The Candy Man, in an earlier era in American pop culture, was portrayed as a kindly magician who charmed children with the secret ingredient to turn sunshine into dreamy sweet confections.
“He mixes it with love / And makes the world taste good,” late multimedia performer Sammy Davis Jr. sang in his signature tune.
Candy as a symbol of love is more than just a bubble-gum pop music lyric, according to renowned candy scholar and historian Susan Benjamin of West Virginia.
BANANA-FOCUSED FOOD TRUCK IN NEW JERSEY SERVES UP FRUITY, FROZEN TREATS” ‘CLEAN AND REFRESHING’
“People love candy because it’s food people eat when they’re having fun and going to parties or going to movies, and those kinds of things,” she told Fox News Digital.
Benjamin is the author of 10 books, including “Sweet as Sin: The Unwrapped Story of How Candy Became America’s Favorite Pleasure.”
She added, “Mostly people love candy because the people we love gave it to us when we were children. We continue as we get older to give or receive candy as a sign of love.”
The American candy industry gives parents and children plenty of chances to make sweet memories by enjoying the nation’s best candy stores, tours and museums.
Here are five.
B.A. Sweetie Candy Co. of Cleveland, Ohio
Acclaimed as “the world’s largest candy store,” this Cleveland colossus of confections is a 74-year-old local institution.
It proudly proclaims that it can satisfy the sweetest teeth at the biggest candy klatch.
“Whether you need 1,000 pounds of Tootsie Rolls for a parade, or a half of a pound for your belly, we have it and we have it now,” B.A. Sweetie Candy Co. says on its website.
It also touts its status as one of Cleveland’s most popular tourist attractions.
Chutters of Littleton, New Hampshire
Wedged into the White Mountains of New Hampshire is this idyllic New England Main Street general store that features the world’s longest candy counter.
CRACKER JACK, IMMORTALIZED IN BASEBALL ANTHEM, IS A GRAND-SLAM RECIPE AT HOME, TOO
The claim is confirmed by Guinness World Records.
It measures Chutters’ single continuous tabletop of sweetness at 111 feet, 11 inches long.
On its website, Chutters says it offers “yesterday’s favorites and hard-to-find-flavors, to the best of today’s most sought-after treats.”
It also offers a “vast array of sours and Gummies, gourmet and traditional jellybeans, chocolates, licorice, caramels, and nostalgic pieces.”
Jelly Belly Candy Co. of Fairfield, California
The famous jelly-bean maker offers both self-guided and guided tours of its California confections factory seven days a week.
SHOOFLY PIE WAS BORN IN THE USA: ENTHUSIASTS BAKE PI DAY CLAIM OF ‘MORE AMERICAN’ THAN APPLE PRODUCTS
Self-guided tours can be done on a walk-in basis.
Guided tours require a reservation.
Tours follow a quarter-mile route above the factory, looking down on where love and sugar are whipped into jellybeans.
There’s a Jelly Belly Jelly Bean art gallery and — for mom, dad and other grownups — chocolate tastings paired with local wines.
Pez Visitor Center of Orange, Connecticut
Pez candies, those crunchy blocks of sugar, are recognized globally for their plastic toy dispensers topped by a myriad of human, animal or other forms.
Originating in Austria in the 1920s, Pez has been made in Connecticut since 1973.
The company opened its visitor center in 2011.
Here’s a little-known Pez dispenser of knowledge: The name is an abbreviation of “Pfefferminz,” the German word for peppermint.
True Treats of Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia
Calling itself “the nation’s only research-based candy store,” True Treats was founded by author and candy historian Susan Benjamin.
It’s located in historic Harper’s Ferry, little more than an hour’s drive northwest of Washington, D.C., and has been lauded nationally.
“This isn’t so much a candy store as it is a museum that sells its Confectionery displays.”
“This isn’t so much a candy store as it is a museum that sells its Confectionery displays,” Washington Magazine wrote in an homage to the candy collection.
“True Treats traces the history of old-school sweets — and we mean old, old school, like hickory bark, enjoyed by the Iroquois — to 19th-century Buttermints and retro faves such as Goo Goo Clusters, Mary Janes, and Squirrel Nut Zippers.”
For more Lifestyle articles, visit www.foxnews.com/lifestyle.
Read the full article here
