Ice Cream Truck
Judy and I were walking around Greenwich Village a few years ago when we spotted a culinary amenity we no longer thought available. Mr. Softee. These rolling ice creameries were once common in our hometown, but at some point they stopped coming around. I assumed Mr. Softee melted out of existence. But there he was, in full frozen vigor, rolling the Village.
The only difference was that “our” Mr. Softee had a large swirly ice cream treat atop the truck, with the affable Mr. Softee’s visage printed on the cone. The New York version simply has a two dimensional representation of the man-cone stamped on the side of the vehicle. Still engaging, but not as whimsical. Nonetheless, it was good to see the old guy was still in business and he brought to mind any number of quirky food options available in this land of plenty.
Snow Cones and Bomb Pops
Mr. Softee wasn’t the first treat truck I encountered. Before his nightly Summer drive down our street we enjoyed the Snow Cone Man. The snow cone man was usually an independent entrepreneur who had scraped together enough capital for three necessities: a station wagon with a working tail gate, an ice crushing machine, and several pump-topped jugs filled with flavored syrups. Cherry, Blueberry, Orange, Lemon, Lime, Blueberry, and for the adventurous, Root Beer. And Rainbow, which was squirted in strips of three of four flavors that eventually melted into an unsavory gray that tasted like wet sugar.
Since progress cannot be halted, snow cones from a station wagon gave way to a jeep with a striped canvas circus top that sold Bomb Pops. Bomb Pops were popsicles that were shaped like, well, bombs. Maybe this was another Cold War era attempt to quiet our fears. Bombs aren’t as scary when they come in blueberry or banana.
Wax Candy
Thinking about Mr. Softee, snow cones and bomb pops brings to mind other childhood treats. As we wind down another Summer and kids head back to school, my mind drifts to various fun candy options.
Most candies are available year round, but some are designed for annual celebrations. Like you, I associate candy with seasons. Candy corn is Autumnal. Chocolate eggs are Spring. Candy canes are Winter. Then there is candy that is almost not candy at all. Take wax lips (teeth, mustaches, an oversized red tongue). What are those? They have a touch of sweetness, but are mostly wax. Who made wax a food, even a junk food?
Whatever they are, the wax candies have a touch of whimsy. Or weird. I think the target demographic is mostly male, around nine years old, keenly aware of the value of walking about with a black wax mustache. I know when I would wear one of these semi-edible facial adornments, I felt I could walk into any adult setting and be treated right. Perhaps I could get a home loan, or buy a riding lawn mover. The world was wide open for a wax mustachioed nine year old boy.
Green Leaves, Red Hot Dollars, and Mexican Hats
Jellied candy must be easy to mold. I haven’t looked lately, but in my youth there was quite an assortment of jellied treats in interesting shapes. Orange slices were popular, and they made some sense, given the tastiness of a real orange. Then there were green leaves, red hot dollars, and Mexican hats. Let me address the last, first. I don’t know why these small candy hats were identified as Mexican. If anything they looked like felt fedoras from the 1940’s. But that is what they were called, and if that has now been corrected, I think it’s for the better.
In any case, all three of these candies were molded into things we ordinarily would not eat. From earliest childhood we were taught to not put money in our mouths. There was the old expression “I’ll eat my hat”, no one probably ever has. These candies based on inedible objects were among the most popular for me. It was likely because they used to be two for a penny. That’s ten edible hats for a nickel! What’s not to like?
The red hot dollars were the monetary version of another candy, the red hot tamale. Both were a cinnamon flavored delicacy. Again, there is a weirdness in all this. Money is not edible. If it were, why would it taste like cinnamon? Tamales are edible and quite delicious, but never has a good tamale tasted like cinnamon.
The green leaves tasted like mint. That did make sense, for mint leaves are edible and do taste minty. Score one for whoever developed this variation on the jellied candy. Same with the orange slices. But hats?
Here’s what I think, and I’m interested in what you think. Candy, with the implication that it’s really not very good as a food source, is left to creative interpretation. It can’t be sold as nutrition, so apparently it can be sold as edible whimsy. It can be shaped into a hat, a bear, coinage, a dinosaur bone, teeth, musical instruments (we had licorice saxophones and wax harmonicas) and I suppose anything you like. Help me out with some that I may have missed.
