Candy

While candy love is universal, America has many kinds of candy that are unique to a particular type of area or specific region. Among these are salt water taffy by the seashore, fudge wherever tourists flock, cotton candy at state and county fairs, spun-sugar sponge candy in Buffalo (known as Fairy Food in Wisconsin), coal candy (licorice shaped like coal) in Pennsylvania, the Idaho spud bar (named for its shape, not its contents), Valomilk in Kansas City (the “original flowing center candy cup”), peppery chocolate rouge around San Francisco Bay, and the Charlie Chaplin (another Buffalo confectionery triumph). Mention candy to old-time Yankees and they’ll tell you about sugar on snow, a farmhouse tradition of drizzling maple syrup on freshly fallen snow, creating candy that looks like the work of a drunken spider.