Before we launch into today’s review, let me share a spooky discovery that’s appropriate for the season.
I am currently visiting the town of Mendocino (pop: 731) on California’s northern coast. Today I happened upon a forlorn place called Evergreen Cemetery. Despite its lush-sounding name, Evergreen occupies a couple of dusty acres of arid land and dead weeds on the edge of town.
Off to one side of the cemetery is an interesting grave marker: It’s a stone column maybe three feet in diameter, which has the appearance of being truncated by some kind of earthquake or act of vandalism. Upon closer inspection, it seems the marker was designed merely to look like the top had broken off. I guess it was an artistic choice.
The inscription on the marker reads:
Cinderella P. Rueckert
Died
Oct. 7, 1921
Now that’s an interesting name, on an interesting marker, for someone who died almost exactly 103 years ago. I figured I’d research the back story.
It seems Cinderella was her real name (her mother is said to have been a fan of fairy tales), and she was born in 1840 (exact date unknown) in Illinois (city unknown). She came to Mendocino and married a watchman at the local sawmill in 1875. She was widowed in 1888, and supposedly inherited a small fortune. She spent her remaining 33 years living in a house the street from the cemetery, selling apples from her trees to passersby.
Now, here’s the spooky part: She was a ghost! Sort of. We now turn to the Kelley House Museum website for details:
“A Swedish lumberman…liked to use Evergreen Cemetery as a shortcut home from town. He would become inebriated and sing at the top of his lungs in the middle of the night passing Cinderella’s home. She got so irritated she found a newly-dug grave awaiting a burial service the next day, bedecked herself in a sheet, then crouched in the grave awaiting the wandering drunk. She popped out of the grave whooping and screaming, and you can be sure the man never shortcut through the graveyard again.”
Let me end with a photo from the back deck of my hotel. I tell you, this is one of the eeriest towns I’ve visited outside of Pennsylvania!
Now it’s time to get down to business. Today we’re checking out the “Happy Halloween Russell Stover Pumpkin Caramel.” Or at least that’s how I read the jumble of words scattered across the packaging.
Alert readers will recall that we’ve examined Russell Stover “confections” in the past. But this Caramel version seems to have escaped our notice. Until now. Let’s apply our rating rubric!
Conceptual Soundness: Russell Stover Candies began in 1923 as “Mrs. Stover’s Bungalow Candies,” and specialized in selling boxed chocolates brings bargain prices. This was just two years after See’s Candy was launched. I can’t find any information about their rivalry, but I’ve always felt that Russell Stover’s is the cheaper, everyman candy. Where See’s sells through an exclusive network of their own stores, Russell Stover’s seems to be available at every drugstore in the country. That in itself would appear to be a legit marketing strategy, trading exclusivity for ubiquity.
This particular candy is part of Russell Stover’s pumpkin series. They are chocolate pumpkin shapes filled with different kinds of gooey candy. They are clearly marketed for Halloween, sold individually at a reasonable price, and decorated with an illustration of a smiling jack o’lantern. Overall, it’s a solid concept. 4 points.
Appearance of the Treat: It’s your standard Russell Stover’s foil packaging. It features a nose-less, buck-toothed pumpkin with an expression like Don Knotts in his dotage. It’s not exactly an image suitable for Rod Serling’s Night Gallery, but it is colorful and evocative of Halloween.
But then you remove the packaging and are faced with the candy itself. I know I’ve ranted about this in the past, but it bears repeating: there is an inexcusable, possibly criminal, disconnect between the image on the package and the actual product within. This brown blob is evocative of meconium. 1 point.
Taste. I have to admit, this is a toothsome Halloween candy. There’s a satisfying crack of the chocolate shell when you first bite into it, and then there’s the pleasant mouthfeel as you masticate the chocolate together with the caramel filling. That caramel is surprisingly tasty, without the chemical notes that one often associates with cheap drugstore candy. It’s got a bit of a Snickers vibe going on, without the nuts. I’ll give it 3.5 points.
Value. These are a buck each at our local CVS. What other chocolate-adjacent candy product could you get for that price? Most of the similar candies weigh in at just ounce, so this gives you 30 percent more candy. I’m sure you’d get tired of eating these all the time, but as a single treat, $1 is a definite bargain. 4 points.
Total Treat Score: 11.5/16 points
Get one today! Chances are they’re available within walking distance of wherever you are!
Chasing Phantoms 