Candy Dish Blog

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 History of Licorice
Licorice dates back to the early times of man. Many pharaohs and prophets enjoyed licorice. Soldiers were recorded drinking licorice to quench their thirsts on long marches.

Licorice comes from a plant called the Glycyrrhiza, meaning ‘sweet root’ in Greek. During the Middle Ages, crusaders brought licorice to England.

Many years later, a monastery in Pontefract, England began producing licorice candy. Early settlers brought licorice recipes to America. Since then, America has produced and imported delicious licorice products.

How is Licorice Made?
There are two ways to produce licorice. Companies producing licorice on small production scales often use the corn starch molding process, while larger-scale production companies use the licorice rope extrusion process.

In the starch molding process a tray with long rows of molds is filled with corn starch to keep the licorice from sticking. Next, hot syrup containing licorice is poured into the molds and cooled. How the syrup is cooked determines if the candy is tough, chewy or soft. After the cooling process, the licorice is dumped onto a packaging table and given a glaze.

The licorice rope extrusion process starts with boiling a mix containing licorice root extract to an exact temperature. Next, flavorings and colorings are added and the mix is slowly cooked until it is a dough-like consistency. Afterward, it is placed in an extruder that resembles a meat processor. The mix is forced out of tiny holes making it into a rope. The rope is sometimes twisted to give a more interesting form.

The Easter Bunny really is a curious creature. We associate intact eggs, chicks, candy and other sweets – already not a completely coherent grouping of items – and talk about how they are delivered in a basket by a bunny. It seems strange, mad even, that this might happen. It’s almost as if Lewis Carrol had dreamed this up. Then I read a bit of the history. Check it out:

• The Easter Bunny is a symbol of new life during the spring season.
• The idea of the Easter Bunny with baskets of eggs started in Europe as the Easter Hare. The hare was originally a symbol of Easter for the Germans who came to America in the 18th century.
• German settlers believed a white hare would leave brightly colored eggs for all good children on Easter morning.
• Early American children built nests of leaves and sticks in their gardens for the Easter Hare to fill with colored eggs.
• By the 19th century in America, the Easter Hare had become the Easter Bunny delighting children with baskets of eggs, chocolates, candy chicks, jelly beans and other gifts on Easter morning.

Easter Bunny by The G-tastic 7.

Like chewing gum, bubble gum has enjoyed a great history. In the early 1900s, Frank Fleer experimented with different gum recipes to find bubble gum. The first bubble gum recipe was too sticky to enjoy and Fleer’s experiment was never marketed.

However, Walter Diemer introduced a successful bubble gum recipe in 1928. Diemer experimented with different gum recipes when a mixture started bubbling. He accidentally discovered the bubble gum recipe. As a test, he took the gum to a grocery store and sold it all in one day.

Diemer brought his invention to the Fleer Company where they marketed it as Dubble Bubble. Diemer taught the salesmen how to blow bubbles. When customers bought the gum, the salesmen taught customers to blow bubbles. Dubble Bubble was the only bubble gum in the market for many years.

At the end of World War II, the Topps Company started making bubble gum. The manufacturer introduced Bazooka, named for a musical instrument Bob Burns created in the 1930s. Bazooka gum became famous for its ‘Bazooka Joe’ comics and baseball cards. In 1953, Topps added gum to its baseball card packs as incentives for children.

Today, the tradition of blowing bubbles continues. Family and friends now teach the art of blowing bubbles with bubble gum.

Bubble Gum by M e l o d y.

I got this from the CandyUSA site:

• Chew gum until the sugar is gone to blow a bigger bubble. Sugar does not stretch and can cause the bubble to collapse early.
• Ice cubes help remove gum from clothing.
• In 1994, Susan Montgomery Williams of Fresno, Calif. set the record for largest bubble blown, at 23 inches in diameter.
• The majority of gum is purchased during the Halloween and Christmas seasons.
• Gary Duschle of Virginia Beach, Va. holds the Worlds Record for the longest gum wrapper chain at 8.13 miles long. It almost stretches a quarter of Virginia Beach’s 38-mile shoreline.
• Steve Fletcher holds the world record for largest gum wrapper collection with 5,300 packets from all over the globe. He stores his sweet stash in an old-fashioned shop display cupboard at his home in London. Steve has examples of Wrigley’s Spearmint Gum from 25 different countries.
• Despite rumors, it does not take accidentally swallowed chewing gum seven years to pass through the human digestive system. Gum passes through the body in the same amount of time as other foods. However, a large portion of the physical makeup of gum is indigestible and meant to be chewed and discarded, not swallowed.

