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My sweet-eating childhood came back to haunt me at the weekend when I lost a piece off one of my fillings. I wished I'd heeded all of my mother's warnings, as I ruefully surveyed the damage in the mirror and pondered the likely cost of repairs.
I crunched, munched and chewed my way through my formative years. I inherited my Dad's sweet tooth. He used sweets as an incentive to my sister and I, when we were small, to keep going on the long walks he'd take us on. On the four-mile journey to his home place on a Sunday he'd use a packet of boiled sweets to coax us on. If we kept going past that tree in the distance, or that gate on the horizon, we'd get another, we'd be promised.
They were a rare enough treat, certainly enough to propel our little legs on. My father would instruct us to suck the hard sweets for as long as possible, to make them last but I was never was able to do that. It's like my teeth and jaws were on a mission to grind them down and get through them as quickly as possible.
As we got older we were given money from time to time to buy our own sweets. We spent an awful lot of evenings in our church at home, always being sent out to Benediction, solidities and such. The 'sweetener' (pun intended) was a few pence to spend in a shop on the long walk home. Our favourite was Tom Curran's. For two reasons.
He had the best selection of hard sweets and he told us ghost stories as he served us. Jars of bullseyes, cough drops (my favourite) pear drops, sour apples and others were lined up on shelves behind the high counter. My sister and I would each make different selections and then share on the way home for maximum benefit.
He also sold Lucky Lumps and we loved them. So-called because the buyer might just crunch down on a sixpence that was inserted in the centre of some, their name was surely a misnomer, as the person 'lucky' enough to actually find a sixpence in the middle of theirs was also likely to break their teeth in the process!
There was another small sweet shop on the way to the cinema that we frequented when we were older still. Owned by an old woman that was gnarled of limb and so stooped she had to peer up from her half-crouched position behind the counter to see what we wanted.
Our favourite there was Cleeve's toffee. We never considered that something that needed a hammer and chisel to break probably wasn't going to be good for our teeth. Old Sarah would position the chisel on the big block of toffee and then bring the hammer down as hard as she could. She'd wrap our pieces in greaseproof paper. We loved it because it would last us through the entire Sunday afternoon matinee. We'd get a pain in our jaw from chewing but it never put us off.
I stopped chewing on hard sweets when I was older and more dentally aware. I never did curb my sweet tooth though. Chocolate is a particular favourite.
Call it divine retribution, rough justice or just plain bad luck, but, after years as a chocoholic I developed an allergy to the stuff.
After decades of it being my favourite sweet treat, when I surely chomped my way through a ton of it in its various permutations, I now come out in a nasty, itchy rash when I indulge. When it developed first I carried on regardless but the rash was lasting days, was uncomfortable and unpleasant and I had to very reluctantly give it up.
Actually that’s not true, I’d still sneak some from time to time when temptation overcame me and counteract the effects with allergy medication. Not a good or sensible approach, I know, but I never was able to number chocolate among the temptations I was strong enough to resist!
Five years ago came a diagnosis of Type 2 diabetes and, while cutting out chocolate altogether wasn’t a requirement, cutting down generally on sweet stuff was, and as chocolate was my all-time favourite, it combined with the allergy to merit a self-imposed ban.
I miss it terribly. Didn’t realise just how much I loved its silky almost sensuous feel, the divine taste as its viscous sweetness melted in my mouth, pleasuring my taste buds. That sounds like the voice-over for an early Flake ad I know, but dammit, eating chocolate for me has always been a really pleasurable experience.
Speaking of Flakes, there was something about the crumbly, flaky texture that definitely heightened the yummy experience, and I didn’t have to be clad in a gypsy skirt standing near a waterfall on a desert island to enjoy it.
Over the years I think I’ve sampled every available kind of chocolate. I love and have eaten my way, over the years, through my body weight in chocolate bars with nuts, caramel, Turkish delight, nougat, biscuit, honeycomb, minty pieces and anything else the makers have decided to throw in. Toblerones, the unique triangular-shaped Swiss chocolate bar with honey and almond nougat, the bar about which comedian Billy Connolly famously said was “the only chocolate bar to hurt you as you eat it!" is still a firm favourite. He was right - it does hurt to eat it - but that was never going to put me off!
Christmas time sealed my love affair with chocolate. I've early memories of finding gold-covered chocolate ‘watches’ and coins in my Christmas stocking. Chocolate being a rare treat the rest of the year, they were the cause of much excitement. Despite my mother’s earnest entreaties, we always had them devoured before breakfast.
Easter was, of course, a young chocolate lovers dream, though in those days we only ever got a single egg. I could scarcely wait to rip through the cardboard and hard plastic to get to the sweet prize inside. I’d always vow to make it last as long as possible but invariably had it gone long before my sister and brothers', so I was left looking at theirs longingly for the rest of the day as they clutched them tightly while trying to avoid my imploring looks. They knew what I was like.
Later on came selection boxes at Christmas time. Oh joy! A whole, well, selection to choose from.
My tastes became more sophisticated. I began to like, and then came to love, the rich exotic taste of good, slightly bitter dark chocolate. I discovered Belgian chocolate too. Still though, while living away from Ireland for a time I really missed Cadburys and would salivate at the thoughts of chewing on a Curly Wurly, munching a Crunchie or savouring the creaminess of chocolate Buttons melting on my tongue.
I thought I’d tasted every kind of chocolate until I was given a present of a box of Lindt’s Lindor milk chocolate truffles. These offerings from the Swiss chocolatier are a truly sublime taste sensation. I’ve since gone on to sample their dark and white chocolate truffles. I’ve had no compunction about biting the heads off their chocolate bunnies, white, dark and milk, and have gleefully chomped my way through their white coconut bars and their Excellence 85% cocoa bars.
Now, with Christmas approaching and chocolate, chocolate everywhere, I have to keep my head down, my gaze averted and try not to think about the luscious taste I still miss so acutely.
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