Ever since I can remember, my father has stored lollies in his car. The school pick-up routine was always the same; Dad would arrive, 15 minutes late, and unscrew the plastic jar of sweets that was never far from hand. Snakes, strawberries and cream, those little sugary bananas – they were omnipresent, and exhaustion of supply was near impossible.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Dad describes his taste in lollies as "indiscriminating", which is applicable to his appetite more generally. "If it's sweet and chewy, I'm happy to have it," he says. He was not one to decline a green frog or a black jelly baby.
But plenty of Australians are more discerning. This week, it was revealed that Allen's – the country's largest lolly-maker, wholly owned by Nestle – had discontinued production of green frogs and spearmint leaves. Though there was some hubbub on radio and social media, it turns out most people had not even noticed. The lollies ceased production more than six months ago.
Nostalgia for the candy of yore reflects our capacity for cognitive dissonance, cultural historian Toni Risson says.
"People get very emotional about the fact that they've lost these lollies but the bottom line is – they're not buying them," she says. "Which tells us it's not the actual taste of the lollies themselves, it's more the cultural context in which people remember eating them. They've got that really strong connection with … where the memories are formed."
Risson is Australia's foremost authority on matters confectionery, having completed her PhD on the cultural history of lollies in the 20th century. She says preferences changed in accord with growing affluence and the influence of popular culture.
Children of older generations grew up with corner shops that were veritable lolly emporiums, Risson says. Glass jars or open boxes behind the counter offered a smorgasbord of sweets and treats – perhaps 200 varieties in a well-stocked store. "It was very tantalising – you could see them, but you couldn't touch them," she says.
And a trip to the milk bar was often a young person's first engagement with commerce; a place to blow that well-earned pocket money or spend that sixpence found in the schoolyard. "It was an empowering thing for a child to be able to be a consumer," Risson says.
But the experience is very different now, she says. Baby Boomers were "the first kids who had money in their pockets", and subsequent generations were exponentially richer, leading to a hunger for "a more extreme sensory experience".
Some of the modern lolly incarnations – Booger Balls, Rip Snorters, Brain Blasters – are what Risson calls the "disgusting" subsection of candy. They are partly inspired by Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans, a fixture of the Harry Potter series, which contained whimsical offerings such as grass, earwax and rotten egg flavours.
"Confectionery is right through there," Risson says. "They're used as gifts, they're used as comfort, they're used in travelling. That tells me lollies are still of primary importance for kids today. They're not on the way out – just changing."
Other fads have come and gone. Risson, a Baby Boomer, remembers rushing to the shops to buy cobbers – a cube of hard caramel coated in chocolate that would last the half-hour train ride home. In the early 2000s, people would chop sherbet powder into lines and snort it like cocaine, she says.
The common thread is that lollies allow children to break the normal rules of eating. They can put their fingers in their mouths, chew with their mouths open, blacken their tongues and spit out saliva-coated samples.
"Adults don't police the way you eat lollies like we police the way children eat at the table," Risson says. "Lollies aren't food – they're magic."
