Hey everybody, it's Nancy May and Sylvia Lovely once again

at Family Tree Food and Stories.

I just love to say that.

Wonderful.

today we're stepping back into a sweeter time when a single

penny could buy happiness.

Can we remember that?

I can remember that, I pick up pennies on the sidewalk if

you see them And the best place to find pennies, I gotta tell you, is

at, not the ATM, but the drive-up window at the bank or at the fast food

chains where people drop their change.

They just leave it.

So yeah, I pick up, I pick up pennies on the side of the street, especially since

they're not made anymore, and they stopped circulation in the end of last year, 2005

Could be valuable someday.

Keep those things going.

Well, at least it may be worth a penny.

It's actually worth more than a penny 'cause the cost of producing

the penny is more than a penny, so

expensive.

Yeah

I might be richer than I thought

Well, you know, if you had a nickel in your pocket, you felt

pretty wealthy when you were a kid.

You know,

Right

I remember lemonade stands, I think those have...

Inflation's probably hit now.

Right?

Don't ask for a quarter.

Yeah.

going to the bank.

today we're talking about the magic of penny candy.

We're exploring the delicious themes like, can you remember going down to the corner

candy store or let's say the 7-Eleven in, in our neighborhood, where it felt

like, you were queen, you owned the store if you went in with, 10 cents even.

Because you could go home with a stash of stuff stuck in your pockets,

providing it wasn't summertime and it all melted by the time you got home.

But it

Yeah

usually didn't make it that far.

Now, I didn't have that childhood experience 'cause I lived way

out in the country, but I can feel it.

I mean, yeah.

I remember having saved a bunch of money to go to one of those

kinda stores to buy a doll once.

saved everything I could get my hands on.

and then my parents took me to the shopping center,

which was some distance away,

You had to get on the horse to go to the corner store.

Yeah, just about.

I can almost feel the pain of my knees being scratched when,

falling off your bike or, oh God, we used to ride our bicycles with,

flip-flops and skinning your toes.

Nothing worse.

Nothing worse than that.

But anyway, penny candies

yeah.

And so the history of penny candies kind of helps to see where they came from

Oh yeah, we got lots of stories.

Actually, in doing the research for this and, looking through some of the stuff

that you had and, that I found, I was amazed about the history of penny candy.

I had no idea how interesting and, well, I historical, it actually was.

In the late 1800s, sugar became more affordable, so that's how

the candy manufacturing started and became more large scale.

First it was ordinary families that were able to buy sweets, but speaking

of sugar, I have a little trivia point

Oh, please

So now that I am Gator Girl here in Florida after a couple

years, that's what I call myself, Gator

Girl versus the, the Nutmeg Girl from up north.

But Florida is the largest producer of sugarcane in the country,

Didn't know that

right?

And we have the biggest port.

So Florida produces $737 million, worth of sugarcane or unprocessed

sugar, which is about 50% of the value of all sugar in the US.

Interesting, huh?

Yeah, very,

Yep, And we have the largest port, which is in Palm Beach, and that,

brings in and out about 650,000 tons of sugar shipped to refineries, which is even

more interesting because you can't use sugar in penny candy unless it's refined.

So we have the actual sugarcane

Refineries like oil.

Ah.

Yeah, kind of like, right?

kind of like oil.

Yeah.

and then of course, in 1879, a young entrepreneur named

Frank Winfield Woolworth.

Yay.

I've heard of that.

Still have that name on buildings that have been repurposed.

He was the founder of FW Woolworth company, and it was one of the first

very successful five and dime stores.

It probably had countertops and counters for, you know, getting

Soda

hamburger and

a, yeah.

offer inexpensive goods at fixed prices, and candy fit perfectly into that model

Did you call it a five and 10 or a five and dime when you were a kid?

Five and dime.

It, would seem like switch interchangeably.

