Farmers’ Market: Pop Rocks
Pop Rocks are hard, pebble-like candy that comes in a paper pouch; they can be poured directly into your mouth or into the hand of a friend if you want to share.
When the compound comes into contact with your saliva, the rocks sort of explode with a burst of cloying artificial flavor, Alka-Seltzer-like effervescence, and loud popping noises (at least it seems so to the person who has all that going on inside his or her head).
For some odd reason not recorded to history, Pop Rocks became a hugely popular fad with grade-schoolers for a few years during the Nixon Administration.
However, if you remember the 1970s, you may remember a rumored incident involving a well-known child actor, a bottle of soda pop, and Pop Rocks, a story too goofy to be true (the kid supposedly exploded), but a story that would have tickled the heck out of a ‘tween. The urban legend finally took the product off the market for awhile. That seems like it might be just as well. Like most synthesized, artificially flavored, chemically induced compounds unknown to the natural world, the flavors of Pop Rocks now seem sketchy to the taste buds of the chronologically gifted.
How much better to spend your hard-earned cash on a nutritious product that can be poured into a friend’s hand or directly into your mouth, that explodes with natural flavor all out of proportion to that invented in the lab at General Foods.
Every Saturday at the Presque Isle Farmers’ Market in the parking lot of the Aroostook Centre Mall, Steve Miller sets out a sea of deep indigo in lighter blue, quart-sized boxes. At this time of year, he sells fat, flavorful, fabulous fruit … blueberries fully ripe, cleaned, washed, and ready to go. They are pesticide-free and laden with possibilities. By the handful, they roll across your tongue and slide gently down your throat with a cascade of pleasure. Load up your car with multiple boxes, then break out the cookbooks! If you can’t find something to please, call the doctor. Your taster must be broken!
Like the private from Louisiana rattling off an endless list of ways to fix shrimp in the movie, “Forest Gump,” you can come up with endless ways to tantalize your taste buds with blueberries, none of which will lead you too far wrong. When you find a real winner, bring it back to share … we will put it on our website.
Editor’s note: This weekly column is written by members of the Presque Isle Farmers’ Market. For more information or to join, contact their secretary/treasurer Steve Miller of Westmanland at 896-5860 or via e-mail at beetree@xpressamerica.net. The group’s website is https://sites.google.com/site/presqueislefarmersmarket/
