Herbert Hoover celebrated his 55th birthday the day I was born. It would be less than 80 days before “Black Thursday” changed the world. I never knew a time until after WWII where children, or for that matter most people, could have the possibility of a candy preference. My mother, Luella, made nearly everything we ate. We were lucky though because my father, Wesley, was also a great cook and he made everything my mother didn’t. I learned how to make my piecrusts from him and how to make preserves from her.

Candy was special though. Not many people made it at home. They usually made things that were more filling like pies. We could grow lots of things in Michigan but sugar wasn’t one of them. Once the depression had let up a bit, the rationing for the war started. When we went to visit my uncle in the Florida Keys we saw sugarcane growing in the fields. We would always splurge and buy some orange flavored salt water taffy when we visited. We’d bring home oranges and candy to our neighbors back in Detroit too.Things like sugar, butter, and coffee were precious. We only got the rations for 8 oz of sugar per week for each of us. It wasn’t until after I finished High School before sugar stopped being rationed.

We all lost our minds after the war. We had bowls of candy just sitting out on the table. We reveled in the abundance of it all. Coffee didn’t have to be cut, or fully replaced, with Chicory. We put sugar in everything. We made salads out of sweetened gelatin and canned fruit. We had all the cakes and muffins and cookies that our childhood selves could only dream about. We could have butter on our toast, and jam, every single day. We ate too much. We drank too much. We thought that we could make up for what we didn’t have as children. We had enough to be choosy. We picked our favorites. But we didn’t ever get past our childhoods or those special moments in the midst of lack.

So what is my favorite candy? After all these years, it’s Horehound Candy. When I was little I had Whooping Cough, Pertussis, and that Horehound candy was medicine. It might not be what people nowadays think of candy, but when I was little and feeling like I couldn’t breathe, it was a taste of relief. I will always have a soft spot for it. In a lot of the tourist trap places you can still find it. I think most of the ones you find though are just flavored like Horehound and not really medicinal at all. With all the lovely candy we have I know it must seem silly to hang onto such a simple choice but sometimes the memory is the most important part of the flavor.

– Marion

This was my mother’s story, as she told it to me over the years. She always loved Horehound candy. She kept it around when she found some and used it as cough medicine. I never liked it, but Luden’s Cherry cough drops are the ones that blur that candy/medicine line for me. So who am I to say anything?

https://www.food.com/recipe/homemade-horehound-candy-153441