It was full of candy wrappers, alphabetized by company and filed in folders – hundreds, thousands of wrappers wedged together in crinkled sediments.

What he wanted to show me was a pair of shoulder-high green file cabinets, tucked behind the shelves. This was not what Broekel wanted to show me. We walked down the hall, to a bank of shelves packed to overflowing with candy tchotchkes: fridge magnets, key rings, toys, Pez dispensers, piggy banks. His chief priority was to make sure everything got seen. I tend to grow puppyish when afforded the chance to discuss candy, but Broekel exuded the grim intensity of an archivist. But most were brands the predated me (Winkers, Toppers, I Scream, Pie Face, So Big, Cocoanut Cakes) with giddy fonts which had faded over the years. The shelves were jammed with candy boxes. Or maybe it would be more accurate to say the room was what I fantasized our TV room might have looked like, had I been allowed to decorate. He led me down to a basement that I recognized immediately as the TV room of my childhood home: the same dispirited light and wood paneling and battered lampshades. He met me at the door, wearing a sweatshirt with Looney Tunes cartoon characters and aĬhicago Cubs cap and large squarish glasses of the sort I associated with junior high school science teachers, which is what Broekel was before he became a full-time writer. He is widely regarded as the world’s ranking authority on candy bars.īroekel lives on a quiet street a few miles outside of Ipswich, just where the suburban streets give way to Ray Broekel, age 80, is the author of two books, The Great American Candy Bar Book (1982) and The Chocolate Chronicles (1985), both of which can be characterized, loosely, as illustrated history books.

The Author of Candy Freak Meets America’s First Chronicler of the Candy Bar

Steve almond candy freak