Ode to the Necco
I will write about politics soon, never fear. But in an effort to get away from the topic—even if ever-so-slightly—let’s talk about candy. Classic candy.
New England candy. Neccos.
Developed in 1847 with the advent of that great leap forward, the lozenge cutter, Neccos have stood the test of time. All you conservatives out there, how’s this for sticking to old-fashioned values:
The original recipe for the NECCO Wafer remains basically unchanged today, and the Wafers are still made in the original eight flavors: orange, lemon, lime, clove, chocolate, cinnamon, licorice, and wintergreen. The ingredients are simply sugar, corn syrup, gelatin, gums, colorings and flavorings.
I loved them as a child, passing up more gooey treats for their relatively Spartan but still deeply satisfying pleasures. They were chalky but sweet. You could choose the challenge of sucking on them slowly or give in to desire and bite them quickly. There was something about the randomness of the flavors—their ever-changing order—that was especially appealing.
You could try to tell ahead of time what you were getting by gazing through the translucent (as opposed to transparent) wrapper. But that was cheating, and the words and logo made it hard to tell, anyway.
Much better to be surprised. Would you be lucky enough to get more than the usual number of the favored and beloved greens, yellows, and oranges? Or would the dread licorice make too many appearances? Chocolate was the best of all, but when NECCO yielded to pressure and put out the all-chocolate roll it was somehow too much of a good thing. The sport was gone, the game of it—and then, alas, my ability to eat chocolate was gone.
Neccos have a sterling history, as well:
In 1913, explorer Donald MacMillan took NECCO Wafers on his Arctic explorations, using them for nutrition and as rewards for Eskimo children. In the 1930’s, Admiral Byrd took 2 ½ tons of NECCO Wafers to the South Pole, practically a pound a week for each of his men during their two-year stay in the Antarctic.
The U.S. Government requisitioned a major portion of the production of NECCO Wafers during World War II. The candy doesn’t melt and is practically indestructible during transit, making it perfect for shipping overseas to the troops.
What more could one ask for? Well, there’s the fact that there’s no fat in the candy. That tends to be true of many non-chocolate candies as well, and it certainly doesn’t mean that Neccos don’t help put fat on you—but still, it’s a selling point.
And here are some Necco stats: if the number of wafers made in a year were placed end to end, they would go around the world twice. But I cannot differ strongly enough with the following fact:
A whole roll takes about 40 minutes to eat.
Beg pardon? By whom? Doing what? I suppose if a person had the extreme forbearance to suck rather than chew every single wafer in the pack, it might take forty minutes. But such iron control cannot possibly be a healthy sign.
I love Neccos too. I never realized that it stood for “New England Candy”… I always just thought it was a really bizarre name.
Mitsu: To be precise, it’s “New England Confectionery Company.”
“Or would the dread licorice make too many appearances?”
What?! That’s my favorite flavor of Necco wafers, although I would have a problem with it if they ever came out with entire roll of them like the chocolate, which is my second favorite (the third being the pink wintergreen ones).
cardeblu: I am sorry to have to inform you that pink is cinnamon. White is wintergreen. I am almost certain of these facts.
I’ll take any clove ones you don’t want!
I’m with Neo: Licorice, pleh!
Can someone knowledgeable compare-and-contrast with Smarties?
Next time I’m up there, where do I look for Neccos?
No, the white ones are cinnamon; pink wintergreen; purple clove.
The cinnamon and wintergreen ones are not my favorites, so I’ve never paid much attention. I just assumed pink was cinnamon, because the color matches better, and there was nothing about it at the website. But I stand corrected.
Never seen them. But if it were possible for some merchant to organize their shippment to Russia, it would be astonishing commercial success. School children love such things.
My favorite candy as a youth was the Clark bar which has a history going back to WW I. The Pittsburgh company fell on hard times and was bought by NECCO.
I vaguely remember these as a kid. I also seem to remember they were very – very – very – hard.
Must be a northern thang….lol.
As for self-discipline with NECCO wafers, one always believed it might be possible to make them last a long time. Whenever a person gave you only one and you held off crunching them, they did last quite nicely. Therefore, one reasoned, a whole roll could last an enormous length of time.
I have never known this theory to actually work out in practice.
They also make Sweethearts, BTW, a Valentine’s tradition between my wife and I, one per day for a week, message carefully chosen.
neo — FYI, your essay “How to avoid the clutches of ODS” shows up on Google Reader but not here.
Chocolate ones? Ew! I’ll gladly trade my chocolate neccos for the purple and white ones!
