During our recent family vacation to Cape Cod, Massachusetts, I found the most geeky object on the vacation in, of all places, a candy store.
Photo: Corrina Lawson
We had driven down the very touristy Route 28 in order to walk around downtown Hyannis. The main Hyannis strip featured a number of excellent stores, including a great used bookstore, but the kids were tired of walking, so I loaded them up in the minivan and headed back to our vacation rental.
They spotted the Candy Company in West Yarmouth on the way and insisted we stop. There was the promise of chocolate, so it wasn’t hard to convince me.
It was a candy wonderland in there.
The small store was stocked with seemingly every type of candy ever made, from pop rocks to all flavors of jelly beans to chocolate used for making candy to homemade fudge and other expensive chocolate confections. It also carried some of the more obscure candy bars, including Sky Bars.
And, of course, they had Pez dispensers, including the original Star Trek set. Our wedding anniversary was coming up, my eldest son insisted it would make a great gift, and he had a point, so I bought them for my husband.
Then there were the sugar wafers.
I hadn’t seen this candy since I was growing up in rural Vermont. A gift store near my home stocked them and I used to go there just to pick up a package or two.
For those who don’t know what I’m talking about, sugar wafers are circular solid wafers–thicker and less brittle than Necco wafers.
The ones I remember from my childhood were ridged on one side. The ones I bought at Candy Co. were not. The clerk explained that the ridged candies had been machine-made and these were hand-made but it was the same recipe nonetheless. He said they were a “pain in the neck” to make, which is why the companies that manufactured them went out of business.
Despite the difference, the wafers tasted just like I remembered, pure sugar with flavors ranging from orange to cinnamon to mint. I tried to eat them one at a time.
I was not terribly successful in this endeavor.
I resisted the urge to stop back at the store for more on our way home but I have their address in case I get the urge for them again.
Well, okay. I already want more. But I’m resisting. So far.
