Sweetie Memories - 52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy & History

This is thirteenth  challenge in a weekly series from GeneaBloggers called 52 weeks of personal genealogy and  history, suggested  by Amy Coffin,  that invite genealogists to record memories and insights about their own lives for future descendants.  Week 13 - Sweets

I grew up in the 1950's as rationing was coming to an end.  Sweets I remember include liquorice sticks, liquorice allsorts, Pontefract cakes, dolly mixtures (regarded as babyish), sherbert, flying saucers, jelly beans and jelly babies (where we loved to bite off the heads) and chocolate buttons with coloured sprinkles on the top.  For my husband in wartime Britain, a sweet treat was a stick of rhubarb from the garden and a pole of sugar. 

A Sunday  treat from my grandfather was a bag of pear drops.  The Saturday evening  treat from my father lasted well into my teens when he bought us all a bar of chocolate - mine was a Fry's Turkish Delight, my mother's was Kit Kat and my brother's a Mars Bar.  We always had a Terry's Chocolate Orange in our Christmas stocking and an chocolate egg at Easter.

I like to have something to suck whilst travelling (mints & fruit  pastilles), but don't go down the route of toffees and boilet sweets - my teeth are too precious to risk them!

However I remained a chocoholic, though my favourites changed.  I have tried them all  - Crunchie Bar, Twirl, Twix, Kit Kat, Fry's Chocolate Cream, Double Decker, Wispa. Aero, Cadbury Flake, Mars Bars, etc, etc,  etc.  Nowadays I regard with askance paying over 50p.  (old 10 shillings/half a pound) for a single small bar.  Though I was regularly tempted by those 3 in a pack discount offers in supermarkets.

I am now taking the view that dark chocolate can be good for you and have turned to the quality products with the aim to just eat one square at time - emphasis on try!  Still if I get given a box of chocolates as a present, it does not last too long - just taking one or two and putting the box in a cupboard does not work for me - or my husband - unlike those strong-minded souls who still have chocolate Christmas presents untouched months later.  

My mother was a great baker and a great follower of the Bero Book  - Caribbean  slices, chocolate cake with butter icing, Victoria sponges, chocolate crispies, currant slices,   coconut pyramids, ginger biscuits and Shrewsbury biscuits, flapjacks, fairy cakes, butterfly cakes. Eccles cakes, home made jam and jellies with the muslin bag slung between to two chairs to drip.   I loved home-made marmalade - nothing to beat it.

Lemon meringue was my favourite Sunday dessert with fruit tarts also on the menu, along with trilfe and jelly fluff (whipped up with evaporated milk).  I disliked blancmange but liked Angel Delight.   The desserts and cakes of my mother's mealtimes have now been reserved for weekend only, with  yoghurt and fruit more the norm.

And no I don't regard myself as fat, though I would be a lot slimmer if I cut out chocolate alltogether.

As for my two year old granddaughter,  I am pleased she  has not yet had her first taste of chocolate.  She has that temptation to look forward to.