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Short Stuff: Candy Corn · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the Short Stuff. I'm Josh, and
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: there's Chuck, and Jerry's here too, and dates here in spirit,
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: which is appropriate because this is the kind of a
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Halloween themed episode of short Stuff. Is it not, Chuck?
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: It's spoopy?
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: Spoopy spoopy? Is that what you said? For real?
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah? Are you gonna do this bit every year?
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: I don't remember you saying it, so yes, as long
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: as I forget the next day, Yes, every year I'm
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: going to do.
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: This spooky sboo b y is a lighthearted spooky Okay?
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: Is that your own trademark slogan? No?
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: Look it up?
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: Okay, I will look it up. Actually, I'll forget all
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: about it and won't look it up, and then next
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: year I'll agree to look it up again.
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: We should all pause. Let you look it up? Okay,
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: since this is short Stuff, we'll just let the tape
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: roll right.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: Oh, look there it is. Yep, you're right spoopy.
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: No, I didn't make it up. It's a thing.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: Okay. You know what else is the thing? Chuck?
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: Candy corn?
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: Candy corn. That's right, it is a thing. It's one
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: of the most divisive candies. It's probably the most divisive
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: holiday candy of all time.
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: Where do you land?
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: Oh, I don't like it at all.
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: Okay, do you like it? I mean there's a bit
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: of a nostalgia play. I don't. I definitely can't say that.
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: I think it's like, oh boy, this tastes great. I
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: can't wait to eat it. But like if someone throws
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: a candy corn in my mouth and I happen to
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: be chewing, I'll be like, oh, that old, that old memory.
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: But I don't go puh puh.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: I got you. We need to get one of those
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: house divided license plates, right, sure. So candy corn is
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: actually super old. We know it's at least coming up
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: on one hundred and fifty years old. They think it
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: came out in the eighteen eighties. And by the way,
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: thanks big time to history dot com, Better Homes and Gardens,
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: Always a Treat dot com, mb Henry dot com and
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: candystore dot com. A lot of dot coms in there.
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: But the one of the things about candycorn is its
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: origins are murky. So people just generally say, yeah, this
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: guy's the inventor.
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah exactly, I mean, are we going to that guy?
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: Sh No, let's talk about where it came from. Originally,
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: we think.
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because previous to the actual corn, they were making
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: these kinds of candies. And that's not to say the
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: ones that were shaped that way, in color that way,
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: but we're talking about mellow cream.
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah. You know those candy pumpkins. Yeah, that's mellow cream,
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: right exactly. That to me is quintessential mellow cream, even
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: more than candycorn. Yeah.
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: And apparently they used to make all sorts of phony
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: vegetables made out of that junk because Americans were still
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: farming and they could you know, if you had a
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: little seven year old, you could be like, you got
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: to work in the field all day. When you come home,
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: you're going to get this mellow cream asparagus tip.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: Or mellow cream back choi.
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, oh boy.
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: You would think these little kids who were being forced
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: into child labor, the last thing they would want to
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: see in their candy were agricultural products. But apparently that's
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: all they had to choose from. Now. The other thing
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: to know about this this context that candy corn emerge
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: from is that these candies were available year round, and
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: the thing that made candy corns stand out among its
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: peers is that it had three colors, technically two colors
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: and the presence of all color.
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I like that. I like the way you put it.
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: So let's talk about the guy who actually is credited
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: with inventing this. Probably is who cares at this point.
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: He's been credited for so long it doesn't really matter.
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And he's from Philadelphia, and they like to take
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: credit for everything. So we're talking about George Renninger is
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: how I would pronounce it, or Renninger maybe, And he
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: worked at the Wonderly Candy Company in Philly, the Brotherly
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: Love City. Yeah.
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: And the reason why he's credited is that he was
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: an employee there and they are known to be the
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: first company to start producing these, and I guess he
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: was a candy designer there. So Wonderly Candy Company was
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: the first to put these out. They were out for
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: a little while, and you could, like I said, they
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: were available year round. All of these things were, and
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: they weren't associated with Halloween. You could find them at
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: just about any celebration where they had candy treats. But
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: the thing to know about them is they were so
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: you know, like candy cigarettes or little candy people that
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: you eat are candy things that look like other stuff.
