"Mom, I'm candy broke." In case you're not familiar with this expression, I wasn't until a few days ago when my younger child came to me, waving the yellow basket that is usually brimming with lollipops, gum, sweet tarts, and the odd fun sized candy bar, now sadly empty. Don't blame me for filling my kids with sugar. Back home, the kids were able to keep their candy baskets full year-round what with Halloween, Christmas, Valentine's Day, and the annual Palisades Fourth of July parade (the one where they throw candy to spectators) supplemented by the occasional birthday party goodie bag. But obviously there's no Halloween or Fourth of July here and as the kids have gotten older, the birthday parties are few and far between.
Now it's true that there's no shortage of fantastic chocolate in Paris, and there are even three or four chocolatiers, some of them world reknowned, just minutes from our place. But that's serious candy that costs serious money, not the kind of treat to stick in a lunch bag.
Which brings us to the subject of the available candy for kids. In a word, as the candy-broke child says, "gross." Okay, you can get peanut M&Ms and Twix at our corner market (for a hefty price) but most of the treats for kids come in colors definitely not found in nature with a heavy preponderance of licorice. If you like the taste of chemicals or don't mind paying the orthodontist extra for prying the sticky stuff off the braces, this could be your own little piece of heaven. Okay, so it's no worse than Nerds, Skittles and some of the other American junk my kids like but I've never shelled out hard cash for that stuff. Looks like I might have to to start doling out allowance in M&Ms.
3 comments:
Bonjour Anne, I'm new to your blog which I discovered through "Polly-vous français?".
I've read all your posts from the start, and it seems that you are really making the most of your 3 year stay in France. Your children seem to be eager to follow you on "cultural" visits, which is wonderful!
I'm French, married to an American guy and we are living outside Paris. We have 2 kids (a boy, almost 15 years old and a girl who is 10 1/2).
As for the candy post, we very seldom eat candies in our family, but when we go to the U.S. on vacation, my husband loves to buy those bright red spicy cinnamon candies! Well, licorice candies might seem weird to you, but spicy cinnamon candies, that's a big cultural chock for me ;)
Maybe you could buy a few chocolate bars and break them into bite-sized pieces. I've never really checked the candy in Paris, though I know they do have Skittles and M&Ms.
Isabelle: Welcome and please stick around. I'm with your husband on those red hots, although even in the U.S., they are a lot harder to find these days than when I was a kid.
Starman: They're certainly not lacking for sweets and are fully capable, as they did yesterday, of going down to the boulangerie after school and ordering pastries. Pastry French proceeds all other uses of the language.
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