I have one more tidbit to add. My wife, who chewed gum incessantly as a child, would sometimes wake up with it in her hair and would use peanut butter to get it out. I never had long hair and had assumed this was urban legend, or a last-ditch thing to try before getting out the scissors.

Do you have an interesting fact about gum?

You have always wondered; now you know.

Chewing gum has enjoyed a long history. Evidence of gum chewing dates back to prehistoric men and women who chewed on tree resin for enjoyment. Other ancient cultures around the world also are documented gum chewers.

Greek and Middle Eastern cultures routinely chewed resin from the mastic tree to freshen their breath. In Central America, the Mayans enjoyed chewing on chicle sap. This Central American tree resin was the basis for modern chewing gum.

In the United States, Native Americans and settlers first chewed on spruce tree resin and beeswax. In New England, spruce sap was used to make America’s first gum. In 1848, John Curtis used resin to make State of Maine Spruce Gum. He sold two hunks of the gum for a penny. As time went on, spruce gum became less popular and was replaced with a paraffin-based gum.

In the mid 1800s, a photographer named Thomas Adams befriended Mexican leader Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna. The men discussed ways to use the chicle sap for profit. Santa Anna sent chicle from Mexico to Adams who mixed it with rubber to make a better tire.

Adams determined his mixture was useless and wanted to throw it out. Then he overheard a young girl asking for gum at a drug store. It dawned on him to turn the mixture into gum. Adams created a pure chicle gum and sold it for a penny.

After success with pure chicle gum, Adams tried to add flavor to it. He created a licorice-flavored gum called Black Jack. It was the first gum to be sold as a stick not in chunks, and was popular with the public. The gum had one drawback; it could not hold flavor.

The flavor issue was not fixed until 1880. A man named William White experimented with flavors after receiving a shipment of chicle. He solved the problem by adding sugar and corn syrup to the mix. The first flavor he used was peppermint and it stayed in the gum during chewing.

In the early 1900s, gum manufacturers relied on word of mouth and repeat customers. William Wrigley Jr., a former soap and baking soda salesman, new to the gum industry, saw other companies holding back on advertising and decided to advertise his gum products. Wrigley became a pioneer in advertising, and his ads were everywhere from billboards to magazines. The popularity of gum surged.

World War II brought modern gum to the world. Soldiers always carried gum on them. Some claim military men used gum to patch holes on equipment. It is uncertain whether these stories are true, but gum became a worldwide sensation due to the soldiers.

In the 1950s, manufacturers introduced sugarless and sugar-free gums allowing more people to enjoy gum. Today, sugarless varieties lead gum sales.

“…it was twice as big and cost a nickel.” Okay, Grandma. And films cost ten cents to watch and popcorn was almost free and things were better, you were poor but happy and everything totally rocked.

I never understood what my grandmother was talking about when she would go on about her times and how little everything cost. I was reminded of all this by reading about peanut butter on So Good. I have noticed myself, in recent years, talking in a similar way, but not quite as often as Grandma did. I was just telling my lovely wife a few weeks ago, while buying a newspaper, that when I was about eight years old my parents would give me a dollar to go get a Sunday New York Times and would let me keep the 25 cents change. Of course, I never saved it, as my father suggested, but opted to buy a Snickers bar or Wacky Packages. Those were my vices at that age. It was a simpler time.

Were the candy bars bigger then? Well, as a ratio of my total body mass, they certainly were, but that’s a comparative judgment. A full-size Snickers bar felt in my hand like a giant cudgel and could almost be used as a walking stick. That was a full meal back in the day. I did not save my candy bar wrappers from the days of yore, so I cannot be sure, but I don’t think the candy bars of my youth were any bigger. I think it was just that my hands were smaller.

In addition, companies make much larger candies nowadays as well, so I suppose it’s hard to really make a fair comparison. Of course, everything is more expensive. I don’t think anything is cheaper now than when I was a kid, except for maybe buggy whips and flashbulbs.

What are the candies you remember fondly from your childhood? How do you remember them?

Giant Chocolate Bar by RHK313.