October 18, 2023 • 15 mins
Is it vile? Is it delicious? It seems to be both! Hear all about the history of candy corn, how it’s made, and who likes it in this pre-Halloween episode!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hey, and welcome to the Short Stuff. I'm Josh, and
there's Chuck, and Jerry's here too, and dates here in spirit,
which is appropriate because this is the kind of a
Halloween themed episode of short Stuff. Is it not, Chuck?
Speaker 2 (00:15):
It's spoopy?
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Spoopy spoopy? Is that what you said? For real?
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Yeah? Are you gonna do this bit every year?
Speaker 1 (00:26):
I don't remember you saying it, so yes, as long
as I forget the next day, Yes, every year I'm
going to do.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
This spooky sboo b y is a lighthearted spooky Okay?
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Is that your own trademark slogan? No?
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Look it up?
Speaker 1 (00:44):
Okay, I will look it up. Actually, I'll forget all
about it and won't look it up, and then next
year I'll agree to look it up again.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
We should all pause. Let you look it up? Okay,
since this is short Stuff, we'll just let the tape
roll right.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
Oh, look there it is. Yep, you're right spoopy.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
No, I didn't make it up. It's a thing.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
Okay. You know what else is the thing? Chuck?
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Candy corn?
Speaker 1 (01:11):
Candy corn. That's right, it is a thing. It's one
of the most divisive candies. It's probably the most divisive
holiday candy of all time.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Where do you land?
Speaker 1 (01:23):
Oh, I don't like it at all.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
Okay, do you like it? I mean there's a bit
of a nostalgia play. I don't. I definitely can't say that.
I think it's like, oh boy, this tastes great. I
can't wait to eat it. But like if someone throws
a candy corn in my mouth and I happen to
be chewing, I'll be like, oh, that old, that old memory.
(01:47):
But I don't go puh puh.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
I got you. We need to get one of those
house divided license plates, right, sure. So candy corn is
actually super old. We know it's at least coming up
on one hundred and fifty years old. They think it
came out in the eighteen eighties. And by the way,
thanks big time to history dot com, Better Homes and Gardens,
(02:09):
Always a Treat dot com, mb Henry dot com and
candystore dot com. A lot of dot coms in there.
But the one of the things about candycorn is its
origins are murky. So people just generally say, yeah, this
guy's the inventor.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Yeah exactly, I mean, are we going to that guy?
Speaker 1 (02:34):
Sh No, let's talk about where it came from. Originally,
we think.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
Yeah, because previous to the actual corn, they were making
these kinds of candies. And that's not to say the
ones that were shaped that way, in color that way,
but we're talking about mellow cream.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
Yeah. You know those candy pumpkins. Yeah, that's mellow cream,
right exactly. That to me is quintessential mellow cream, even
more than candycorn. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
And apparently they used to make all sorts of phony
vegetables made out of that junk because Americans were still
farming and they could you know, if you had a
little seven year old, you could be like, you got
to work in the field all day. When you come home,
you're going to get this mellow cream asparagus tip.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
Or mellow cream back choi.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Yeah, oh boy.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
You would think these little kids who were being forced
into child labor, the last thing they would want to
see in their candy were agricultural products. But apparently that's
all they had to choose from. Now. The other thing
to know about this this context that candy corn emerge
from is that these candies were available year round, and
the thing that made candy corns stand out among its
(03:41):
peers is that it had three colors, technically two colors
and the presence of all color.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
Yeah. I like that. I like the way you put it.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
So let's talk about the guy who actually is credited
with inventing this. Probably is who cares at this point.
He's been credited for so long it doesn't really matter.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
Yeah, And he's from Philadelphia, and they like to take
credit for everything. So we're talking about George Renninger is
how I would pronounce it, or Renninger maybe, And he
worked at the Wonderly Candy Company in Philly, the Brotherly
Love City. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
And the reason why he's credited is that he was
an employee there and they are known to be the
first company to start producing these, and I guess he
was a candy designer there. So Wonderly Candy Company was
the first to put these out. They were out for
a little while, and you could, like I said, they
were available year round. All of these things were, and
(04:42):
they weren't associated with Halloween. You could find them at
just about any celebration where they had candy treats. But
the thing to know about them is they were so
you know, like candy cigarettes or little candy people that
you eat are candy things that look like other stuff.
That's what candy corn was originally meant to be. And
(05:02):
of course candy corn it's in the name, but we
think of it today as like little kernels of corn
that you would like eat. It was originally marketed as
candy corn in the sense that corn was chicken feed.
So this was basically candy chicken feed. Is how candy
corn started out.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Yeah, because apparently, and this is something that I didn't know.
This to me is the fact of the show is
that including a little bit after World War One, but
previous to that, in a few years after apparently corn
was kind of like a like a it's not a
vegetable to start right, Yes, it was a garbage starch
(05:41):
like people. It wasn't on the plates of most Americans,
and you had to have been really hard up for
food apparently to eat corn as a human.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
It was just for chickens exactly. So this is what
kids were eating. They would go to the store and
get a box of chicken feed from the Golitz candy company.
