October 9, 2007
ST. STEPHEN: Sweet chicken bones
Posted by are you gonna eat that? under Eating / Food, Maritimes, Sights | Tags: candy, Ganong |Ganong is Canada’s oldest candy company, started in 1873 by the Ganong family in St. Stephen, New Brunswick. Today, it’s run by the family’s fourth generation and the town is still home to the head office and manufacturing plant on One Chocolate Drive.
St. Stephen is known as Canada’s chocolate town and naturally has a chocolate museum which features the history of Ganong. There, you learn fun facts like former president R. Whidden Ganong used to eat two pounds of chocolate every day before he died at the age of 93.
In 1885, Ganong invented the chicken bone, a cinnamon hard candy with a soft chocolate centre. Apparently, it’s still a best seller today.
The Ganong Chocolatier Shoppe puts out little dishes of pink chicken bones to try. It’s kind of like grabbing a mint from the dish your grandmother always has out, including the part where you pry a piece apart from the rest of the sticky pile.
You suck on the hard chicken bone, until the cinnamon candy dissolves and splinters into pieces in your mouth. Like a chicken bone! Then while you try not to choke, the chocolate centre hits your tongue. Mmm. Weird.
In 1920, as the story goes, a candy maker was asked to create a chocolate bar with the texture of cheese to take along on fishing trips. I still don’t understand the cheese texture part of the request.
Anyway, that’s how the Pal-o-Mine was born, a bar of yellow fudge and coconut covered with chocolate and peanuts.
Ganong also makes Jason’s favourite Roman Nougat bar, white nougat embedded with bits of fruit-flavoured jellies.
Admission fee to Ganong chocolate museum: $5
One Pal-o-Mine chocolate bar: 89 cents
Jason clutching candy from the Ganong store: priceless
The Chocolate Museum, 73 Milltown Blvd., St. Stephen, New Brunswick, (506) 466-7848. Open March to November. Museum website here. More info on Ganong here.
October 10, 2007 at 9:34 am
Chicken bones! I love those candies - first had them when we moved to Nova Scotia! Every year I try to find some to give my mom at xmas. I love the cinnamon chocolate combo… but beware the slivers… Those bones can really slice up your tongue! Um, especially when you eat a dozen or so…
October 10, 2007 at 10:14 am
Interesting…you mean like how Dad eats chicken bone…until the marrow squirts out?
I think Jason had too much sugar.
October 10, 2007 at 3:53 pm
I can’t believe you went to the factory!! My grandmother was born in St. Stephen and her father was mayor of the town and one time foreman of the chocolate plant. Down the street lived her best friend Russel Ganong, son of the plant owners. Being small town New Brunswick, she eventually married her childhood sweetheart (no pun intended) and had my Uncle Hardy. Russel was killed in action in WWII and is buried in Orotona, Italy. Some time later, my grandmother remarried, moved to Fredricton had my mother and one other uncle before moving on to Baie Comeau, QC.
Anyways, long story short, Ganong chocalates have retained a rather special place in our family.
October 11, 2007 at 4:45 pm
Ugh. Not a fan of chicken bones. My boss bought me a huge bag last month for some reason. I hid the bag in his desk on my last day!
February 19, 2008 at 3:09 pm
I love Charlotte county! St. Stephen is amazing! I stayed there a few years ago for a couple months… well on the outskirts (Oak haven) I loved it there. Have you been to the Ganong’s island? I can’t remember what its called off hand, but its amazing there!
June 23, 2008 at 6:45 am
when I was a kid, my great-grandmother had “chicken bones” candy for us whenever we visited. However, they did not have cinnamon or mint centers……and I think they were yellow, not pink.
Can anyone help me find some? I’ve been looking for them for years.
Also, would like to find the container they use to come in.
Thank you.
July 31, 2008 at 4:28 pm
I was born and raised in St. Stephen, and it is a beautiful town. I take pride knowing that when I see chicken bones, gum drops, pal-o-mine bars, jelly beans etc, around Nova Scotia (where I now live) it’s like a little piece of home. I have family members and friends that work in the factory, and have seen first hand how things are made. It is a very interesting process to watch, and even better to eat the final product.