There was one that we had, I don't think it was in F- I

think it was a Kresge's, not a,

Kresge's, I've heard of that

one too

in Glen Cove and one in Manhasset that ha- was just

called the five and 10 or five and dime, which I thought was classier.

I loved going there as kids.

It was so special.

it was the place to go.

I'd save up my coins and get ribbons and not just candies.

But in the early 1900s, general stores and pharmacies and dime stores, as

they called them also, popped up all over the country and displayed

jars of individually priced candies.

So you can see them in the old-fashioned, like general stores.

We have some down here,

Well, Dollar General.

Uh, what's the other one?

Tree, something

Oh, Dollar Tree?

Yeah,

Dollar

Instead of the Five & Ten or Five & and Dime, we now have the Dollar

And they have junk.

I mean, it's

like an emporium for kids.

But the penny had real purchasing power back then,

and it made you feel empowered

Yeah, and it penny candy was one of the first products

marketed directly to children, and it gave them something just priceless,

really a learning opportunity, right?

Leadership, the ability to make choices and decisions.

And know it was tough to make those decisions.

You had just that amount of money and try to find the right thing and,

scour the counters and all of that.

Yeah

there's so many varieties.

But during the Great Depression, that's when money was scarce of course, penny

candy became a tiny but meaningful luxury.

I think even for adults, right?

Just having that little sweet thing to suck on, especially

lemon heads or things like that.

But a single piece of candy brought you just so much joy.

It was something special.

And even having that candy with you was something you could share

or bargain.

so tell me about the first modern day penny candy.

well, I will.

The first modern-day penny candy was, sold for what they called a silver penny or

a pence, and it was a hard peppermint or a lemon candy made by a woman whose name

is Mrs. Spencer of Salem, Massachusetts.

And she sold them on the steps of the first church in town, the first...

I guess it must have been a Congregational church or something, which is sort of

New Englandy She sold them on the steps of the first church in town, and it was

Nathaniel Hawthorne's records that noted they were sold for a silver penny or

a pence, which I just, A silver penny.

I don't know when we turned from silver to copper, so that's kind of interesting.

But that was the first mention in any record of actually

calling it a penny candy

Interesting.

So Are there some updates to this?

Well, before I go there I've spent some time

up in Salem, Massachusetts.

up in the Marblehead area.

It's a great little town.

But in Salem, they actually have, I think it's, one of the first

candy stores, which is cool.

I've been there with friends, and they have those old jars.

And they, had these lemon candies.

they say they were the first ones.

so, maybe I had the first candies ever.

I don't know.

But there's a debate as to whether the Necco Wafer or the Tootsie Roll was the

first classic modern-day penny candy.

And the thing here is that the Tootsie Roll was wrapped and the

Necco Wafers weren't wrapped.

They were in sort of the long,

like,

rolls,

different colors, you know, for

colors

yeah, so technically I guess the first title is supposed to go to

Necco Wafers, which was created by Oliver Chase, and he was a pharmacist in Boston.

Boy, you know, I gotta tell you, those Boston people, they

do all sorts of cool things.

From dumping tea, since we're on the 250th anniversary coming

up, all the way to candy.

But he created the first American automated lozenge cutting machine in 1847.

So the Necco Wafer, before it was called Necco, was actually called

the Chase Lozenge the Hub Wafer.

and it was basically candy, but it was also originally packaged with

pharmaceuticals, peppermint and other things to help with stomachache of

the day, and even opiates at the time.

So, you know, go suck on that one.

But

so how does the, how about the Tootsie Roll challenge, the

Yeah.

Well, the Tootsie Roll challenge.

So the two back and forth, but let me finish up with, the Chase and Company.

In 1901, that was sold out and merged with the New England Candy

Company, then therefore NECCO.

And Chase Lozenges was rebranded as the Necco Wafer.

But Tootsie Roll was the first official true penny candy, you know,

wrapped up and stuff like that.

You know the little ones?

They have big ones too.

