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Marta Hepler Drahos

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October 4, 2010

Drahos: Coconut passes taste test

By Marta Hepler Drahos mdrahos@record-eagle.com

Maybe it was the slow news day. Maybe it was the potluck smell from the advertising department. Or maybe it was just time for a party.

Whatever the reason, I was giddy when I got this e-mail from my fellow features writer:

"Hello ladies of the north-east wing of the newsroom! On Tuesday, Sept. 28 we're planning an M&M tasting ... I'll have bowls and labels ready for our M&M-off as well as voting ballots to cast your super-official-best-M&M-vote."

Days earlier, the same colleague had discovered coconut M&M's at a downtown drugstore and gone cubicle-to-cubicle with samples. They were oohed and aahed over, discussed in journalistic detail and, in one case, summarily dismissed: "Coconut is never good unless I'm on a beach and one falls off a tree and hits me on the head."

A conversation ensued about the latest M&M's varieties — from peanut, almond and pretzel, to mint, peanut butter and dark chocolate. And a taste-off was born.

As an M&M's connoisseur, I once wrote about the correct way to eat the candy: four at a time, two of one color, two of another. But ever since the caramel-colored M&M's were dropped in favor of the blue, I've boycotted them all.

Still, as my assignments often run to food features, I considered it my professional obligation to join in. So did our webmaster and resident sugar intolerant, who agreed to "partake in moderation."

"I have a special connection with M&M's," she said. "When I was little and my dad— who was an older father — was still working, he would come home from work and he would always have a bag of M&M's in his pocket for me. But I had to guess which pocket. It was a little game we played."

Hers wasn't the only M&M's story.

When tasting day finally arrived, three M&M's dolls posed on the buffet table courtesy of our community news editor. Two wore Halloween outfits and were plucked from his daughter's toy box that morning. The third, wearing shades and playing a saxophone, was actually a "Blues Cafe M&M Dispenser."

"M&M's have never coursed through his body until today," said the editor, who originally bought the toy as a gift for a collector in the family.

Little by little, staffers drifted to the table where the M&M's were grouped by flavor and spooned candy into small plastic cups.

"I'm not tasting the M&Mness of it," said one, munching thoughtfully. "Purply and weird green. NOT necessary," said another on her construction-paper ballot.

"This is just the kind of spirit I was hoping for," observed the features writer gleefully.

By day's end, 27 votes were cast. The favorites: coconut, peanut butter, mint, peanut and almond.

Now the newsroom is planning another tasting in honor of a colleague soon to undergo surgery.

"Tuesday, Oct. 5, is her last day to eat normally — so one last feast!" read the latest e-mail. "Things she likes include: Twizzlers, cherry bites (bite-size Twizzlers), Tootsie Rolls, peanut butter cookies and chocolate chip cookies.

"I'm pretty sure she abhors coconut M&M's. Do NOT bring those in."

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