So, let me tell you about my love affair with circus peanuts.

For people who know what I’m talking about, circus peanuts are a marshmallow candy in the shape of peanuts — if peanuts were squishy and flat on one side. They taste like what banana might taste like if DuPont manufactured banana flavor by blending organic sulfur compounds with high-fructose corn syrup.

Why banana flavor? Why not, um, peanut? An intensive (read: it took three minutes) survey of circus peanut research suggests two reasons. In the early 20th century, banana flavoring was shelf stable and cheap. Another potential reason? During World War II, sugar and traditional flavorings were heavily rationed. Banana flavoring was readily available. Anything for the war effort.

The color of circus peanuts does not exist in nature, so far as I know. For the record, circus peanuts obtain their intriguing unnatural tint from the artificial dyes Yellow 5, Yellow 6, and Red 40. You can look it up.

On the plus side, circus peanuts are advertised as a “fat-free food.” Healthy! On the negative side — if you want to look at it that way — some brands of circus peanuts (yes, there’s more than one) contain bioengineered food ingredients.

Let’s talk about texture. I can imagine that circus peanuts have much more in common with yet another kind of peanuts — the packing kind. In fact, I am not completely convinced that circus peanuts are not really Styrofoam.

And I love them. I crave them. I am far from alone, although sometimes it seems that way. Spangler Candy Company is reported to manufacture 32,000 pounds of circus peanuts a day, so someone besides me must be eating those things.

They’ve been around for decades. Melster Candies, one of the proud manufacturers of circus peanuts, has been pushing them on an unwitting public since 1919.

You can’t find circus peanuts just anywhere. They are a delicacy, much like Beluga caviar or chicken liver paté. You have to go to a specialty shop. Much like Beluga caviar or chicken liver paté, circus peanuts are an acquired taste.

As for where I buy them, my local fixer is Paula Fingerut, owner of Chestnut Hill’s Zipf’s Candies — my particular specialty shop. I am almost certain that she buys them only for me. And she is clear about her distaste for them. She can’t stand them either.

When I drop by Zipf’s, I routinely pick up three or four bags. There’s a rack full of them, squirreled away behind the licorice. For Paula, I imagine it’s really a pity purchase. And I’m afraid that if I don’t buy them, Paula will be stuck with them.

Zipf’s, of course, is the place where you can buy the treats you remember from childhood, like Pez, Bonomo Turkish Taffy or wax bottles with syrup in them. (The latter of which, I refuse to buy. I do have some standards.)

Every once in a great while, I’ll give them a pass and go cold turkey, probably much to Paula’s befuddlement. I’ll go for jellybeans or sour cherry candies instead. (The common denominator, of course, being sugar.)

Still, you always return to your first love — even banana-flavored packing peanuts.

Perhaps my wife, friends and co-workers can stage an intervention. I have imagined that there should be a self-help group called Circus Peanuts Anonymous. C.P.A. — It has a nice ring to it.

Only one problem.

I’ll be the only one there.