Candy Day

I’ve been thinking a lot about candy lately, more than I have in the last 11 months. I mean really, how can I not? I was at Wal-Mart this afternoon, and while hiking back and forth between the “food” section and the “other” section each time I remembered something I had forgotten to pick up, I noticed how the Halloween candy aisles were duplicated in both sections. The shelves were full of orange cardboard bins, each full of clear cellophane bags of individually wrapped candies. They were so beautiful! Shiny foil, colorful little boxes, pastel tablets, many with their familiar colors so you could tell just what kind they were from down the aisle. I had a lot of good times with candy when I was little. My grandma used to babysit us in the summer, and we would take our pennies and nickels across the road to Andy Goats store, a little hole-in-the-wall with a fully-stocked candy wall and buy pixie stix and root beer barrels. Halloween was very exciting because we got more candy at one time than ever before. We’d go up the country road near our house, knocking on doors, and then return with about half a lunch sack filled. Of course we’d dump them out and compare. The treasures were all the little mini chocolate bars. The boring ones were the peanut butter taffy wrapped in orange and black waxed paper.I’ve taken my kids trick or treating each year until, one by one, they aged out. The last year it came up, I just promised my kids I would buy them a bag of candy if they agreed to opt out. I expect a good part of the Halloween candy for sale is actually purchased to be set out in trick or treat bowls or for party dishes, but I will bet that most of it is bought for the family candy dish to snack on for the months leading up to that celebration of candy, Halloween night. My family has held off so far, but I do plan on setting us up with a few lovely bags for Halloween Weekend. In honor of the favorite candies in this household, I have looked up their origins and share them here. Since Peanut M&Ms are my husband’s favorite, I’ll start there.The founder of the Mars Company, Forrest Mars, got the idea in the 1930s during the Spanish Civil War when he saw soldiers eating chocolate pellets with a hard shell of tempered chocolate surrounding the inside, preventing the candies from melting. Mars received a patent for his own process on March 3, 1941. One M was for Forrest E. Mars Sr., and one for William F. R. Murrie. Murrie was involved because he was the president of Hershey’s, who had control of the rationed chocolate. The first colors were red, yellow, brown, green, and violet. In 1950, a black "M" was imprinted on the candies, later changed to white. Peanut M&M's were introduced in 1954. The most interesting information on M&Ms has to do with the different colors they used over the years. Because when you get down to it, it’s just chocolate, a peanut, and a pretty coating.Snickers is also made by the Mars family, invented in 1930. It was named after their favorite horse, “Snickers.” (snicker snicker!) What’s interesting is that in the UK and Ireland it originally sold under the name Marathon. When they standardized the global brand and named it Snickers, the bar moved from being 9th most popular to 3rd most popular. In 2005 the Food and Drink Federation in the UK got all involved with trying to make the candy industry more health conscious and “encouraged” (ha ha) Mars to do away with their King-Sized bar. So now it doesn’t say King-Sized, but “shareable” and is in two pieces.I remember the very first time I had a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup. I was about 11 years old and riding with some neighbors. They stopped at Boa’s Minnow Farm and let us pick out a soda or candy. I got a Reese’s and was stunned at how tasty it was. I found out they were invented by Harry Reese in 1928, much longer ago than I’d thought, but after he died in 1963, Hershey’s bought the company. So that’s probably about the time I started seeing them advertised.I was quite surprised to find out about Pixy Stix. In fact, this is a two-for-oner. It used to be a drink mix in the late 30’s called Frutola, but when the owner found that kids were eating the powder straight, he changed the name to Fruzola and added a spoon. It was also packaged with a candy dipstick and called Lik-M-Aid (We used to wander the halls in high school dipping and licking those little sticks.) When parents complained about the grainy, sticky powder, the company came up with a compressed tablet form called… SweeTarts!Did you ever wonder why a 3 Musketeers bar is called that? Created in 1932, it originally had 3 pieces in one package, strawberry, vanilla and chocolate. Chocolate was the most popular, so they phased out the other flavors.Tootsie Rolls have been manufactured since 1896! It was the first penny candy to be individually wrapped. The founder named them after his daughter’s nickname, Clara "Tootsie" Hirshfield. The Tootsie Pop was invented in 1931. Tootsie Roll industries is one of the largest candy manufacturers in the world, and as of December 2009, Tootsies became certified Kosher.I’m really not sure what my very favorite candy is. My tastes have changed a little over the years, so I may have to start doing some taste-testing. And I’m thinking that the last week in October just might be the perfect time! What is your favorite? What is so special about it? Why is it better than all the rest out there? And Happy Candy Day to you!