The Leftover Candy Blues

The Leftover Candy Blues -- Whether your children hauled home buckets of mini-chocolate bars, or your  party guests left you with three bowls of uneaten candy corn, the problem is the same every November 1st: what the heck do we do with all this candy?

I am not touching the question of what you let your kids do with their trick 'r treating loot. That's an issue you have to work out with the aid of your own conscience, dentist and spiritual counsel. I only offer recommendations regarding those sugary treats that are rightfully your own, of which there are likely far too many sitting around your house at this moment. With fear and trembling, therefore, I meekly offer three suggestions for your burden of leftover candy :

1. Throw it in the trash.

Yes, it is possible to throw away leftover candy and completely legal in North America, Europe and Australia. It is, however, rather difficult, particularly if you or your mother or grandmother grew up in the Great Depression (that was the 1930s, not last summer as some would claim.) My own mother insisted any waste of food, leftover or otherwise, was justification for damnation, and that the children starving in Germany would somehow suffer more if I failed to eat every bean on my plate. Her principles extended to Halloween candy, and I'm still not clear on how those hungry WWII orphans were more content because I was, shall we say, plump.

Mom may be rolling in her grave as I write this, but the exercise might do her good. Go ahead, throw the candy away.

2. Give it away.

Admittedly, the Food Police frown on this option. But if you simply cannot bring yourself to throw away good food, giving leftover candy to others is a kindness, although of a warped variety. I confess that I set out two containers at our church fellowship hour on the first Sunday of November; one of candy corn and one of Jujubes. Mea culpa.

3. Grind it up to use as decorative sugar. 

After all, candy is nothing but sugar with artificial color ... and flavors and emulsifiers and conditioners and every other gross additive concocted in the food chemist's laboratory. You don't want to eat it yourself or serve it to others in quantity, but a teaspoon or two in a pitcher of iced tea or sprinkled on an otherwise wholesome cake would not be mortal sin. This works particularly well with leftover chocolates, which should be processed in your blender or food processor separately from licorice varieties and the straight up sugar stuff such as candy corn.  Marshmallows process better when nicely stale and hard, as they probably are by November, anyway.

  A variation on this suggestion is to simply grind or break up the offensive little sweets and pack them prettily into glass bottles and jars, to use as kitchen decor. (The attractive lavender sugar in that smallest jar used to be purple Peeps.) After 6 months or years, you may easily convince yourself that the leftover candy is no longer fit to be eaten and throw it out without offending the spirits of any ancestors.

Oh, hold on, my video technician just reminded me of a fourth possibility. It's gross, but quite practical: mix the ground-up candy sugar with either baking soda or boric acid, then dust it lightly behind the stove and refrigerator as ant and roach bait. Either formula will do in the lil' pests, and if PETA complains, you can assure them the critters died a sweet death.  Meanwhile, you're rid of the leftover candy blues.