It's been 38 years since Boy first asked Mr. Owl how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop. And for the past 38 years, Mr. Owl has unflinchingly maintained that it only takes "...a-one ...a-two-hoo! ...a-three." But as we all know, Mr. Owl is a filthy cheater who bites on three.

Tootsie Pops' new "How Many Licks" sweepstakes asks you to submit your own confection calculations. Just visit AskMrOwl.biz and fill out a short entry form with your lick estimate. One grand prize winner will receive $50,000 (and a bonus $5,000 if they guess within 3% of the average licks calculated from all entries combined). Sweeter odds lie in monthly drawings which award five entrants with 27 pounds of assorted Tootsie Roll goodies.

Keep in mind, owls usually only live until 40, so this may be your last chance to prove Mr. Owl wrong before he bites it for the last time. Have any of you (other than Sisqo) conducted the "How Many Licks" experiment?

I noticed a comment where someone said they were looking for Bonomo's Turkish Taffy. It is a chewy, long-lasting bar candy bar that popped up around World War II and was popular not only because it tasted good, but because it was inexpensive and most kids could afford it. "Turkish Taffy" was not taffy, nor was it Turkish. The "taffy" was really a type of nougat, a mixture of egg whites and corn syrup that was whipped together and then baked. The baking gave the product a distinctively hard texture, so that it could be broken into shards if kept cold, but melted into a wonderful chew in your mouth. The original flavor was vanilla, but by the 1960s it also came in chocolate, strawberry and banana. In 1980, the company sold to Tootsie Roll Industries and, in 1989, production ceased.

Bonomo's is no more, but Old Time Candy carries a similar product called French Chew. It is long lasting, chewy, melts in your mouth and shatters when cold, just like Bonomo's did. It also comes in the same four flavors as the original product. Since we can't get the original for a side-by-side comparison, it's hard to say if they're really the same, but they are very similar candies, so you won't go wrong with the French Chew if you're looking for a taffy fix.

By Tootsie, I am not referring to Dustin Hoffman, but to Tootsie Roll Industries. They make the chewy, chocolate Tootsie rolls that have been popular for over a century. Earlier this year they released mini Chocolate Covered Tootsie Rolls, which are a surprisingly good snack, and they are planning even more new items. The headliner is scheduled to be a sugar-free version of the Tootsie roll, but other new candies to be released this year will include:

• A new, limited-edition caramel-flavored Tootsie Pop. Caramel and chocolate? Sign me up!
• Movie Time, a large bag containing several of the company's candies. I like the idea of a candy assortment, which most movie theaters don't offer
• A fruit flavored candy shaped like Lego building blocks. This will probably be a rebranding of Concord's Candy Blox, since the company is now owned by Tootsie.
• Sugar Mamas, a caramel-flavored extension of the Sugar Babies and Sugar Daddies brands. Since Cybele has already found some, it looks like these will soon be more widely available
• Junior Mints in holiday colors, both inside and outside. These colorful candies won't hit the shelves until the end of the year.

The signature candy, the Tootsie Roll, has been essentially unchanged since its introduction to the market. Though they are a widely enjoyed candy, they don't have the same appeal as some chocolate bars. In other words, people like them, but don't necessarily go out and buy them. With the introduction of new and limited edition candies, Tootsie is trying to spark a new interest in their brand.

One of the pastry classes at the Oregon Coast Culinary Institute took on a big task this year. They learned how to recreate preservative-laden childhood favorites without using the preservatives or the machines that are typically used to engineer candies like gummy worms, Zingers and lollipops. And then they made them giant.

At their final exhibition, there were cupcakes and candies that would have fit in perfectly at Willy Wonka's chocolate factory. Perhaps the most impressive was the creation made by Brandon Finley: a giant tootsie pop. Pictured here, the lollipop weighed more than 40 pounds and used a 24-inch french rolling pin as a "stick." The chocolate tootsie center weighed about 15 pounds alone. Finley said that he had planned to make the confection larger, but the school actually ran out of sugar after the other students finished their projects and Finley used more that 25 pounds of it in his.

I wonder how many licks it took to get to the center of that pop.

[Image The Worldlink]