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: That's what candy corn was originally meant to be. And
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: of course candy corn it's in the name, but we
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: think of it today as like little kernels of corn
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: that you would like eat. It was originally marketed as
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: candy corn in the sense that corn was chicken feed.
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: So this was basically candy chicken feed. Is how candy
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: corn started out.
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because apparently, and this is something that I didn't know.
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: This to me is the fact of the show is
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: that including a little bit after World War One, but
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: previous to that, in a few years after apparently corn
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: was kind of like a like a it's not a
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: vegetable to start right, Yes, it was a garbage starch
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: like people. It wasn't on the plates of most Americans,
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: and you had to have been really hard up for
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: food apparently to eat corn as a human.
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: It was just for chickens exactly. So this is what
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: kids were eating. They would go to the store and
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: get a box of chicken feed from the Golitz candy company.
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: So this is the company that really exposed candy corn
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: to the world.
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: Which is I love corn. Do you like corn?
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah? I like corn on the cob for some reason,
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: once you take it off the cob, I think it's disgusting.
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: Oh, even in like a dish like a Lotte or
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: like a salad or something.
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: It depends. It really depends on the dish. But like
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: if it's canned, I mean, oh god, I can barely
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: like talk about it.
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: You know the old story of when I was missing
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: that front tooth and I would eat corn, and that
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: would be little rows of uneaten corn every like two inches.
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: That was a Mad magazine cover too. I think it
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: was so candy corns out there, the genies out of
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: the bottle, as they say, kids are eating this candy
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: chicken feed. But then by like the mid twentieth century,
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: people ate corn normally, and by the mid twentieth century,
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: Halloween was very much associated with candy. I think around
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: this time is when candy corn really became linked to Halloween.
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: It would be weird to see candy corn at Easter,
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: but that's how it used to be. Friends.
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but now it's linked starting in the mid twentieth century,
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: like you said, to Halloween, and we will take a break, yeah, yeah,
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: and we'll talk about how you make this stuff right
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: after this all right. You went to that website alwaysatreat
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: dot com and they had a pretty good story there
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: about how they used to manufacture this, and it's not
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: a whole lot different than they do it today. Obviously
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: it's automated today, but back then, you would get a
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: bunch of dudes and they would get sugar in corn
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: syrup and some other you know, magical ingredients, and they
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: would cook it and these big kettles and boil it
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: all up. They would ad a little marshmallow, maybe a
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: little fond it to smooth it out a little bit,
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: and forty five pounds at a time they would make
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: this warm slurry and they would pour it into buckets
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: called runners, and then these guys called stringers would walk
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: backwards down a line and pour this candy into these
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: little little molds, these little trays in that classic iconic
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: kernel shape.
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and the trays were made of corn starch, and
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: it would take three passes. For some reason, I don't
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: understand why the stringers, the guys pouring the candy corn
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: slurry into the mold, would walk backwards, do you.
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: No, I don't know. I was trying to think it
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: might be easier to pour I mean it was probably
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: had something to do with the setup.
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: I mean, I could understand if you're left handed you're
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: walking backwards, but or if you're right handed, Yeah, I
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: think right handed you'd be walking backwards if the thing
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: was on your left. There's no explanation I can find
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: for why they would walk backwards.
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: Well, they are from Philly, so maybe they were just
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: like we're candy corn stringers, we walk backwards.
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, probably that's the answer is as good as any.
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: But the whole thing is that we would take three
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: passes because they would put the white in, then the yellow,
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: and then the orange. And that's how it was originally made.
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: And basically nothing has changed except, like you said, it's
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: become automated. They use essentially the same ingredients, which are
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: you ready for this? It's like you said, made with sugar.
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: It's made with fondon, which is sugar water and corn syrup.
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: It's made with corn syrup, which is a whole bunch
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: of different sugars, mostly glucose, vanilla flavoring, and marshmallow cream
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: which is made from corn syrup, sugar water and eggs.
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of sugar in these things, and they
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: alt them into a slurry, all those ingredients and they
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: pour them into corn cornstarch molds just like they did
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: one hundred something years ago.
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Boom, boom boom. They just layer up the colors
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: just like that. More than and this is according to
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: the National Confectioners Association. The NCAA says thirty five million
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: pounds of this stuff, which amounts to nine billion pieces
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: of candy corn, are produced annually in modern times.
