Vote For Necco!

Photo by Iwan Bagus www.iwanphoto.com.

The Boston Globe reports that a committee will hold hearings to consider the sort of state namings that seem more appropriate to silly season than post-Labor Day agendas: the Fluffernutter as state sandwich, Charleston Chew as state candy bar, and Necco wafers as state candy. They would join the current list of five state foods, which unsurprisingly include the baked navy bean and Boston cream pie, and somewhat more surprisingly the corn muffin and chocolate-chip cookie (completely generic, it would seem to me) and the Boston cream doughnut, which I don't recall seeing in a long time.

It's actually the exact season for Fluffernutters, because this Saturday is the annual Marshmallow Fluff festival in its birthplace of Somerville; it's still made in Lynn, both cities near Boston. I've always wanted to go and will try, as it's also perfect timing to rack up some last-minute reasons to repent on Yom Kippur, as David Sax writes deli owners will in his very funny post.

I don't repent advocating the new and improved Necco wafers, though, as I do in this month's issue of The Atlantic, which I churlishly don't link to because--you should subscribe! I got into the super-secret headquarters in Revere, adjacent to both Somerville and Lynn (what is it about sugar and Route 1, I wonder?), though not as far as the yet-more-secret production floor, and found that just in time for Halloween, the company had removed all artificial flavors and colorings from Neccos, which was harder than you might think. The result is subtler and better on all counts.

Yes, I know that stuffing pure sugar into children's mouths is hardly a way to improve their health. I won't defend it, though I will defend choices made by sentient adults--and Neccos, I learned, are an adult candy (the company actually hopes to appeal to concerned mothers by putting in natural flavorings and colors). Now we just have to hope that we don't see a "Smart Choices" logo slapped onto the label, though I'm sure nothing would surprise Marion Nestle.