|
|
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400 |
a cross the pond friend responded to some comments i made about candy to ask, by candy do you mean sweets, short for sweetmeats?
and i realized yes, i do, and there are some stores that sell candy; candy stores. (they might have the word 'confectioner' in the store name, but i realize i am likely to define them as candy stores. (when i was a kid, stores that sold candy, magazines, newspapers, fountain sodas and ice cream were generally called just candy stores.
what are now generally called bodega's- were then just called general stores or sometimes deli's (but deli's were really something different!)they were small neighborhood stores that sold common groceries, more expensive than grocery stores, but closer and more convenient, and more likely to offer short term credit-all of which bodega's now do!
fancy candy stores, were chocolatiers. (that might be spelled wrong!) there was only one in the extended neighborhood, Krum's. it also sold fountain soda's and icecreams. (as a young teen, it was considered a nice place for a date!-it had waitresses in uniforms and a general fancy air.) regular candy stores were everyday places, and there were spaced out just a block or two apart!.
my friend across the pond reminded me that sweets is short of sweetmeats- which again make me think of the past meaning of meat which was more general and show up in compound words like nutmeat, and mincemeat.
i can't think of any flesh words though.. (since there once was a distiction between meat and flesh!)
so how about you? where did you by your candy/sweets as kid? and where now? sweet shops? tobacco shops? confectioners? somewhere else?
and how about groceries? bodega is a spanglish term that is universal now in NY... what do you call small shops? deli's? something else?
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
Dear of troy: When I was a kid, drugstores sold more milkshakes,frappes, and sodas than drugs.Plus all kinds of candies but packaged. For bulk candy, it was the dime store.
Delis had specialty things: cheesecake, pastrami,lox and bagels. plus sliced meats and cheeses for sandwiches, which the grocery stores then did not have. Amd food took a bigger part of your income then. Young people were told to expect to budget a quarter of their income for food You simply could not buy chicken as good as rotisserie chicken then. I am amazed to be able to buy a rotisserie chicken for an hour's minimum wage. Think of the hours required to raise the grain, raise the chickens, dress them, and cook them. The standard of living now if far higher than it was when I was a kid.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 3,065
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 3,065 |
We used to buy sweets at the newsagent's. The general shop for groceries was the corner shop.
Bingley
Bingley
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Apr 2002
Posts: 148
member
|
|
member
Joined: Apr 2002
Posts: 148 |
I bought sweets - lollies! - at the corner shop. However, when I moved towns, I discovered that the 'corner shop' in my new place was a 'milk bar', which I thought was a US term and I was quite horrified to find in such use in Aus... and to me makes about as much sense as using 'deli' for some place that doesn't actually sell 'delicat essen' (delicate food, basically).
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jun 2001
Posts: 2,636
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jun 2001
Posts: 2,636 |
Bodega is a real Spanish word, not Spanglish. It means warehouse, sometimes it refers to a liquor store. There are a few other meanings, all related to wine and liquor, but warehouse is the one I am most familiar with. Perhaps bodega means corner store in the Carribean Spanish-speaking countries but in Mexico they are commonly refered to as la tienda or la tiendita or simply by it's name or the name of the owner. If you live in the neighborhood and have need of it, credit is normally extended.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Aug 2002
Posts: 2,154
Pooh-Bah
|
|
Pooh-Bah
Joined: Aug 2002
Posts: 2,154 |
We went (and still go although the chains of 7/11's etc are trying to take over) to the corner store for candy bars, the milk you just ran out of etc. There was one near the swimming pool which gave the usual 2 cents cash return for pop bottles or 3 cents worth of penny candy. We thought it was a great deal.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,819
Pooh-Bah
|
|
Pooh-Bah
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,819 |
In the U.S. candy is primarily purchased at either the grocery store, where it is displayed on shelves at the check-out aisle to tempt buyers (and their children) while they're waitig in line, in drug stores vide supra ;), or in gas stations or other "convenience stores."
The first time I ever heard the word "sweetmeats" was in the play "A Midsummer Night's Dream where, in the first act, Egeus complains to Theseus that Demetrius has been wooing his daughter with (among other things) "rings, gawds, conceits, knacks, trifles, nosegays, sweetmeats, messengers of strong prevailment in unharden'd youth." Kind of like the grocery stores do to children in line.
As described above, drug stores in the U.S. traditionally sold candy and also had a soda counter, where milkshakes and ice cream sundaes were sold and consumed at a sort of bar. Some also sold hot itmes such as french fries and hamburgers. They are often seen in movies as a gathering place for young people. They have largely disappeared as the old "corner drug store" has been replaced by suburban drug store chains such as CVS or Revco.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,439
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,439 |
There's a corner store at the end of my road - Kathy and Franks's - that sells candies, beach stuff, pizza, milk, sodas (soft drinks,) various foodstuffs and beer! Handy for whatever is needfull.
