The Search For The Holy Butterchew

We had a coming of age experience at our house this past weekend.

No, we didn’t have “The Talk” with the kids. It was something much more meaningful and impactful on the kids’ future happiness and development.

I introduced my girls to Brown Sugar See’s Candies.

More specifically - Milk Butterchews, Milk Bordeaux and Butterscotch Squares. You might know them as the Fruit of the Gods.  I’ve known for a long time that these were the greatest candies ever made. My girls, Abbie and Emma, made that discovery for themselves this past weekend.

A friend recently gave us a box of mixed Milk Chocolate Candies from Sees. I am eternally grateful and now indebted for life to this person for this gift. After all, the greatest birthday gift that I have ever received was a pound of Milk Butterchews from Jaylynn a few years ago, so this random act of kindness certainly qualifies him a place right between Mother Theresa and Saint Peter.

In this most recent box, knowing what candy that I was looking for from the outset, my family and I proceeded to take small corner-bites out of each piece in the box searching for our favorite flavor. It was on my 5th attempt that I finally found what I thought I was looking for. It turned out to be a Butterscotch Square - the second best flavor that Sees makes.

Thinking that Sees could not possibly be gracious enough to gift me with TWO of my favorite flavors in one box, imagine my surprise when my 6th candy turned out to be the greatest chocolatey morsel known to man - a Milk Butterchew. I was in heaven. With my benevolence knowing no bounds, I offered a small (very small) bite to my 3 kids. Tyler has never been a real chocolate kind of guy, so he was somewhat ambivalent about it. But the girls, on the other hand, being the chocoholics that they are, reacted appropriately. They absolutely loved it.

Abbie’s best friend, Natalie, had a birthday this past weekend. Her party is not scheduled until the following weekend, but Abbie and Emma wanted to give her a pre-party gift on the actual big day. The gift that they wanted to give her was a box of Sees Candies. When I told them that Sees now allows you to hand-select your box, they asked if they can put all Brown Sugar ones in the box. A tear came to my eye as I told them, yes, yes you can. So off to Sees we went.

On my recommendation they decided to diversify the box just a tad, adding some Bordeaux and Butterscotch squares in with the Butterchews. After selecting the 12 pieces that we were told would make up the half pound box, we were thrilled when the counter worker told that there was room for 3 more pieces. A distant second to chocolate as a favorite treat for Abbie is peanut butter. So, for her three additional pieces, she selected 2 peanut butter disks and one peanut chunk piece. Fine choices in and of themselves, but nowhere near the quality of “The Big 3”.

The only problem is that the Peanut Butter piece looks fairly similar to the Butterchews. Eerily similar. The only difference being in geometry - with the Buttercream being a square and the Peanut Butter candy being a slightly larger rectangle. Not realizing that this could be a future problem, we completed the box with these peanut-y morsels.

Fast forward to Natalie’s house last night. After dinner and after the girls had their go at the box, her dad offered the leftovers to the adults. Not wanting to appear a glutton, I agreed to take just one piece. As I opened the box, horror entered my person, as I realized that of the two remaining possible Butterchew options, one was most certainly the Peanut chunk piece. One piece was a smallish square piece, while the other was a slightly larger, rectangular piece. Aside from their size difference, the two pieces were indistinguishable. I could not for the life of me remember which piece was my fave, and which one was “the other”.

Here is where my mind then turns to a classic scene from a childhood favorite movie of mine - Indiana Jones and Last Crusade.  The scene to which I am referring is the pentultimate scene in which Dr. Jones enters the chamber that is full of dozens of chalices, one of which is the sought-after Holy Grail. If he selects incorrectly, it means certain death for him. He scours the room, thinking aloud  of what the Grail would look like. Ultimately, he correctly decides that the holy cup would not be the largest or most ornate container, but would be the smallest, most humble, plain and ordinary cup in the room.

If only I had the same wisdom that Indiana had. Instead of choosing the smallest, most ordinary remaining piece, I chose the biggest chocolate in the box, reasoning that if a little piece of Butterchew would be a good thing, then a larger piece of Butterchew would be a better thing.

I could not have been more disappointed as my teeth penetrating that deceitful outer layer of milk chocolate, revealing a crunchy, nougat-y, peanut-y center. This was my only shot at getting a Butterchew and I had chosen incorrectly. Now, that creamy, delicious Butterchew sat in loneliness in the box full of discarded paper wrappers, laughing, mocking me for my greediness, knowing that now someone else, who could not possibly appreciate it as I would, would be devouring it shortly.

It was a lesson that will remain with me the rest of my days. One that I hope to pass on to my children before they suffer the same fate that I have suffered.

Good things come in small, simple packages. And remember the Holy Grail.