None of what I’ve written should be construed as an endorsement or a condemnation of candy, ice cream, and frozen sugar water. I’m pretty much an “all things in moderation” kind of guy, but I’m not going to argue the pros or cons of these confections. Obviously they are not the staff of life and we will suffer the consequences of a diet consisting largely of chalky, sugary, dinosaur bones.
I would like to know your thoughts on this. Not your thoughts on the evils of candy or the chicanery of the food industry poisoning us with their junk. Those are important topics, they just aren’t my topic. My topic is whimsy and why we do it. I suppose my life as a children’s illustrator keeps me zoomed in on the silly, the quirky, and the funny.
Animals do things we find whimsical, but I don’t know that they enjoy themselves. They, I think, are just doing what they do. We do things that stretch our minds beyond the rudiments of mere existence. We make, and sometimes eat, whimsy.
Ed, I was delighted when you brought up Mr. Softee when you did. Believe or not, not long before you posted that, I spotted a Mr. Softee truck parked on the side of the road in north St. Louis while driving to visit Calvary Cemetery! I had to look twice to be sure it was what I thought it was. I clearly remember a special magic about the Mr. Softee truck as a child, and it didn’t come around nearly as much as the regular ice cream truck did, which added to its mystique. Anyway, I don’t have any idea if that truck is still “in business”, but it was definitely a blast from the past!
Wow, Linda, you saw a Mr. Softee? I thought they were long gone. Did it have the cone-man on top? Yeah, they didn’t come around south St. Louis that often either, so when they did it was special. I don’t remember the ice cream being anything other than Dairy Queen style soft ice cream, but we ate anything anyway. By the way, speaking of ice cream and such, my sister and I are convinced Ted Drewes is not the same as it was years ago. We recall it was more golden and “eggy”. Any thoughts?
Thanks for reading Art and Whimsy! Talk to you soon.
Candy cigarettes come to mind, we enjoyed “acting” grown up with them, but we never held them long enough, they just tasted too good to keep them very long. They sure didn’t smell anything near a real cigarette and I’m sure they weren’t really going to lead me down the wicked path of a smoker, although I’m sure that’s why they disappeared——didn’t set the proper example for young minds. Thanks for the blast from the past Ed.
Yep, Terry, candy cigarettes were another personal favorite. Help me if my memory is flawed, but I recall that the candy cigs of our era were actually named after real brands. Later, before they were deemed entirely wrong, they had silly, sound-alike brand names. But I have an idea that “ours” were the real names. Seems I had a liking for candy Chesterfield Kings. I assumed all grown-ups smoked. Everyone around me did, and I just thought smoking was up there with driving and getting a job. My Chesterfield candy habit didn’t lead me to the real thing. Thanks for reading!
Oh the memories this has brought back! Mister Softee was the best, as was the bom pop man. Eddie, you may remember the guy that sold snow cones out of the back of his station wagon in front of Marquette Pool. Is it just me, or does anyone else remember working themselves into a frenzy if you heard the familiar ring of these trucks and you didn’t have your money ready? I practically lost my mind over it. I have chased many ice cream trucks through the streets of South St. Louis! As far as the candy goes, I was always a fan of Sweet Tarts, Tiny Tarts, Pixie Sticks and sour cherries. My friends and I used to roam the alleys near our grade school during lunch hour looking for soda bottles. They were worth 2 cents each. We would then proceed to the corner candy store to cash them in. We would always get shoestring licorice and grape bubble gum amongst the Bit o Honey and Jolly Ranchers. Soda bottle collection was how I supported my candy habit
Yeah Pat, the snow cone guy outside Marquette sounds familiar. Mostly we used to save our dime for Ted Drewes on Grand when we were walking home. A dime bought a pretty good sized cone. I used to roam around collecting soda bottles too. Most of my money went to those red hot dollars or Juicy Fruits. I seemed to go for the jellied candy. Probably explains the amount of gold I have in my mouth. Thanks for reading!
I don’t remember the mint leaves or the hot dollars, but I do remember the hats. Do you remember the wax root beer bottles that had perhaps at most a teaspoon of liquid inside? I actually bought some wax lips and teeth for Halloween last year just to wear at work.
Hi Katy,
I do remember the wax root beer bottles. They were part of the whole wax candy thing. You can still buy wax lips and teeth? I’ll have to find that wax mustache so I can look like a grown-up. Thanks for sharing!