Sugar Savvy

The other night, I was at a friend’s coffee shop near my house. She was having a party to celebrate the store’s third birthday, and in addition to delicious homemade pie, pastries, spinach tarts and sangria, she had set out a big bowl of mostly Mexican candy. Included in the mix were these long-forgotten (and as far as I know, NOT Mexican) shiny plastic fruits.

“Oh my GOD,” I gasped, to nobody in particular. “I haven’t seen these FOREVER!”

I never have really forgotten about plastic fruit filled with fruit-flavored sugar powder, though. In fact, I’ve thought of them off and on over the past couple of years, after Brian at Candy Addict reported on them. But how was it possible that I was the only person in the entire joint that night to be even remotely excited by these? Alas, sugar can be a lonely, lonely vice.

Similar to Brian’s little league baseball connection to the plastic fruit, my memory of them goes back to my 6th grade basketball team. After school, my friend Rachel and I would walk across the schoolyard to Payless and buy one or two – I always favored the raspberry version – and then head back to the gym for basketball practice, pouring the candy straight into our mouths as we went. There, we would fill our not-quite empty raspberries with water from the drinking fountain in order to create a pre-workout energy drink. This was long before Red Bull and Rockstar, of course. (We didn’t have fancy-shmancy sport drinks back then. We mixed sugar with water and WE LIKED IT!) As I commented on Brian’s post: “Pure sugar is the best performance enhancer when you are 11.”

With this in mind, I don’t think it was any coincidence that Rachel and I (excuse my immodesty) were our team’s most valuable players. She was center forward, I was point guard … in case you were wondering. And our team was undefeated that year. Yes, we were gifted young athletes, but we had a little help getting the spring in our step: the sugar-filled plastic fruit.

I’m not even sure what these candies are officially called. Some retailers refer to them as “candy-filled fruit“; others call them “fun fruits“. In any case, they appear to be a generic, non-brand specific item, like candy corn. That is to say that they are not made by one candy maker exclusively. Some manufacturers include a tiny loop on the plastic stem, which I am now jealously coveting. With these, you can thread a rope through the loop and sport a plastic sugar-filled banana around your neck, for easy access. Because I hate it when I am forced to dig through my purse every time I need quick hit of pure, fruit-flavored sugar. That really is such an inconvenience.

I plan to leave the plastic fruit in a pretty bowl on my cocktail cart through the winter. It will brighten my home when the current bounty of fresh, local produce will be long gone. For now, I will let them exist, side by side, with these gorgeous specimens from my neighbor’s garden. My two disparate affections: fresh, seasonal, flavor-packed fruits and vegetables and STRAIGHT-UP GLUCOSE.

It’s all about balance.