Candy Dish Blog

This question struck my funny bone a bit and seemed appropriate to share on today, which is George Washington’s birthday. It is a question a child asked at the Washington Crossing Historic Park in Pennsylvania. The article explains the answer. No, of course he didn’t because Milton Hershey didn’t start his company until 1894 and Washington passed away in 1797, almost a 100-year gap between the two dates.

However, the underlying question struck me as interesting. What was the evolution of chocolate as a confectionery product to that point? The park’s article gives us the answer:

Solid eating chocolate — sweet bars like our candy bars today — were not around in General Washington’s day and neither was milk chocolate — they both came later, around the late 1800’s — but General Washington may have had chocolate to drink.

Early drinking of hot chocolate was probably a rare and an expensive treat.

It was mixed with many types of flavors to make it more tasty, like the following:

* Anise seeds — which taste like licorice
* Ground Almonds and Pistachios
* Nutmeg
* Cinnamon
* Orange flower or rose water
* Peppers — spicy and/or hot

Thanks, folks, for answering that question. So sometime between the late 1700s and late 1800s, chocolate evolved into something like we think of it today. I will have to check further to see what other presidents such as Cleveland, Grant and McKinley enjoyed.

George Washington by jadam.

Much has been written and filmed about The ALL CANDY (now SWEETS AND SNACKS) Expo but the show has a new role as a supporting character in a yummy new novel by Katherine Katharine Weber, True Confections.

You may remember Katharine because she visited the 2008 and 2009 Expo where she spoke with many candy industry members.

Katharine captures well the agony and ecstasy of owning and operating the family candy business, Zip’s Candies and traces the Ziplinsky family into the 4^th generation of sweet success and disappointing failures.  A telephone conversation with Katharine revealed she gleaned the essence and history of family candy making as she spoke with members of the Born, Goetze, Karl (Annabelle), Rosenberg (Promotion in Motion), Spangler and Palmer families, among others.

True Confections is a witty novel filled with flawed characters trying to make a business out of candy.  While far from a PR piece for the industry it’s clear that several generations of the Ziplinsky family quite simply love the candy business.  They love it as immigrants to the U.S, because candy is inexpensive to produce and the variety of product possibilities easily leads to innovation.  They love it through natural and manmade, personal and professional disasters.  They love it for its do-it-yourself  possibilities.  Who can’t identify with the family working day and night to come up with a new product and packaging for a trade show only to discover that they perhaps should have done a bit of consumer research before introducing it in these modern times when a single blog, review or video can spread through the internet like wildfire—destroying a product before it is ever launched.

Now here is something really interesting.  Readers have told Katharine they remember the entirely fictional “Little Sammies” candy line.  And even better, Katherine has given Zip’s Candies a fictional candy company website and narrator Alice Ziplinsky is on Facebook (sort of).

Have you read True Confections?  Tell us what you thought.

Larry McMurtry’s Book Store by MyEyeSees.

Editor’s note (4 Feb 2010 9:54 a.m.): We regret spelling Ms. Weber’s name as Katherine when the proper spelling is Katharine. The first instance was noted with a strikethrough and following instances have been corrected.

My lovely wife suggested that we put up some of the old commercials for Almond Joy and Mounds. These sure were some of my favorites as a lad, with their goofy images and madcap high jinks. Something struck me as I watched these, though. The commercials clearly refer to the Peter Paul brand, and that got me wondering what ever happened to that company.

Here is a brief explanation I found on the Hershey site, detailing the history of these particular candy bars:

The first product of the Peter Paul Candy Manufacturing Company, established in 1919 in New Haven, Connecticut, was called “Konabar” and was a blend of coconut, fruits, nuts and chocolate. All products were made at night when air was coolest and sold fresh, door-to-door the following day. In 1920 the MOUNDS candy bar, sweetened coconut enrobed in dark chocolate, was introduced.

During World War II Peter Paul was faced with severe shortages of sugar and coconut which had been shipped from the Philippines before war broke out. Rather than sacrifice quality, the company discontinued some of its lesser selling brands and concentrated production on the MOUNDS candy bar. Over the years Peter Paul added several products to its line, including ALMOND JOY candy bar and YORK Peppermint Pattie.

Cadbury and Peter Paul merged in 1978, and Hershey Foods purchased the company’s U.S. operations in 1988.

Interesting stuff. And now here are the commercials we all loved:

From 1970:

From 1977:

Thank you, lovely wife. That was a heck of a suggestion!

Almond Joy by Rakka.

Yes, you heard it right.  Today is the day we set aside once a year to celebrate the goodness of cotton candy, which my lovely wife and her Canadian compatriots refer to as candy floss. I guess it’s like a lot of other stuff that has different names in different parts of the world.

Here’s some information about candy corn cotton candy and how it’s made from the Candy USA site:

History of Cotton Candy
It is unclear who was the first person to invent cotton candy. Four people – Thomas Patton, Josef Delarose Lascaux, John C. Wharton, and William Morrison – have all been named as the inventors of the candy.

Wharton and Morrison received a patent for the cotton candy machine in 1899. They created the first electric cotton candy machine to melt and spin sugar through tiny holes using centrifugal force. After the two candy makers from Tennessee received the patent they took the invention to the St. Louis World’s Fair in 1904.

Patton received a separate patent in 1900 for his process of making cotton candy. He was experimenting with caramelizing sugar and forming threads using a fork. Patton used a gas-fired rotating plate to spin the cotton candy threads. He introduced the candy at Ringling Bros. Circus and it became popular with children.

