Sugar Savvy

I like to eat candy, as you know. I also like reading novels. And I especially like to read novels in which the characters like to eat candy.

I was recently re-watching a movie called “Born Into This.” It is a documentary about Charles Bukowski, one of my all-time favorite writers. In it, there is footage of him describing a period of his life as a young man in the 1940’s, when he would hole-up in a cheap rented room and type all day. He was so broke that he barely had enough money to eat:

“I used to live on one candy bar a day. It cost a nickel. I always remember the candy bar, it was called “Payday.” And that candy bar tasted sooooo gooood. I’d have it at night…I’d take one bite and it was so beautiful.”

If you are unfamiliar with Bukowski, you should know that beyond being a great writer, he was a notorious drunk. Many of his stories revolve around his life in East Hollywood, living in cruddy courtyard apartments as a hard-livin’ gruff-speaking “dirty old man.” He actually wrote a regular column in the LA Press called “Notes of a Dirty Old Man” and put out a book with the same title. So it is especially endearing for me to hear my favorite Dirty Old Man describe, with such poetic yet childlike and innocent glee, the pure enjoyment of a Payday Bar.

It made me love him even more.

It also made me wonder if he chose the Payday because of its abundance of peanuts. I mean, if you’re going to eat only one thing every day, and that one thing is a candy bar, then you can’t do much better than a Payday. Most candy does not pack nearly as much protein as does this one – it was certainly a better choice than, say, a Milky Way, nutritionally speaking.
It also made me wonder if this Limited Edition Payday would elicit the same poetic waxing from the Payday-loving prolific old dude.


When I picked this up at the store a few weeks ago, I didn’t read the label very carefully. I didn’t realize until I opened it that there is, in fact, NO chocolate involved in this bar. It is as peanut-rich as a regular Payday, but in addition to being laced with (a slightly waxy) peanut butter, it is enrobed entirely in (a slightly waxy) peanut butter coating.

It maintains a pleasant balance of sweet and salty. And despite the absence of chocolate, I did enjoy it. I would have enjoyed it more if it hadn’t left the waxy residue in my mouth, but when peanut butter is hydrogenated, this is an unavoidable side effect. I’m not sure it’s possible, unfortunately, to make a non-refrigerated peanut butter product without the trans fats.

This has me thinking about candy and food in books. It definitely has a presence in some of my all-time favorites – and I’m not sure whether or not that is a coincidence.

Candy-in-literature … does anyone have their own favorites to share? I’d love to hear about them. I’m starting to think this could possibly make for a good research project/coffee table book.

Photo of Bukowski courtesy of Michael Monfort, from bukowski.net

Vintage Payday ad courtesy of imaginaryworld.com