Back in the very early sixties my father was stationed at Eglin Air Force Base in Ft Walton Beach Florida. Saturday around 1PM my two brothers and I would get dropped off at the base movie theater with a quater each. Fifteen cents for admission and the extra dime would buy two rolls of NECCO wafers – enough to get through the cartoons, the serial (usually Batman) and the feature. Unless it was the something long like “The Guns of Navaronne” the two rolls would see you through if you were careful. Damn I think I need to go find a roll. Clove – great Licorice – Yuck. ( LOL -On the west coast the Licorice ones are probably called Tarragon)
Some Catholic kids in the postwar boomer era sometimes put these candies to use in church games (for those who dared). The Wintergreen white wafers were perfect and tasty stand-ins for the Sacred Species.
Honest.
I grew up in New England and remember the delicious sensation of having a Necco wafer dissolve in my mouth. What a treat! Sadly, it’s been years since I’ve had the pleasure.
NECCOs = Baby Boomer Bliss. I can still be found at my local drug store’s (excellent) candy counter, surreptitiously rooting for The One Roll that’s got more purple wafers than all the others.
Great story, dane. I’m on the West Coast, but I don’t know if they call the black ones tarragon or anise because I never leave them uneaten long enough to find out!
And great post, neo.
I once found 35 cents on the sidewalk, a lot of money back in the fifties (especially for a kid). Went out and bought 7 boxes of Luden’s Menthol Cough Drops and sat down and ate every one.
Several people told me it was going to make me sick, but it didn’t.
never had them… now i wish i did!!!!
penn station brought back nedicks hotdogs though… that was an interesting return to the past.
[though i am a die hard nathans fan]
Oh! Love, Love, LOVE NECCO wafers. Up until recently, they were made in Pewaukee, WI. Local fav. In fact, I need me some right now!
In 1913, explorer Donald MacMillan took NECCO Wafers on his Arctic explorations, using them for nutrition and as rewards for Eskimo children.
Wow, that did the trick for me! I’ll eat them.
Then this ruined it:
NECCOs = Baby Boomer Bliss
Back to Pop Rocks….
Just for information, Invention and Technology magazine ran a piece on NECCO a couple of years back. They run the oldest running machine in he country and it makes both the wafers an the hearts for Valentines Day. Second, before the new sensitive toll machine came out you used to be able to use NECCOs for a quarter on the Chicago Toll roads (or so I am told having never done it myself 😉 ). mpw
Damn, i was home for the evening, now I’ve got to walk to the store for some NECCO’s. Headquarters used to be near Fenway Park in Boston. Could see it from the bleacher seats, $1.00 admission. Guess its been awhile.
Yum, Necco wafers! I worked out a highly developed system of Necco combinations as a child. Pink and white: good. Orange and yellow: good. Yellow and purple: interesting, perhaps not good, perhaps good, worth trying again and ruminating over. Yellow and brown: not good, don’t do it. Green and yellow: yes. Green and brown: no! In fact, brown mixed badly with all of them.
I did not know until today which flavors were which, except for licorice and chocolate, so I always simply ate them by color. I never knew before today that the name had anything to do with New England, either. I grew up eating them in Maryland and Upstate New York.
Two candies I never liked as a kid (and even less today): Necco wafers and malted milk balls. It’s Smarties for me! Even better, Giant Smarties!
sergey,
isnt there a famous candy from russia or latvia (or both)? i remember being given some and told how special but that was a long long time ago. 🙂
Until quite recently the NECCO factory was on Mass. Ave. in Cambridge, MA, just outside of Central Square near M.I.T. Both my children loved going to the factory store, and on school field trips to watch the candy being made. The best thing was the smell – when you were walking down Mass. Ave. towards the river you could smell the factory coming up. The building was converted into offices, so still stands, but I don’t know where the candy is made now.
Scott — Yes, I remember the NECCO factory on Mass Ave … and the smell!
I was so surprised to find an icon of my childhood a handful of blocks from where I lived.
I wasn’t particularly fond of NECCO, nor of salt water taffy, nor of Good & Plenty, which advertised incessantly on Boston TV kiddie shows. Still know the song. Choo-choo Charlie and all that.
Give me life savers and nut-chocolate candy bars to rot my teeth. Or give me death.
One local product I enjoyed was Birch Beer.
I wrote about NECCO Wafers a couple of years ago because they were involved in some kind of weird cosmic conspiracy to make me feel paranoid.
Neo, have you joined that conspiracy?
hmm… I’m a southerner and I have always loved Neccos. My last experience with them was trying to share just ONE roll with my daughter on a long drive. She won, she got the last one and it was green.
OK, now I have to go look for Neccos..
Would you believe, I grew up in Nebraska in the 50’s and Neccos were one of my favs. And the best were the brown ones; I didn’t realize until now that the flavour was chocolate! To me they were just ‘the brown ones.’ LOL.
