Snow Tang Clan

I was hoping that it would snow in New York this winter. Today, it finally did. The snow was hard and granular, and crackled like Pop Rocks when it landed. The candy sound of the snow puts me in the mind of Tang. I wish I had a canister of it, the snow looks tasty.

Have you ever eaten powdered Tang* on snow**? It's the best. Every winter, my brother and sister and I used to eat heaps of the first snowfall under shovelfulls of artificial orange Instant Breakfast Drink. During the same phase of our childhood when we were eating a lot of instant ramen (and I do mean a lot — to break up the monotony of noodle soup, we took to pouring hot water over the dry noodle rafts and eating them al dente with the dehydrated broth sprinkled on top), we used to scoop up a bowl of clean snow, bring it inside, and chop powdered citrusy sugary orangeness into it with a spoon. It always made a horribly lurid puree, but it tasted sublime: icy and refreshing, piquant and tart and sweet. If you've ever dipped into a can of frozen orange juice concentrate, you've experienced the essence of Tang on snow. (Bizzarre, how both these horrible drinks are best at their most dense.)

In Vermont, syrup shacks will, for a couple of bucks, serve you warm maple-syrup and a bowl of snow, with a pickle, a donut, and a cup of coffee on the side. Although I loooove tree sap with my coffee, I'm not mad about the rest. Give me the florescence of tart astronaut orange juice any day.

Afterthoughts

*Tang was patented in 1957, first sold in supermarkets in 1959. No one really went for it, until in 1965 someone at NASA, noting that Tang Instant Breakfast Drink met all the requirements for space travel, sent Tang into orbit with the Apollo and Gemini missions. In outer space, Tang was available in additional flavors: chocolate and grapefruit, as well as the more earth-bound orange.

**It's probably not a good idea to eat snow. The last time I melted some — I think this must have been in Sighnaghi sometime when the pipes had frozen — the water from the snow was cloudy and unappetizing.