Much has been written and filmed about The ALL CANDY (now SWEETS AND SNACKS) Expo but the show has a new role as a supporting character in a yummy new novel by Katherine Katharine Weber, True Confections.
You may remember Katharine because she visited the 2008 and 2009 Expo where she spoke with many candy industry members.
Katharine captures well the agony and ecstasy of owning and operating the family candy business, Zip’s Candies and traces the Ziplinsky family into the 4th generation of sweet success and disappointing failures. A telephone conversation with Katharine revealed she gleaned the essence and history of family candy making as she spoke with members of the Born, Goetze, Karl (Annabelle), Rosenberg (Promotion in Motion), Spangler and Palmer families, among others.
True Confections is a witty novel filled with flawed characters trying to make a business out of candy. While far from a PR piece for the industry it’s clear that several generations of the Ziplinsky family quite simply love the candy business. They love it as immigrants to the U.S, because candy is inexpensive to produce and the variety of product possibilities easily leads to innovation. They love it through natural and manmade, personal and professional disasters. They love it for its do-it-yourself possibilities. Who can’t identify with the family working day and night to come up with a new product and packaging for a trade show only to discover that they perhaps should have done a bit of consumer research before introducing it in these modern times when a single blog, review or video can spread through the internet like wildfire—destroying a product before it is ever launched.
Now here is something really interesting. Readers have told Katharine they remember the entirely fictional “Little Sammies” candy line. And even better, Katherine has given Zip’s Candies a fictional candy company website and narrator Alice Ziplinsky is on Facebook (sort of).
Have you read True Confections? Tell us what you thought.
Larry McMurtry’s Book Store by MyEyeSees.
Editor’s note (4 Feb 2010 9:54 a.m.): We regret spelling Ms. Weber’s name as Katherine when the proper spelling is Katharine. The first instance was noted with a strikethrough and following instances have been corrected.
We at NCA spend a lot of time talking and writing about chocolate, in addition to eating it. If you are like us then two new books were recently published which may interest you. The first, “Chocolate History, Culture and Heritage” previewed at a Mars sponsored chocolate symposium at the Smithsonian Museum of American History this month. The second “Chocolate in Mesoamerica” was recommended to me by a scientist at Hershey’s Health and Nutrition Center.
These books are not for the faint-hearted. “Chocolate in Mesoamerica” includes a photograph of “Christ of the Cacao, a dramatic and beautiful sixteenth-century image of Christ” that remains in the cathedral of Mexico City. The Christ figure is holding a cacao plant. According to the book, 16th century pilgrims left “offerings of cacao beans as alms at the feet of the Christ.”
Some 743 pages into “Chocolate History, Culture, and Heritage the editors offer a chapter on “Chocolate Futures; Promising Areas for Further Research.” They suggest that entire books are waiting to be written on such topics as chocolate and the fine arts, colonial advertisements, shipwreck survivor accounts and personal diaries and family histories involving chocolate and cocoa.
And speaking of fine arts, who can resist this 1660 poem about chocolate and fertility, reprinted in the chocolate history book:
Nor need the Women longer grieve,
Who spend their Oyle (sic) yet not Conceive,
For ’tis a Help Immediate,
If such but Lick of Chocolate.
Does the mere thought of chocolate move you to artistic (or other) passions? If you have written a play, a poem, painted with chocolate, been shipwrecked or climbed a mountain with chocolate as your only sustenance, let us know!
Textbook by Carl Weaver.
Christ of the Cacao by Doc Bee.
World-renowned chocolate chef Jacques Torres will be signing his new book, A Year in Chocolate: 80 Recipes for Holidays and Special Occasions, at Madame Chocolate in Beverly Hills on March 21 from 3-5 in the afternoon. This is a great chance to meet the chocolate legend himself and taste some treats from the also-famous Hasty Torres, aka Madame Chocolate.
We have written about Jacques before so his name should be familiar to you. The book is packed with 80 of his delicious recipes, so it is a bargain, especially if you can get it signed by Mr. Chocolate himself. If you do not live in Southern California or otherwise cannot make it to this event, you can buy the book on Amazon and very likely in one of Jacques’ many retail locations. If you are lucky you might even catch him at the store and persuade him to sign the book for you.
