The Tootsie Roll

I'd like to spare a moment for a misunderstood masterpiece of culinary delight. You can probably guess what it is. No, not the sno cone, you silly IR, the Tootsie Roll. I was on my way out of a meeting today and I saw some one's candy bowl with 3, count 'em, 3, tootsie rolls in it. I snarfed em all and then gloried in them for the 60 seconds it took me to devour them. Snarf, by the way, in this case means "to grab," not "to eat." Snarf is quite a flexible word. In any case, they were heavenly. And I realized that it's so rare that someone praises the Tootsie Roll. Oh, we rave about our Snickers bars, or our Milk Duds (yummmm, milkduds), but never mention the good ol' rolls. Personally, I think that's because they're just too widely available. They're handed out in massive quantities at every parade and every holiday. They're in people's candy jars. That's because they're cheap, and good, but the net effect is it makes them kind of like air. They're around all the time, you're constantly taking them in, you need them to survive, and you take them for granted. Well maybe not the survive part, but the rest of the analogy holds. When's the last time you said "Wow, that last breath of air was so life giving and terrific!" Now when's the last time you said "Wow, that Tootsie Roll is scrumptabulous!" I'll bet the answer to both is "Never" which goes to show how similar the situations of the Tootise Roll and air really are! I think another downfall of the TR is that, because it is cheap, and everywhere, it often gets stale. Now a stale TR is better than no TR, just as stinky air is better than no air (ask a submariner about that one - he'll agree). But a stale TR just doesn't bring the same level of joy that a nice, fresh, perfectly tectured TR will bring you. So here's to an American classic, the Tootise Roll.

By the way, if you get bored and look at the Tootsie Roll's webpage (yes, everything has a webpage these days - here's a quite scary one on bellybutton lint), you'll see that the Tootsie Roll Industries also makes Sugar Daddies and Sugar Babies, which are also unsung heroes of American candyhood IMO. Oh, and also Wack-o-Wax. WTF?

By the way of the way. If you think blogging about Tootsie Rolls means I'm short on material at the moment, you're absolutely goddamn right. But they're still awesome.

By the way of the way of the way. I think it would be freaking awesome to be the head of IR for Tootsie Roll Industries. What a random-ass job. How could you not get into some good random conversations with that job?