I’m with Harry — Necco wafers were perfect to practice transubstantiation and Holy Communion.
We used to do both “Body of Necco” _and_ “Body of Nilla [Wafers]” when I was growing up…
Chocolate are my favorite, since many are chiming in. In southeast VA, NECCO wafers are a rare thing. Even more rare are the rolls of chocolate only. When I do see them, even to this day, I grab two or three.
The description sounds sorta like sweet tarts. They came in small disk or the scrumptious giant one about half the size of a hockey puck.
Never even heard of a Necco where i grew up in Georgia. Have to keep my eye out for em.
I am sorry to say I date back to when Clark Bars were advertised on tv in ads showing various zoo animals saying, “I want a Clark Bar.”
I took the chocolates when possible because I don’t like licorice. NECCO’s and Holloway Suckers were favored because they lasted a long time, although–never mind how I know this–Holloway Suckers did not go well with braces on your teeth.
I ascribed this failing of my mother’s to the fact that she wasn’t born in the US: she maintained it was possible to go to the movies or a baseball game and not eat something.
As long as we’re munching our way down memory lane, anyone remember Liik-A-Maids?
Wow, I’ve never heard of or seen a Neccos.
Ah, Neccos…
A sophomoric two-man group called Paul & Storm tried to record a jingle for them once. “Yes, they’re Necco Wafers — the candy that nobody likes.”
When they performed live, someone would always chime in that they actually DO like Neccos… at which point one of the singers would respond with incredulity, and add, “You do realize that they’re making you eat colored chalk?”
Time to go back to work and avoid a flame war…
DiB
Art, of course there are lots of excellent chocolates made in Moscow and Petersburg, because they are made exactly according receipts of German and Swiss confectioners of the late 19 century. Everywhere else these receipts were abandoned long ago as too complex for mass production, but here they still used.
Big R usually has a good selection of candies– I picked up some bags of horehounds and assorted sour balls, and there’s usually a bunch of the more “traditional” types in handy one-pound bags. ;^p
Daniel in Brookline–
I’d probably point out that jelly beans are cow hooves, but they taste good as well. (Goodness, looking back, I actually feel a little sorry for my teachers…..)
Alex Bensky, do you mean Lik-M-Ade? Sure do remember them. I had a friend whose mom wouldn’t let her have them, I have no idea why. That was long before the concept of *snorting* had occurred to anybody.
(For those who’ve not had the pleasure, a Lik-M-Ade was, maybe still is — I haven’t seen them for awhile — a waxy soda straw thing filled with fruit flavored powder, kind of sweet-sour, IIRC — more like a Sweet-Tart than are Necco’s, which are spicy-sweet. The idea was to mix the powder with water like Kool-Ade, but nobody ever did that. You broke the straw in half and poured the powder in your mouth. Pure tooth-rotting goodness.)
Yeah…. Kids are going to have less time to enjoy these kind of things; Compulsory Service for Children:
From the ‘O’fficial gov site:
http://change.gov/americaserves/
The Obama Administration will call on Americans to serve in order to meet the nation’s challenges. President-Elect Obama will expand national service programs like AmeriCorps and Peace Corps and will create a new Classroom Corps to help teachers in underserved schools, as well as a new Health Corps, Clean Energy Corps, and Veterans Corps. Obama will call on citizens of all ages to serve America, by developing a plan to require 50 hours of community service in middle school and high school and 100 hours of community service in college every year. Obama will encourage retiring Americans to serve by improving programs available for individuals over age 55, while at the same time promoting youth programs such as Youth Build and Head Start.
Stay away from my children, you bastards.
I’m 65. My favorite memories are of my father with a roll of Necco wafers, which he always had in his pocket, looking for the color I would like the best. He was able to move those disks and rearrange them so that I would get the one I loved. Years later, when I was really upset with my oldest brother, he pulled a roll of Necco wafers out of his pocket and I knew, regardless of what he pretended, that he really truly loved our Dad. That candy was a real hook.
Thanks by the way for bringing that memory back. I really needed it tonight.
Gray–
Someone noticed the attention that “required” was getting, and it was edited about Nov 7, 2008 6:44:37 PM, according to http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/2008/11/taxing-people-with-no-money.html?cid=138144194#comments .
I must say I had never even heard of Necco before today. I am quite certain they don’t sell them in my local store.
Stew, check the candy department at Walgreen’s.
Oh, yuck. You might as well subsist on valentine hearts.
I am very unhappy with the new All-Natural Necco wafers. They taste yucky, not even close to the original. I’ll never buy one of my favorites again, unless they bring back the original.
A scientific study on how terrible necco wafers really are.