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.