In our town center there is a variety store that used to be a general small market but which has had to turn to carrying a few basic canned and packaged foods, milk but does most of its business with better wines. (New Hampshire has strange liquor laws) The only alcoholic beverages you can buy - outside of at a state-run store - are beer and wine.
But one thing the owners have kept from the Old Days is a huge penny candy assortment. The original owner/founder, Louis Marelli, loved children and his family has kept the store - and the wall of penny candies in his memory. The penny candy is right inside the front door the wine is well to the back! OK, some of the candies are a nickel (5¢)but you can get a licorice whip for a penny!
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Aug 2002
Posts: 2,154
Pooh-Bah
|
|
Pooh-Bah
Joined: Aug 2002
Posts: 2,154 |
I remember a penny candy store where you could spend forever trying to decide what to get with your dime (10 cents). Big jawbreakers were 2c, licorice shoestrings 1c and those yellow foam peanuts that melted in your mouth were 2 for a penny as were the little licorice jawbreakers. There were caramels and extra strong mints and those horrible foamy strawberries that tasted like red food color but were the cheapest to buy. "The candy lady" would put it all in a tiny brown paper bag which made it seam like even more. We were devestated when she retired and it was replaced with a Laura Secord Chocolate Shoppe designed for a much richer market than our ten year old selves.
And do you remember licorice pipes and cigars with the red sprinkles on the end that we pretended to smoke?
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 3,065
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 3,065 |
Do/did those of you on the west side of the Atlantic have ice-cream vans which tour residential districts selling ice-creams and lollies?
Bingley
Bingley
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jul 2002
Posts: 742
old hand
|
|
old hand
Joined: Jul 2002
Posts: 742 |
Do/did those of you on the west side of the Atlantic have ice-cream vans which tour residential districts selling ice-creams and lollies?
From Stephen Wright, an American comic: "The ice-cream in my neighbourhood played helter-skelter
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400 |
in NY and other east coast cities, you not only have trucks that come round selling soft serve ice cream (and hard ices), but in many parts there are venders with hand trucks that either park at one spot (very desirable, and there are 'wars' for best corners, and in mid town, where things are very congested, you need permits!) and ones that have a route.
the carts are loaded on trucks at the end of the day.. most of vendors don't own the carts, but work them for a percentage of the day's take.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Dec 2002
Posts: 87
journeyman
|
|
journeyman
Joined: Dec 2002
Posts: 87 |
We have the ice cream truck (van, really) that comes around frequently in the summer months. I think there may be two of them; they play different music, either "Turkey in the Straw" or "The Entertainer". Very loudly.
When I was a kid, we lived out in the country at the intersection of two dead-end, dirt roads. One of the ice cream vendors came around there on a bicycle!
We also used to have home milk delivery, dry cleaning, the Jewel Tea truck and the Fuller Brush man. Just think of all the miles driven on some of those routes...
What sane person could live in this world and not be crazy? -Ursula K. Le Guin, author (1929- )
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400 |
Last summer, i had my knives sharpened by the grindstone* man who comes round in a small truck.. he has a bell that goes ding..........ding as he slowly goes up and down the local streets. My father was a butcher, and always went to a store to get his knives sharpened, (and took the ones from home too!) but i have always used the grindstone man.
*grindstone is grindst'n. with grind rhyming with wind, (moving air) not grind/wind {a clock})
Poor areas in NY (and i was poor as kid!) still had horse drawn wagons that came round to collect scrap metal (post WW II by dozen years!) and horse drawn vegetable venders. (the milk man drove a truck). in my childhood, the grindstone man had a bicycle like contraption to drive the grindstone.(which he walked about with.. something like a cross between a bicycle and wheel barrow!)
(our apartment building was heated with coal, too, for the longest time.., and i remember the days when the coal truck came to deliver the tons of coal.. we always grabbed a peice to use as 'black chalk'.
there was an ice man too, (up to about 1963) in a motorize truck, and i never knew any person that used him.. but he delivered ice to the fish store, and to one of the small 'deli's', you could by bags of ice for cool drinks, or for ice chest when you went on a picnic. (most of refriderators were very small, and you didn't get much ice)
The ice man would grind up the blocks of ice as he delivered them to the fishmonger, and we kids would all grab the sawdust covered chunks to suck on.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jan 2003
Posts: 171
member
|
|
member
Joined: Jan 2003
Posts: 171 |
When I was growing up (a few doors down from Duke Snider in Compton, Calif.--no intent here to start a baseball thread, just being nostalgic), it was the Good Humor man who came around. The big come-on (besides the ice cream) was the chance that you might get a Good Humor bar with "Good Humor"
written on the covered part of the stick. That was worth a free ice cream bar.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803 |
And the Good Humor Man, rather than playing some annoying-to-start-with melody, had gently tinkling bells. Of course we didn't have the amount of traffic and the constant sirens and car alarms to overpower in those days.
|
|
|
|
Forums16
Topics13,915
Posts230,285
Members9,208
| |
Most Online4,606
Sep 17th, 2025
|
|
|
|