Yeah, I love those.

I love

those

it's a subtle difference, but an important difference as it

was considered the first single wrap, although Leo Hirschfeld made the first

Tootsie Roll by hand in February 23rd.

It was actually documented, I can't believe that, in 1896, and then sold

as penny candy in his Brooklyn store.

So, you know, boop on Bost- Boston.

It goes to Brooklyn, the other B. And he didn't apply for a patent for the

actual candy until 1907, and finally received approval for that patent in

1908, a year later, and that's when he went into full production, and the

rest is history as the Tootsie Roll.

How many licks can you get in that Tootsie Roll pop?

Hoot hoot,

Yeah.

I love those.

Yeah.

So, the candies themselves.

Let's talk about some of the other stars of the show,

those other that followed the Founding Penny Candies, and were their successors.

Not just sweets, they were tiny works of art, and I love them.

Candy cigarettes

Oh my God.

I don't think we're allowed to sell candy cigarettes, at least

they weren't in Connecticut.

You know, Connecticut folks were kind of prudish up there,

No,

allow...

now.

I've seen them in

some.

Yeah,

Okay.

them.

Yeah.

they were white and they had the little, even the little red

dot at the end, so it looked like

it was painted red and like

you...

them for my son.

He

loves... Yeah, yeah, 42 years old, and he still loves candy cigarettes.

Does he smoke or did he smoke?

No, not that I know of.

He

may, he may be hiding that from me, but I don't think he does.

But, children strutted around pretending to be movie stars, I can remember

this, or glamorous grown-ups.

Uh, that seems almost unbelievable now.

And what about candy buttons or dots?

Uh-huh.

Yeah, I see them around occasionally, and the only thing I

didn't like about them... So l- if, if you don't know what a candy paper

or a candy dot is, let me explain.

I'll try to do this as visually as I can.

They're on long strips of paper, and they're little sugar dots just

sort of like stuck on there in different colors, and they sort of

were the color of, of the rainbow.

They blended over a variety, so it It was a visual experience

as well as a tasty experience.

And you bit or you peeled with your teeth

the little dot off the paper, and there was always some piece

of paper that got stuck, right?

yeah.

Oh, Yeah.

And candy necklaces

oh, yeah, I remember those.

How about those little nickel, uh, nips?

Nickel nips.

Little wax bottles.

I love those, filled with sweet syrup.

You bit off the top, you drank the liquid, and then you chewed the wax.

Yay,

I

never chewed the wax on those.

Like,

Oh, and wax lips.

Oh, tell me about it

Wax lips.

Oh, those were great for Halloween for sure.

Absolutely.

Loved, loved, loved those.

Lots of fun, especially when you tried to talk with them in your

mouth, and like, "Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah." You can't

quite

tasted good too.

I mean, you had, you had a method for chewing them up.

you gotta chew

I think they put flavor in those.

That's the only thing I can think of is because they tasted good versus

the the bottles which never had

Yeah.

No, those lips tasted good.

Yeah, and Mary Janes, mm, to this day, to this day I'd be happy to...

Well, I don't, I could chew probably my tooth out on that one, but I love them.

Yeah.

so those introduced in 1914, and Chewy Candles combined, molasses and peanut

butter, and they were beloved by children and feared by dentists, and

that was Bit-O-Honey and taffy candy.

Oh, gosh,

Oh my God you would lick on those and get them long

and stringy and yeah, they were on lollipops some of them,

right?

yeah.

Bit-O-Honey.

Oh, haven't seen a Bit-O-Honey in a long time.

Taffy, we were not allowed taffy for some reason, probably 'cause,

Oh, and part of your teeth

probably, but I think the Mary Janes do the same things, too.

They're hard to find, the

yeah, I think Mary Janes were kind of crunchy though.

It didn't

Yeah, but they would get sticky too.

Yeah.