Around the same time, a Louisiana dentist, Lascaux, introduced cotton candy at his dental practice though he never received a patent or trademark for the confection.

The early machines proved to be unreliable at times. Some simply broke and others would make loud rattling sounds. In 1949, Gold Medal Products introduced a more reliable model with a spring base. This helped to revolutionize cotton candy making.

Today, cotton candy is a great treat to enjoy at a circus, amusement park or fair. Even though its beginning can be debated, it has become a favorite summertime candy.

How is Cotton Candy Made?
Cotton candy is very simple to make. First sugar is melted into a liquid state and then spun it in the cotton candy machine. The machine forces the liquid through tiny holes that shape and cool the liquid sugar. After it cools, the sugar becomes a solid again. The center of the machine is filled with thousands of tiny threads that are collected and served on a stick.

Cotton Candy by CC Chapman.

The four regular contributors to the Candy Dish blog have a combined 40 years experience in the candy industry. I can hear you asking, “But you all look so young.  How is it possible?”  Trust me; it’s true.  We all starting working here when we were 16.  Okay, that bit’s not true.

Anyway, with all those years of studying, researching and eating candy it’s pretty rare that someone comes up with a question so unusual that we have no absolutely collective recollection of the product at all.  However, this week loyal reader Jami contacted us with a question that stumped us.  She wrote:

I am looking for a gum that I had as a child. It [came] in a pack and we called it the “gum game”. It was gumballs and one of them was really spicy.  You never knew when you were going to get it. Do you have any idea if I can get it still or where we can get it.

Jami tells us the candy was available during her childhood in the mid-80s.  None of us remember eating the product, and I don’t believe anyone has ever written to us about it before.

So, we turn to you, Candy Dish blog readers.  Who can help Jami (and us) figure out what this cool gum product is?  Do you remember playing the gum game?  Do you remember the brand name or who made the product?  Help us help Jami! 

Bubble gum by jkivinen

I was super excited to be selected as a guest blogger on Pop Candy today.  It’s one of my favorite blogs (ever since Pop Candy was a column and Whitney came to the ALL CANDY EXPO way back in 2003).  Pop culture is an obsession of mine – the way Tori is obsessed with Virginia Tech football and Carl is obsessed with circus peanuts.  When Whit put out the call for guest bloggers, I applied right away and sent up a silent prayer that I would be picked.

And I was!  I wrote about the top candy moments in movies and on TV.  It was blast researching all those Little Known Facts.

Here are some answers to the questions posted most often in the comment section of the blog post.

1. Why didn’t I write about Willy Wonka?
I was looking for more subtle candy moments.  Both the older movie and the newer remake are so focused on candy that you can’t pick just one stand out moment.  It’s a lot less subtle than, say, the Simpsons go to the Candy Expo or the Tweety Bird Pez dispenser (read the post if you want to know what I’m talking about).

2. What’s my job like?
Well, it’s like your job probably … only with greater access to candy.  I coordinate NCA’s public communication efforts – media campaigns, holiday promotions, trends research, this blog, our Web site, etc.

3. Are we hiring at NCA?
No.  BUT if you want to move to Washington, DC and work for free, we’ll be happy to have you.  Come on over.

4. Is there candy everywhere?
Yes, but we don’t eat it all the time.  Sure, I was enjoying some awesome salt water taffy Susan S brought me from her vacation while reading the Pop Candy comments, but I put it away.  We REALLY do believe that there is a role for candy, enjoyed in moderation, in a healthy lifestyle.  And there’s good evidence that shows it’s okay to eat candy, too.

I’m glad so many of Whit’s readers enjoyed my post.  I hope you’ll keep reading our blog, too.  Sure, we write about all kinds of cool candy news, but – even better – we give candy away from time to time, too.  You’ll have to keep reading to learn about our contests!

See you around the blogosphere!

I was very excited to receive an email from Cadbury Chief Executive Officer Todd Stitzer a couple of days ago. Todd wanted to tell me, and probably thousands of others, that Cadbury has raised the competitive bar of social responsibility chocolates by launching Fairtrade Cadbury Dairy Milk Chocolate bars into the United Kingdom chocolate bar market. The bars are now available in 200,000 stores across England and Ireland and will increase the value of of U.K. Fairtrade sales by around 25% over 2008 sales. Cadbury’s fairtrade bars are being made available at no extra cost.

Cadbury already sells Fair Trade and/or organic chocolates in the U.S. under the Green and Black’s label but their Dairy Milk Chocolate is not a big seller here. Todd noted in his email that Cadbury is making a substantial investment in sustainable cocoa growing communities and has a long history of social responsibiltiy.

What Mr. Spitzer (I feel a little too forward with this first name basis stuff) says is true. In fact, it’s true for a number of chocolate makers. Hershey’s history of social responsibility begins with the 100 year old Milton Hershey School. Mars has a long history of supporting cocoa communities and ensuring that cocoa is grown in an environmentally friendly manner. And the World Cocoa Foundation, founded in 2000, is supported by more than 70 companies and trade associations, including NCA. WCF programs raise farmer incomes, encourage responsible, sustainable cocoa farming and strengthen communities.

This announcement makes me feel good about the companies for whom I work. Do you want to try Fair Trade certified Cadbury Dairy Milk Chocolate?

Cadbury Chocolate by Tasumi1968.