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: Yes, and even in keeping in tradition, they make the
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: machines work backward for some reason when they're pouring the slurry.
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: That's right, And are we done? Of course not, because
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: somehow you found actual survey statistics on how popular this
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: stuff was.
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because there's a thing. It's been around for almost
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: one hundred and fifty years for a reason, and the
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: reason is there's some people out there who actually like
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: candy corn.
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: I know, it's weird. It's a weird thing to say,
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: but it's true. So much so that the National Retail
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: Iteration a font of statistics that have to do with shopping,
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: purchasing and consumerism in general, so that in twenty nineteen,
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: ninety five percent of people who shopped for Halloween stuff
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: bought candy corn one of them. I wasn't either. We're
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: in that weird five percent, but I can't believe it.
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: The thing is is, I don't think all those people
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: are eating candy corn necessarily. No.
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: And it turns out if you go on to crafty websites,
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: there are all kinds of fun little crafts you can
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: do with candy corn because it is a you know,
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: the color itself lends itself to sort of fall feelings
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: and fall crafts, so you can do all kinds of stuff. Basically,
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: you can hot glue it on whatever you want to.
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: Basically. Yeah, I saw a cute one. I can't remember where,
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: but if you spike a pumpkin, you can make a
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: little candy corn pumpkin hedgehog. Ah. That's cute, that's adorable. Okay,
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: So I found some more stats too, all.
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: Right, let's hear it, like, oh, I don't know where's
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: it popular?
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, candystore dot Com looked over sixteen years of their
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: shipping data. That's amazing to identify the top three favorite
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: candies for each state, and candy corn was in the
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: top three. It was not the first for any state,
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: but it was in the top three for a bunch
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: of different states, from South Carolina to Maine to North
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: Dakota to Michigan to New York, and then nationwide it
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: was number eight.
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: That's amazing, and we should thank Leslie, the temp at
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: candystore dot Com that month, who they tasked with doing this.
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: You're right for sure? Or Leslie?
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, poor Leslie, that's a right. Probably wouldn't a bad job,
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: all right. They also did a poll, and I think
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: Leslie was in charge of this too, because did they
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: pull three thousand people.
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: Thirty two hundred and forty seven they pour?
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: Did they pull thirty five hundred?
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: Nope?
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: I guess they pulled everyone that they had their email
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: contact for, which was like you said, three two hundred
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: and four, and they said that do you like it?
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: Do you hate it? Why? And nostalgia, which is what
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: I mentioned that was one of the big reasons why
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: people get this stuff. It's something they had when they
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: were a kid that they might have liked the taste
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: of when they were a kid, and then as adults
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: they'll say, well, you know, I gotta I gotta be
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: in that fall spirit and let's let's grab a bag.
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and then sweetness was another one for people who
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: like candy corn, and then conversely, sweetness was a big
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: reason people don't like candy corn.
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: One of the respondents that it was like biting into
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: a sugar cube, and that's pretty close to accurate. There's
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: also the waxy texture that puts some people off, including me.
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: I actually don't mind that part. Yeah, I'll tell you
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: what though, I haven't had one in years, but it's
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: an unforgettable flavor.
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I have had it. I can bring that flavor
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: to mine too, I just I don't want it again.
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: Essentially, Yeah, I'm with you.
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: And overall though, out of that thirty two and forty
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: seven Americans, they pulled fifty six percent we're fans and
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: forty four percent were not. So that there are more people,
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: at least according to that pole, who like candy corn
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: than don't.
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: That's right. And if you thought it couldn't get any
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: better everybody, Leslie drilled down even further and found out
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: how people how people eat them. Fifty one percent just
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: pop it in their mouth and crunch it like it's
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: a piece of popcorn. Normal sixteen percent start with the
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: widest bit, which is the yellow bit, and then thirty
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: three percent conversely flip it over and start at that little,
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: smaller white end, Which is amazing to me that someone
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: actually takes that tiny of a bite of something that small.
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, some people like that tiny, little white as if
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: it tastes any different, right, it definitely does not. It
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: should know. If it does, you might want to take
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: it back to the store because there's something wrong with.
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: The che corn. Yeah, this white part tastes good.
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: You got anything else?
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: I got nothing else.
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: Well, we're getting close to Halloween, everybody, which means short
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: stuff is out.
• 15:03
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• 15:06
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• 15:10
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