Today, Sisters and Brothers, our Saturday Sacrament is a book review with plenty of time for all of you to check it out for gift giving during this season. The book is Classic Candy by Darlene Lacey who runs the online Candy Wrapper Museum. We interviewed her and that was posted just this past Wednesday.
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This small book is packed with information about candy in the USA in 64 pages. It focuses on what Lacey calls the "Golden Age" of American candy the 1950-1980s but also dips into earlier and later periods just a bit.
After an introduction there are six chapters, averaging 8-9 pages long, that I will list below:
Americana
Classic Chocolate
Classic Sweets
Classic Celebrities
Trends and Fads
Classic Holidays
There is also lists of Further Reading and Places to Visit along with an Index.
All of the photos, except a Stuckey's image on one page, come from the Candy Wrapper Museum's collection and were taken by Lacey's husband. These are full color and present the reader with a lot of eye candy, pun intended, that is a pleasure to look at. If you linger over each you can see the points that Lacey mades in the text. I also saw gender and age issues as well as I went back through the book again, looking at each image closely.
Some of the candy in this book I remember from my childhood but I haven't seen around in some time. Oddly, perhaps my ability to notice these sorts of things has been triggered my reading, I've found some of these treats recently in our local grocery stores and other shops that sell candy. One of these is Brach's that I have found in only three or four varieties including these Double Dippers, peanuts dipped twice in milk chocolate that I remember scooping up into the paper bags that Lacey talks about in her book; made with cocoa butter and chocolate liquor these have additional ingredients but not the long chemical components sadly so commonplace in much of today's candies. Yes, they do taste good!
While Lacey said in her interview that she was satisfied with the book I really wanted more information, more background, more history, perhaps even more of her personal opinions about the candy she covers. Of course you can get more images of candy through the decades by going to the online Museum mentioned in the interview we did earlier this week. If you have a loved one who was a child or a young adult in the 1950s through the 1980s this would be a lovely gift to help them remember those days when they weren't worried about dieting or eating "the right foods" and could just enjoy. If you want to go a step further, add in a few of the old-time treats that you can still buy from various stores both brick and mortar and online. The candy lover in your life will love this book! It is available in both the USA and in the UK at least and possibly other nations as well. Let me know if you've read it or if you've found it, please, Sisters and Brothers.
This small book is packed with information about candy in the USA in 64 pages. It focuses on what Lacey calls the "Golden Age" of American candy the 1950-1980s but also dips into earlier and later periods just a bit.
Americana
Classic Chocolate
Classic Sweets
Classic Celebrities
Trends and Fads
Classic Holidays
There is also lists of Further Reading and Places to Visit along with an Index.
All of the photos, except a Stuckey's image on one page, come from the Candy Wrapper Museum's collection and were taken by Lacey's husband. These are full color and present the reader with a lot of eye candy, pun intended, that is a pleasure to look at. If you linger over each you can see the points that Lacey mades in the text. I also saw gender and age issues as well as I went back through the book again, looking at each image closely.
While Lacey said in her interview that she was satisfied with the book I really wanted more information, more background, more history, perhaps even more of her personal opinions about the candy she covers. Of course you can get more images of candy through the decades by going to the online Museum mentioned in the interview we did earlier this week. If you have a loved one who was a child or a young adult in the 1950s through the 1980s this would be a lovely gift to help them remember those days when they weren't worried about dieting or eating "the right foods" and could just enjoy. If you want to go a step further, add in a few of the old-time treats that you can still buy from various stores both brick and mortar and online. The candy lover in your life will love this book! It is available in both the USA and in the UK at least and possibly other nations as well. Let me know if you've read it or if you've found it, please, Sisters and Brothers.
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