Before we go any further on reminiscing about penny candy, we're gonna take a

little break because there's a lot more in store on just the whole history of

penny candy, which I think is fabulous.

And if you got a moment, jump on your bike and go down to the store,

'cause we'll be right back in a minute

So we were talking about, penny candy and Bit-O-Honey and taffy candy

I'm not sure they're actually... Well, Bit-O-Honey probably is, but

the taffy candy, I'm not sure that's classified as penny candy It probably

cost a little bit more, as I remember,

but still, it was, it was good.

It was good

Yeah, 'cause the taffy candy that you see mostly now are in

those resorts where, everybody seems to have a taffy-making machine, and they

come in the little wrapped up white,

Oh, that's saltwater taffy.

thing.

different.

Yep.

good stuff.

That's seaside New England.

I th- I think of,

uh, Rhode Island and the Cape,

and I don't know if they have them down south.

Do they... Is saltwater taffy a big thing down

Oh, yeah.

Every, Every, souvenir shop it seems like, Gatlinburg or, wherever, you can

find those And they're usually packaged.

cause people buy them as gifts.

But you also had root beer barrels.

Remember those?

Yay.

And, even today, Atomic Fireballs.

Oh, boy, I love those.

you a Fireball fan?

Love Fireballs.

BB Bats, I don't know about that, but I do know about Bazooka bubble gum.

Talk

about the teeth.

bubblegum.

Oh,

I love it

well, I have a story about Bazooka bubblegum, . You'll love this.

So first of all, I'm not a fan of Fireballs, anything's too spicy

and hot, and I never heard of BB Bat, so that's interesting.

But Bazooka bubblegum, so you used to get it for a penny, and then it

went to something like five cents.

You couldn't even get it to... It just jumped from one cent to five cents.

And my aunt and uncle were stationed, well, in, for business, my uncle

was in marketing and stationed over in, Kyoto, Japan, for a number

of years, and my cousins were little, so they were growing up.

And my middle cousin was the ultimate entrepreneur at probably 10 years old.

So they'd come back from trips, to the States, home leave type of thing,

even for corporate, and while they were here, he would pick up boxes and

boxes and boxes of Bazooka bubblegum, the little individual packets, and

bring them back with him to Japan.

Well, here they were anywhere from one to five cents.

In Japan, the kids loved them so much, he sold them for a dollar.

Hmm.

Hmm, I love that.

That's interesting.

So the corner store experience, so let's talk about that

or corner store experience.

It seems like the grungier the corner store, the better

Yeah, I agree.

But

But that was the only place you could really get the

penny candies, as I remember,

that's where they have the cheap stuff.

most neighborhoods had a small grocery store, a drug store, or a five and dime.

Now, when I was really little, under about eight, my uncle had

a small five and dime store.

I'd forgotten

about

that.

Yeah, he did, and I I didn't, I took it for granted.

It was cool.

It was how he supported his family.

and we would go there when we'd go visit my aunt and uncle.

But it was just interesting.

It was a little Kentucky diaspora

in Dayton, Ohio, which there are many.

But this little, tiny working class neighborhood, had the corner

store that everybody would, go to.

Uh,

Oh, he was, he was

like the big man on

He was

big man, yeah.

Yeah, everything, had a little of everything.

but also there were the Woolworths and Kresge's, and some of those

big names that still emblazoned,

there's a, there's an FW Woolworth's building in

Manhattan, I've been there.

Beautiful, beautiful old art deco

Oh, I know.

They really are.

but I remember going to the counter, you pick out your candy, and

the penny candy was on the top shelf.

The more expensive stuff was at eye level.

but you'd get your handful of stuff, and

it was, really a lesson in math for kids when you think about it.

You put your candy down there, and the cashier would always help you count it.

Unfortunately today, cashiers don't do too well in counting change out,

so you kind of helped, helped them

Yeah, you gotta have sophisticated kids.

