In these parts if you really want to inflame someone or reduce a pleasant dinner party to World War III, drop an S bomb.
This will not work, of course, if the gathering is already alligned with like believers, but just one miscreant and the fireworks begin.
Sponge Candy ranks right up with Catholicism and the Bills in Buffalo's fervent belief category. Like all irrational devotion, it takes root in the family unit and is reinforced by legend and celebration.
My sidekick at work mentioned the special plate her family puts her sponge on at certain occasions. Since I was driving, and she threw down the gauntlet, I had to take her to my sponge place.
My daughters are third generation Antoinette's devotees. After a couple of cocktails, we may admit to temporary dalliances with Althea's and Oliver's -- but they were youthful indiscretions. For any major gift giving occassion you can watch my father eliminating in advance any wrapped gift that isn't Antoinette's sponge.
Sponge candy used to live exclusively in the confection shops that dotted every neighborhood along with the gin mills, beauty salons, and ceramic shops. Your sponge allegiance said as much about where you are from as it did your palate.
As many of the mom and pop shops have disappeared, alliances shifted or became more focused and rabid with time. (Did I mention my shop - Antoinette's - was founded in 1918 and Pete and Alexandra are the fourth generation running the place?)
These days even the mega markets, Tops and Wegmans, sell Sponge Candy in bulk... but do not be deceived by the cheap prices. Sponge is not a mass item. Purchasers of such sugar swill are posers at best.
Sponge candy was non-existent during my Southern years... too humid for the crunchy insides and too new-and-in-a-hurry to hand-dip the chocolate. I appreciate Antoinette's as only one who has been too long separated from her one true love can possibly understand.
So I dragged Melissa to Antoinette's and plied her with their 14 percent butterfat homemade ice cream. But still she talked about Mike's Sponge Candy and her family ritual of driving 30 miles to get it for holidays.
I admitted Mike's was, as well as I can remember, pretty good -- probably top five in a town with 50 or so contenders. But Antoinette's ...
She broke down and headed to the Antoinette's candy counter, then slipped the sealed paper bag under the table without comment.
Perhaps she was simply shutting me up, but at the slightest hint she could consider conversion, my heart was buoyed.
We may have been denied a solid job base, Super Bowl championship and Stanley Cup, but we have a solid Sponge Candy tradition.
And that counts for something.

* I have been informed after I published this in the dark of this morning that there are actually sad and tragic figures in this world who have no knowlege of the pleasures of Sponge Candy. I'm thinking about starting a foundation for their benefit. In the meantime, in the interest of Solid Expository Writing... let me explain that Sponge Candy (sometimes referred to in Europe and other such fancy places as Honeycomb Toffee) is a light, very crunchy, air-infused sweet with a caramel/toffee taste that is cut into cubes of approximately one inch and dipped in chocolate (milk, orange, dark or raspberry depending on your preference). The combined effect is just this side of orgasm.

Copyright 2005 Judi Griggs