I bought some licorice for Daughter to enjoy upon he return, since something told me there wasn’t a lot of it in Brazil. Perhaps there was, but she might not have been with a family that incorporated licorice into their lives. Some don’t. Some, like ours, will go for years at a time without consuming any licorice, until an opportunity presents itself - and then you think why don’t I eat more licorice? This is delicious.

You may disagree; takes all kinds, de gustibus, etc. But I have found some I really like: Wiley Wallaby. You think: authentic Australian licorice! They really know how to make it there. But no. It’s from Perham MN. Once it was called “Australian style,” but no more; I guess that didn’t have the cachet they expected.

The company also makes dog food. Tuffy’s! I remember those sacks from years ago; a tough-looking dog, winking. It was the nick of one of the founders, I gather. I also expect that the two lines are kept separate for manufacturing purposes, although there are some common ingredients. What would you guess is the #1 ingredient in licorice?

Wheat flour.

Huh. Somehow you thought it was . . . something stiffer? More rubbery? Somehow you thought the the licorice itself was a viscous substance, formed into ropes or chunks?

No. When I was growing up, licorice could be had in three forms:

Whips. The classic six-inch stick, with twisty ridges

Laces. Very thin, strawberry flavored, eaten in clumps. Note: the problem with “strawberry licorice” or “red licorice” will be death with in a minute.

		Nibs. From memory, the package was Egyptian in style, with a clear window that let you observe the Nibs. They were underwhelming, but they were different than the other candies in their flavors, so this set them apart.

(There was a licorice representative in the Chuckles package, but the sugar overwhelmed the flavor.)

We had Nibs before Twizzlers, I seem to recall - but they’re both made by the same company, Y & S, a confectioner since 1840. Nabisco owns it now, of course. A 1975 NYT interview with the president said he was trying to raise his brands’ profiles, so people would say “black Twizzler” for black licorice and “Red Twizzler” for a strawberry whip, but the end result was the horror of RED LICORICE, which had no licorice profile at all.

Red Nibs were introduced, and tasted like cough syrup.

Anyway: if no one had ever saved the Nibs wrapper, I’d have to rely on memory, and since I can’t draw it, my description would be all the evidence we had. And then I die and everyone in my generation dies, and the evidence is never first-hand again.

But someone did save it, for some reason. And someone who collected a lot of packaging, for some reason, bequeathed it to someone else, who put up a ton of pictures on Flickr. I’m not crazy about Flickr sets anymore, when it comes to vintage collections; the images just float in the black, often without stories or contexts. But at least someone took the time and work to put them up, where they will provide a humble testament to their era . . .

Until Flickr goes the way of all websites.