Maybe they need to go back to penny candy school

yeah, and you know, your eyes would scan and look at

the rows of glass jars or where, in the countertops, wherever.

but there was also gum, but it was Beeman's gum.

And

it came in different flavors, and I just don't see it anymore.

You do in Cracker Barrel.

Cracker Barrel is a chain that still has the penny candy kinda ethos.

cause, so that's kinda interesting.

I haven't gone recently.

I'm assuming it still is kinda like that.

I've only been there, once

Well, that's probably good.

I'm sorry.

I'm

sorry, Cracker Barrel.

Yeah, Bob and I, we was given a gift certificate from Neighbor.

It was lovely 'cause their, niece was working there.

And we went and, it was cute and it was nostalgic, but, oh, it was salty.

Oof.

Stuff.

They got stuff

But if, jawbreakers, have you ever had jawbreakers?

My favorite.

Mm-hmm.

And the big ones, the giant big ones that you couldn't,

hardly even get your mouth around

Oh, yeah.

But you walked out of that store feeling triumphant.

And like you said, for some of our kids it was the first lesson in

economics, budgeting, trade-offs.

And I will have to say that while not socially acceptable, it was also maybe

where you stole your first thing.

No, I never stopped eating any.

Uh-oh, okay.

And somebody dared you to go in, you and steal,

and it's like, "Okay, I want to be part of the cool kids."

Not that I ever did that, but it has happened.

Oh, okay.

I will not tell on you.

I won't tell your mom.

But yeah, yeah, it was a first lesson of life,

because sometimes you got caught.

Oh dear, dear, dear, no.

I, I would, the, the wrath of mom, I never went there.

But, penny doesn't buy what you thought anymore, which is the sad fact, and many

corner stores have actually disappeared as... the gas stations are there, but

the candy that's there when you see it behind the glass with the cigarettes

and everything else, which I don't do.

I sound like such a prude.

really not that bad.

Yeah.

But, where, where, so where are we today with penny candy?

Well, I'm gonna say that we still have, the lollipops and the

Dum Dums and everything like that.

Oh, lollipops and Dum Dums.

There is a child, an eight-year-old boy, I think it was last year, who

was famous for buying a bunch of Dum Dums in Lexington, Kentucky.

Did you hear

that story?

I did.

I did.

bought a billed on Amazon.

He somehow got into his mom's account, God forbid, lucky mom, and bought

$4,000 worth of Dum Dum lollipops.

That equi- that was 70,000 lollipops for all his school friends.

I remember it made, national news, and

so

I don't know if his

mom had to pay for it, but I gotta tell you it was

You've heard of those things.

Kids get on there and order 17 Big Macs.

that happens.

I don't have little kids in my house anymore, but, now the world has changed.

you have accounts, you have DoorDash

they

I just have to keep Bob off of Amazon.

Yeah, I know.

But that nostalgia is so powerful, and I don't know, it's almost

as good as comfort food, I would say

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Uh, it is very, very powerful.

and it touches everybody, absolutely everybody.

So we have one of the oldest general stores in the country, which is about

25 minutes from us and I put pictures of the where- we had the aprons.

I saw pictures of aprons, and they have all the penny candy there, and yep, they

got my Mary Janes, so that's where I go

Oh, sweet.

Sweet.

I have to go looking for penny candy here one of these days if I can find the time.

okay, so, um, so how about then and now?

How do we, how do we work through all this?

Well, I think we have to actually look at some of the things

that brought us joy back then.

And when you do take out your five cents and splurge on some of those

things because they do matter.

And bringing back that sense of maybe just a little specialness and joy sometimes.

But, it just makes me feel good.

E- even if it's, y- okay, so sugar's not great for you, but

a penny candy is not gonna kill

Oh, yeah.

Well, you know, back then one cent bought a treat, so what happens now?

