When I was a kid, I used to love to go to this zoo that was not far from my house. Space Farms was not only a zoo, but a museum as well, so my mom could feel especially educational when she took my younger brother and me there. The zoo was obviously very cool, boasting a considerable collection of wildlife for rural New Jersey (It’s not an Urban Myth! Rural areas do exist in New Jersey!), including the world’s largest grizzly bear (R.I.P. Goliath).
I would suffer through the museum portion of our trip because there was a light at the end of the tunnel of seemingly endless antiques that my eight year old mind found tedious. After you left the museum, there was a penny candy store that sold old-fashioned candies. I usually got a few candy sticks, red licorice rope, or rock candy.
Rock candy was always a favorite of mine because I love sugar, especially when colored, and let’s face it, rock candy is all sugar. It came both on little swizzle sticks and on strings, though I liked the sticks best because it was much easier to eat the candy that way.
Looking back, rock candy was certainly not the most exciting candy compared with all that was out there. I mean, it did only taste like sugar, and not my favorite childhood flavors of “pink†and “blueâ€. However, it had an old-fashioned charm coming from that penny candy store, and it looked really cool. I always loved the idea that someone had to grow that candy for me to eat it, like some sort of mad scientist.
When I found out that I could grow my own rock candy, my young mind almost imploded. I could grow an endless supply of my very own candy! The only problem with this was finding an adult that I could trick into helping me do it. Luckily for me, my grandmother could be talked into almost any ill-advised project if it was in the name of my education (baking soda volcano anyone?).
So, my grandmother helped me gather the supplies for my latest “science project†and we attempted to make our own rock candy. I wish I could tell you that my experiment was a success. Unfortunately, the rock candy I grew looked terribly mutated. I’m talking Chernobyl mutated. At least it still tasted good.
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