What's that candy?

"The candy is mentioned in two episodes of the AMC series Mad Men and displayed in others. In 'Three Sundays,' we learn it was Archibald Whitman's favorite candy. In 'Far Away Places,' Peggy — who has an important presentation that day — anxiously searches in vain for her pack and explains to Abe that Donald Draper once gave it to her before a presentation. She dismisses Abe's suggestion to buy a replacement, because it 'wouldn't be the same.' When she finds it in her desk drawer at work, she tells her SCDP colleagues, 'Oh. Thank God. I couldn't take one more omen of doom.' In season six, we see that she continues to keep the candy in her desk drawer, even at CGC."

It's C. Howard's Violet Candies, described above in Wikipedia. You can buy some here. I just did. I was thinking about them — after not thinking about them for 40 years — because we were talking about something that I remember as The Great Edible Flowers Trend of 1990.

Wasn't it circa 1990 that it was a thing to put flowers in food? There were a lot of interesting flowers with a variety of flavors. I remember planting anise hyssop in the garden one year. But the trend played out. It became routine to throw a handful of violets into the mesclun. It had to end. Too many violets!

But — hey! — remember that violet candy? It tasted like perfume. I haven't thought about that in 40 years. But you can buy it on Amazon. I wonder if they brought it back because of "Mad Men." I don't know, and obviously, I haven't been watching "Mad Men," or I would have thought about Violet Candies more recently than 40 years ago.

I don't watch "Mad Men," despite all the word of (violet scented?) mouth, because I lived through the 60s, I remember the sex roles of the 60s, I'm a 60s-sex-roles survivor, and I don't need to see young actors of today pretending to deal with all that (whether they get it wrong or right).

But I did try to find a video clip of Peggy looking for her Violet Candies, and I found this "Evolution of Peggy Olson":



So I did watch that. It's the sum total of all the "Mad Men" I've ever watched... and ever will watch. But I do want my Violet Candies, not that I'm anxious or superstitious about them. Just a little nostalgic... and a little anosmic... and looking for an old sensation.

Bonus nostalgia nostalgia: I was blogging in back in 2005, watching an episode of that old TV show "American Idol" — "My #1 goal for Season 4 is: Carrie must fail!" — and the theme was songs from the year of your birth. What would I pick from 1951?

Here's the list from my year, and my song from that list is "Sweet Violets." I remember hearing it once. I was in bed and overheard my parents playing it. I loved it deeply and the next day asked my parents about it. They told me, it was not for children and I couldn't hear it. Was it about sex? Death? Oddly, though I've always remembered it, I have never bothered to find the song and listen to it. I can still hear it in my head from that one listen, but I've never heard it again. I rush over to iTunes. The Dinah Shore hit is not there (only a Mitch Miller version). Ah! here are the lyrics. It's a bizarrely veiled filthy song from the past! Good thing my parents protected me, or protected themselves from having to deal with my questions.

Speaking of the past... that post was written before YouTube (or, actually 2 months after YouTube started, so I didn't think to look there). Here's the Dinah Shore version in YouTube now (not that you get to see Dinah in it). And here's the Dorothy Collins version, which was also a hit in 1951 and could just as well have been the record my parents played:



AND: From the Wikipedia article on "Sweet Violets":

"Sweet Violets" is a classic example of a "censored rhyme," where the expected-rhyme of each couplet is replaced with an unexpected word which segues into the next couplet or chorus. For example, the first couplets go:

There once was a farmer who took a young miss
In back of the barn where he gave her a...
Lecture on horses and chickens and eggs
And told her that she had such beautiful...
Manners that suited a girl [etc.]

From the link at "censored rhyme":

Mind rhyme is the suggestion of a rhyme which is left unsaid and must be inferred by the listener. Mind rhyme may be achieved either by stopping short, or by replacing the expected word with another (which may have the same rhyme or not). Teasing rhyme is the use of mind rhyme as a form of innuendo, where the unsaid word is taboo or completes a sentence indelicately.

As kids we were quite familiar with that in the form of "Hello, Operator." There are many regional versions of that rhyme, which you can see here, and they don't have one for my home state, Delaware, but what looks closest to what I remember is Alabama's:

Miss Lucy had a steamboat
The steamboat had a bell
Miss Lucy went to heaven and
The steamboat went to

Hello operator,
Give me number 9
And if you disconnect me
I will kick you from

Behind the refrigerator,
There laid a piece of glass
Miss Lucy slipped and fell on it
And hurt her big fat

Ask me no more questions,
I'll tell you no more lies
This is what Miss Lucy said
Right before she died, died, died.

ADDED: Overheard at Meadhouse:

ME: Did you see my post?

MEADE: Which one?

ME: About violets?

MEADE: Violence?

ME: Violets. Violets against women.