The worlds of toffee
confectionery and dentistry were united in mourning this week on the news that McCowans of
Stenhousemuir, purveyors of dentally challenging sweeties to generations of Scots, has
gone into receivership.The current management of the firm blame the trend towards
healthy eating for a slump in sales of the company’s products and as JT readers of a
certain age can readily attest, the firm’s famous Cow Toffee does not score highly on
the healthy eating front. Who can forget that magic moment of ecstasy on applying
one’s molars to the light brown slab of dark matter only to have your teeth crumble
in defeat?
As Professor Beaker of The Good Old Days Studies at Aberdeen now recalls : "I well
mind when Scotland’s streets were littered with half chewed bits of Cow’s
Toffee, their surface pitted with the dark grey remains of dental filling that been pulled
out of the plaque stained remains of the nation’s juvenile teeth. Happy days"
But fear not, for even if the fads of fashion dictate the demise of McCowans, Cow
Toffee will go on - indeed, as another Professor Beaker, top physics boffin, now explains,
Cow Toffee holds the universe together:
"At the sub-atomic level, way below the level of neutrons and quarks, an electron
microscope of unimaginable power may one day confirm what we scientists already believe -
at root, matter is composed of serried ranks of slabs upon slabs of Cow Toffee. Cow Toffee
is the fundamental particle. And I’d just like to make it clear that I’m not
related to the other Professor Beaker previously cited in this completely made-up
article."
