Do you have a favorite
"candy you ate as a kid" story?
Share it here.I grew up on the lower east side of Manhattan, where my father and his father had typical little candy stores. About two blocks away from where we lived, on Delancey Street next to the Williamsburgh Bridge, there was a nondescript building from which floated the marvelous smell of liquid chocolate. It was more wonderful than the smell of my father's store when I went there with him and he opened the door on Sunday mornings.
Sure enough, the building turned out to be the place where Chunky Bars were made. My father called the factory, and they arranged for us to visit. I was just a kid, but I clearly recall the vats of chocolate liquor and the men -- all wearing peculiar hairnets -- mixing nuts and raisins into it.
One man said that the chocolate had to be kept at just the right temperature, which was very hard to do while it was being stirred. Otherwise, the nuts and raisins would end up all on top or all on the bottom. Another man said that on the hottest days they couldn't make Chunky Bars because the bars wouldn't cool off in time. They had what looked like very crude wrapping machines -- almost every bar had a fold that was off a little bit, and it looked like they were all wrapped by hand.
They made other chocolates in the factory, like chocolate cigarettes. But none of them tasted like the Chunky Bars. A few years later, the company was sold and the plant was closed. While the smell of the chocolate was gone forever, 50 years later I can still remember it as though I smelled it yesterday. Thanks for the memory. ~ Ira from New York
