the box from my carryon bag and directed her gaze to the sumptuous looking photo.
“There’s no more room in first class,” she said.
“I don’t want to move into first class,” I said. “I just thought you guys, like the rest of the crew, might want a treat.”
“A treat?” she said.
“Right.”
“Oh, I’d like that, honey. I really would. But we’re not allowed to accept gifts from passengers. They’re really strict on that since 9/11.”
FREAK RETENTIVE
While I have long been one to harbor emergency candy stashes, the infusion of Goo Goos left me with something more on the scale of a bomb shelter supply. This was an indisputably wonderful development, but gazing upon the entirety, which covered my kitchen table, had the curious effect of launching me backwards, into my childhood. As I have implied, I was something of a candy hoarder back then.
I can still remember my brother Dave establishing a candy collection in the top drawer of his dresser, which included a shoelace-thin variety of red licorice that came in a sort of spool, and several sticks of Big Buddy gum. Although I do recall contributing a significant portion of my life savings toward these purchases, I do not recall actually eating any of the candy. (In the spirit of historical verification, I recently broached this topic with Dave, who claimed “not to remember” what I was talking about, and further advised that I “move on.”)
Nonetheless, my tendency toward hoarding was, as I see it now, an outgrowth of such dynamics. It was not that our parents deprived us of sweets, but that the hallmark of our brotherhood was, to a larger extent than any of us would like to admit, emotional withholding. Simply put: it was verboten to express affection for one another, to praise or to hug. We didn’t even like to laugh at each other’s jokes. Instead, we communicated through boyish, and often brutal, antagonisms. Because I felt deprived of love, I hoarded my one dependable source of self-love, which was candy.
My brothers mocked me incessantly for this—tightwad being the favored sobriquet—and I understood that these tendencies were shameful. I couldn’t help myself, though. I remember, as a teenager, ordering a pizza with my own money and, in a fit of stoned stinginess, hiding a couple of slices under the blanket at the foot of my bed. I forgot about these slices almost immediately. It was only two weeks later, when my room began to reek of rancid mozzarella, that I recalled what I’d done. Instant karma.
As an adult, I’ve worked hard not to be a tightwad. I shower my friends with boxes of candy. I try not to quibble over tabs. But the old instincts die hard. Occasionally, when I split a dessert with someone, I can feel myself gauging their consumption, figuring if I’ve gotten what I deserve. And I’m never quite sure that my generosity is genuine, and not, in some way, compensatory. What I mean to suggest here is that the primal pleasures of candy tend to elicit primal impulses. For those of us who grew up in a state of emotional or material want, the freak retentive lurks below all our selfless gestures.
I feel compelled to note the reaction of my friend Eve when I brought her a Goo Goo from Nashville: She launched into a story about how her father used to order Terry’s chocolates from a sweets shop in his native Ireland. He kept these in his bedroom and dispersed them only reluctantly to his three children. Eve’s mother later confirmed this account and added that she, herself, was kept on a strict ration. She even remembered finding a moldy box of Terry’s on top of the armoire, where her husband had hidden them years earlier. Curiously, Eve is married to Evan, the Pop Rocks black marketeer who uses his spit to bore the center from Whoppers. They have two radioactively cute children, Milo and Theodora, both of whom were huge fans of the Goo Goo (or at least very much enjoyed rubbing the melted chocolate on their cheeks) and both of whom will, I suspect, require years of therapy down the line.
8
IN THE BELLY OF THE FREAK
Long before I began to visit actual candy factories, I harbored elaborate fantasies about visiting candy factories. The earliest of these involved a vague plan to track down the company that had produced (and ceased producing) the epic Caravelle. I assumed the operation was located in northern California, where I had grown up, and that it was run by a kindly old gentleman named Guipetto with whom I could discuss my allegiance to the Caravelle, the truly special nature of that bar, and that he would be so moved by my account that he would tear up and nod and say, “You’re right, dear boy. Caravelle is the best bar we ever produced. I’ve always known that. But the board of directors told me it wasn’t making enough money. Well, damn those vulgarians all to hell! We’re going to reintroduce the Caravelle!” Then he would lean over his desk and press a button on his intercom and bark: “Miss Swanson! Get in here. I need to dictate a memo. Pronto!”
This was my fantasy. In my fantasy, Mr. Guipetto said pronto.
As my knowledge of the candy landscape became a bit more refined, I shifted to a somewhat less crazy plan: I would embark on a cross-country Candy Fellowship. The idea was that someone (a charitable foundation underwritten by the American Dental Association perhaps) would pay for me to take a coastto-coast trip with stops at every candy company along the way.
This was clearly ridiculous. At the same time, it had become obvious that trying to visit factories one at a time, then returning to Boston, was even more ridiculous. So I laid plans for a final assault on the chocolate underbelly of America.
My criteria were pretty exhaustive:
1. Does the company manufacture a regional candy bar?
2. Will they let me in?
I contacted half a dozen companies, four of which showed the poor judgment to extend me an invitation. These were, in order of appearance:
–
Palmer Candy of Sioux City, Iowa (Twin Bing)
–
Sifers Valomilk of Merriam, Kansas (Valomilk)
–
Idaho Candy Company of Boise, Idaho (Idaho Spud)
– Annabelle Candy of Hayward, California (Big Hunk, Rocky Road, Abba-Zaba)
The itinerary ran like so: On Monday, I was to take a 6 A.M. flight out of Boston to Milwaukee, then on to Omah
a. From Omaha, I would have to find my way up to Sioux City, Iowa, then back down to Kansas City. On Tuesday, I would fly from Kansas City to Boise, via Denver. On Wednesday, I would fly from Boise to San Francisco, spend Thursday in Hayward, then catch the red-eye back to Boston, via Chicago’s Midway Airport, in time to get myself to the class I was teaching at Boston College on Friday at noon. To save money, I had purchased plane tickets from a fast-talking Indian woman named Shirley, who had managed to book me (at a total cost of $992) on four different airlines, none of which I recognized. A couple of the connecting flights had a perilous half-hour layover, an arrangement that, as Shirley explained in her courteousthough-severe accent, could not be avoided.
Why did I take this trip? There are obvious answers: the sense of adventure, the free candy, the camaraderie. I hoped to seek out other purebred candyfreaks, men and women who still made bars the old way, in small factories, and who did so not primarily for profit but out of an authentic passion for candy bars.
This all sounds fabulous. But it was only a part of the truth. The whole truth would have to include the fact that a depression had been building inside me for some months. My journey began in early November and by this time there was a good deal of November in my heart. I mean by this that my life had taken on a gradual aspect of grayness, matched by the clouds which hovered outside my windows and dispelled a wearying rain. The ancient sorrows had resurfaced—the loneliness, the creeping sense of failure—and I felt doomed by the oncoming winter, trapped in the clutter of my apartment, frantic to escape. So I allowed myself to hope, as I had in childhood, that the pleasures of candy would help me beat a path from my despair.
On the eve of my departure I discovered, in the course of packing, at midnight, that I had lost my driver’s license. I spent the next four hours ransacking my apartment. If you had had the ill fortune to be walking past my house at 4 A.M., you would have encountered a curious sight: a thin, anguishedlooking man hunched inside a battered Toyota Tercel, lighting matches one by one, in a hopeless final attempt to locate his license. This was me, shivering in my bathrobe and weeping a little.