Could there be anything worse to eat – that tastes so good? Chocolate, copha and something unidentifiably slimy. Sweet. Photo: File.
If you live in town, chances are you have to wait for a “big event” before you can crack some good home-made treats – and not feel like a villain.
You know the sort of thing: toffee that sticks to your teeth, its paper patty case and most anything else it touches. It has to have hundreds and thousands on top. They get caught in your teeth and if the toffee hasn’t broken them, your teeth that is, the hundreds and thousands surely will.
OK, if you insist on being healthy, make it a toffee apple or coconut ice – the latter so sickly sweet it should get the day off. But there are few things that can beat the chocolate crackle. Ideally, it should be made with so much copha you can feel the cellulite forming as you eat it.
If you’re still worried about a balanced diet, just add some sultanas or go make an orange cake.
Don’t believe me? Take the advice of an expert: remember that scene in Kath and Kim when Kim, reclining in her hospital bed, realised she hadn’t eaten anything healthy for yonks. So she sent poor Sharon out to get her some fruit – a Cherry Ripe.
In the city, such treats were once acceptable at school fetes, at those election day fundraisers, even at birthday parties.
Sure they’re bad for you, but chances are they helped raise funds for an umbrella for the school’s seven-legged albino chook with an eating disorder. That has to add up to a guilt-free treat if ever there was one.
But sadly, no more. All the good/bad stuff, if it is even allowed out of its seven layers of plastic wrap, is covered in kale or something else green. Something that looks worse than it could possibly taste – although I bet I could prove that wrong – but is really good for you. Kale krackles? Toffee tofu? Broccoli bikkies? I think not.
If you’re lucky and live out of town, chances are every fortnight or so a group of women – yes, they’re almost always women – cram into a tiny kiosk in the main street and sell that good old stuff. The only difference now is that they write on the back what’s actually in it. Pretty scary really. So my advice is: don’t read it.
The good thing is that it mostly tastes like stuff used to taste. Sweet. You don’t need me to tell you the bad news.
Feeling guilty about eating all that sweet stuff? Feel guilt no more – have a toffee apple. Photo: File.
In the town where I live, it’s mostly the same women in that crammed stall. They raise money for what is probably the smallest school in the region – the pupil numbers only just make double figures – but they could fundraise for Australia. The right way. I mean, they know the rule of thumb – plonk it in, if it comes out coated in chocolate, it’ll sell.
It might be for one of the tiniest schools, but each fortnight they seem to be raising money for something different, maybe it’s just bigger than it looks. First it was a sun shade, then its close relative, a wind barrier thingy. Last week it was cyclone fence. Clearly that school weathers every storm.
For me though, it’s aways been the fate of the fete. I mean, if they are also not allowed to sell the good stuff, heaven help them. Knitted things/wilting plant cuttings in Moccona jars/Bryce Courtenay paperbacks just don’t cut it compared to chocolate crackles.
How sweet it was.
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