From the Vault: Retro Halloween Candy

Is there anyone -- except, perhaps, dentists -- who doesn't love candy? As I have written before, there was a time when candymaking was an expected part of every homekeeper's repertoire. My grandmother made candy every autumn. I remember watching her cut long ropes of caramel into bite-sized pieces for wrapping in individual squares of waxed paper. She always left some caramel in the bottom of the pot for swirling onto apples from the tree by the tool shed. She cut long flat sheets of honey taffy into wide rectangles to wrap in a special paper made just for this sticky delicacy. Her coconut stacks were three colors high: chocolatey brown, vanilla white, and Halloween orange (when she made the same candy at far-off Easter, the orange was replaced by banana yellow). Probably because it was the kind she made, I like chewy candy, with the sole exception of the hot cinnamon disks that for some reason are challenging to find in the city.

In our household, candyphilia is evidenced by the pail of it that appears in our living room every Labor Day and stays straight through until New Year's resolution time, and the vintage candy ads that adorn the walls of our dining area. Inspired by these bites of sweetness -- not to mention my love of all things Halloween -- last year I wrote a piece for Slashfood about retro Halloween candy. Here it is.