For Girls and, as it turns out, Everyone Else

Stand too close to the counter and you'll miss it. But stand back a bit and brush away the few lingering coffee grinds and there it is, six odd shelves of sugar, colorings and nostalgia. On the top shelf you'll find an assortment of quaint old-fashioned gum. Teaberry, Blackjack, Beachies packaging seems deliberately unchanged since our parent's parents bought them at the Five and Ten cent stores for just as much. Then there are the gummi snacks (burgers, fries, pizza), licorice wheels, Lemon Heads and Red Hots. Below that are Chimes Ginger Chews, in an attractive tin canister, Art Bars chocolate and El Bubble gum cigars in light pink or baby blue. And lest we forget, the selection of British candy bars: the Lion, Crunchie, Yorkie and Curly Whirly.

One may wonder why such a section even exists at Marlow's, a bastion of good eats and healthy ingredients. I wondered the same myself when asked to write a little something about our eclectic assortment of confections. The candy section is the equivalent of a grocery line impulse-buys, it serves as a last minute moneymaker and pacifier for unruly youngsters.

But why do we need a candy section? We certainly could do without the sugar and artificial colorings. And store sales wouldn't be too badly hurt without these last minute purchases. I've given this question a lot of thought and I've realized that aside from a sugar boost and a sweet taste in our mouths, the candy section, whether we realize it or not gives us comfort.

And I don't mean by featuring comfort food, though who can't resist a smile when biting into a Yorkie Bar or chewing on a gummi sea creature. No, the kind of comfort offered by the candy section is in the colors on the box or the name of the candy itself. They remind us of our childhood, a hometown candy shop or an aunt who always had an ample supply of a certain gum or hard candy. It's certainly not the taste of those licorice wheels that keep me coming back for more. It is the fact that they taste like the black jelly beans that I used to find in my Easter Basket as a kid. And I couldn't care less for Swedish Fish, except that their smell reminds me of riding back from Harper's, newsstand and local candy outlet, on my bike, a paper bag full of an allowance-worth of little reds in hand.

For everyone, a candy store or section reminds us where we're from. In America we have Snickers, in England, Cadbury, and so on. You know you're home when you see your country's sugary products on the shelves. Our Italian customers are delighted, even proud to find that we sell Brooklyn Chewing Gum (Italy's version of Trident), and our British patrons can never seem to get over the fact that we sell their favorite chocolate bars from the motherland, sexist as the Yorkie bar may be.

I realize that these products may be sugary, full of preservatives and likely to give you cavities, but it's a satisfying feeling to know that when a customer slaps a pack of Teaberry gum or a Lion Bar on the counter, they're going to go away with more than just a satiated sweet tooth. They're going away with a taste of their past, their identity and their home.

By Lindsay Debach

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