Well, I gotta tell you, there's a little bit of nostalgia that happened

at Bob's nephew's wedding, and this is now, oh, God, their daughter's I think

16, so maybe about 18 or 19 years ago.

as everybody left their wedding, they had a table filled with glass jars of

penny candy, and you could take your bags and fill them with your penny

candy, uh, for the ride home, which was a nice sugar high on top of the wine and

everything else that we ate that day.

So

that is funny

I thought it was a great way to start a life together

That sounds fun.

But I suspect we can all remember all of our favorite candy.

I mean, I'm not sure which was my favorite, but I think Mary

Janes was pretty close to it.

It was probably that.

And, uh, the chocolate-covered, it was not taffy, but it

was, a... I'm trying to think.

Sugar Daddies.

Sugar

Daddies was

Sugar Daddies.

Oh, I

too, and they're still around.

But we really remember where we were.

I mean, it's, it's really hard not to f- to remember where you were

when you got penny candy as a kid,

right?

The summertime, the afternoon, the bicycle ride down to the,

street, dumping your bike.

Well, you didn't have a bike, so dumping your...

Tying your horse up.

I just didn't go anywhere.

It went to the

it

went down to the

creek d- near the

town.

The

Mm-hmm.

Get...

they say in eastern

There you go.

There you go.

And just holding that bag of, treasures and treats and seeing

how long you could make them last.

Oh, yeah.

That is fabulous

I have one more Tootsie Roll story if you will indulge me

since we're talking about candies.

So in camp, I went to sleepaway camp, and all the fancy rich

kids from New York would get care packages from their parents.

And it was, oh, God, pickled corn, baby corn, and they got

caviar, and they get little jars of tuna and all sorts of stuff.

And I'm thinking, "Ew," like I've never seen that stuff before, And

I wrote my mom and told her about it, and Mom sent me a care package,

which was the Tootsie Rolls.

But the Tootsie Rolls, the long skinny ones that would come in the packs,

Oh, yeah.

sort of lined up like little

soldiers in a package.

She sent me two packets of those one, summer, and I had to hide them underneath

my mattress because the, the rich kids from New York wanted... d- didn't

want their pic- their, uh, ba- their

Fancy stuff.

He wanted that plain old stuff.

Well, you know, I s- suspect we can all remember our favorite candy.

but, where we also remember is where we were, friends we were with, a

summer afternoon, the bicycle leaned up against the curb, and just the

excitement of whatever it is you went to get and however long it took you to

get there, it was still an important moment in your life and memorable

Absolutely.

And it was a lesson in economics, and it certainly is today in looking

at the price of everything else.

But, it's fun to reminisce and go back and even teach your own kids

or other family members who've never experienced what a penny candy is.

Yeah,

A candy cigarette, Dots, necklaces, the whole nine yards.

And so it's a little sugar along the way.

it's like a little sense of freedom,

even if it's just for a few moments and the amount of time that it takes

you to slow down and just suck on that

Yeah.

Root- beer barrel, right?

Oh, I love the root beer barrels too.

Oh, that

and Fireballs, yay.

No, jelly beans.

I see

them on somebody's

desk.

Uh, yeah,

there's a steakhouse restaurant up here called Jeff Ruby's, and

it's like super high-end, but he has this big thing of jelly beans.

I always get a handful before we be seated.

Well, Ronald Reagan used to have jelly beans in the

Oh, I love them.

I love them.

They are so good.

Penny candy has a great story and history behind it, and

it started back in the early 1800s.

Who would've known?

I never even thought about that till we started to look into this a little deeper.

So it may not be a meal that's on your table that you're having

some stories or nostalgia or a sense of peace and joy about.

It could be that Mary Jane that's just waiting to be unwrapped and where you take

the paper off and it sticks on a hot day.

Oh, yeah.

Because every meal has a story, and every story is a

feast, even if it's a penny candy.

... So until next time... , may your memories be sweet and your stories worth sharing.

Take care.

We'll see you soon, and we'll hear you

soon.

Bye-bye

Bye-bye