So this is the company that really exposed candy corn
to the world.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
Which is I love corn. Do you like corn?
Speaker 1 (06:08):
Yeah? I like corn on the cob for some reason,
once you take it off the cob, I think it's disgusting.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
Oh, even in like a dish like a Lotte or
like a salad or something.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
It depends. It really depends on the dish. But like
if it's canned, I mean, oh god, I can barely
like talk about it.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
You know the old story of when I was missing
that front tooth and I would eat corn, and that
would be little rows of uneaten corn every like two inches.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
That was a Mad magazine cover too. I think it
was so candy corns out there, the genies out of
the bottle, as they say, kids are eating this candy
chicken feed. But then by like the mid twentieth century,
people ate corn normally, and by the mid twentieth century,
Halloween was very much associated with candy. I think around
(06:55):
this time is when candy corn really became linked to Halloween.
It would be weird to see candy corn at Easter,
but that's how it used to be. Friends.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
Yeah, but now it's linked starting in the mid twentieth century,
like you said, to Halloween, and we will take a break, yeah, yeah,
and we'll talk about how you make this stuff right
after this all right. You went to that website alwaysatreat
(07:46):
dot com and they had a pretty good story there
about how they used to manufacture this, and it's not
a whole lot different than they do it today. Obviously
it's automated today, but back then, you would get a
bunch of dudes and they would get sugar in corn
syrup and some other you know, magical ingredients, and they
(08:06):
would cook it and these big kettles and boil it
all up. They would ad a little marshmallow, maybe a
little fond it to smooth it out a little bit,
and forty five pounds at a time they would make
this warm slurry and they would pour it into buckets
called runners, and then these guys called stringers would walk
(08:28):
backwards down a line and pour this candy into these
little little molds, these little trays in that classic iconic
kernel shape.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
Yeah, and the trays were made of corn starch, and
it would take three passes. For some reason, I don't
understand why the stringers, the guys pouring the candy corn
slurry into the mold, would walk backwards, do you.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
No, I don't know. I was trying to think it
might be easier to pour I mean it was probably
had something to do with the setup.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
I mean, I could understand if you're left handed you're
walking backwards, but or if you're right handed, Yeah, I
think right handed you'd be walking backwards if the thing
was on your left. There's no explanation I can find
for why they would walk backwards.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Well, they are from Philly, so maybe they were just
like we're candy corn stringers, we walk backwards.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
Yeah, probably that's the answer is as good as any.
But the whole thing is that we would take three
passes because they would put the white in, then the yellow,
and then the orange. And that's how it was originally made.
And basically nothing has changed except, like you said, it's
become automated. They use essentially the same ingredients, which are
you ready for this? It's like you said, made with sugar.
(09:42):
It's made with fondon, which is sugar water and corn syrup.
It's made with corn syrup, which is a whole bunch
of different sugars, mostly glucose, vanilla flavoring, and marshmallow cream
which is made from corn syrup, sugar water and eggs.
There's a lot of sugar in these things, and they
alt them into a slurry, all those ingredients and they
(10:03):
pour them into corn cornstarch molds just like they did
one hundred something years ago.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
Yeah. Boom, boom boom. They just layer up the colors
just like that. More than and this is according to
the National Confectioners Association. The NCAA says thirty five million
pounds of this stuff, which amounts to nine billion pieces
of candy corn, are produced annually in modern times.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
Yes, and even in keeping in tradition, they make the
machines work backward for some reason when they're pouring the slurry.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
That's right, And are we done? Of course not, because
somehow you found actual survey statistics on how popular this
stuff was.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
Yeah, because there's a thing. It's been around for almost
one hundred and fifty years for a reason, and the
reason is there's some people out there who actually like
candy corn.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
I know, it's weird. It's a weird thing to say,
but it's true. So much so that the National Retail
Iteration a font of statistics that have to do with shopping,
purchasing and consumerism in general, so that in twenty nineteen,
ninety five percent of people who shopped for Halloween stuff
bought candy corn one of them. I wasn't either. We're
(11:17):
in that weird five percent, but I can't believe it.
The thing is is, I don't think all those people
are eating candy corn necessarily. No.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
And it turns out if you go on to crafty websites,
there are all kinds of fun little crafts you can
do with candy corn because it is a you know,
the color itself lends itself to sort of fall feelings
and fall crafts, so you can do all kinds of stuff. Basically,
you can hot glue it on whatever you want to.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
Basically. Yeah, I saw a cute one. I can't remember where,
but if you spike a pumpkin, you can make a
little candy corn pumpkin hedgehog. Ah. That's cute, that's adorable. Okay,
So I found some more stats too, all.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
Right, let's hear it, like, oh, I don't know where's
it popular?
Speaker 1 (12:03):
Yeah, candystore dot Com looked over sixteen years of their
shipping data. That's amazing to identify the top three favorite
candies for each state, and candy corn was in the
top three. It was not the first for any state,
but it was in the top three for a bunch
of different states, from South Carolina to Maine to North
Dakota to Michigan to New York, and then nationwide it
(12:23):
was number eight.
Speaker 2 (12:25):
That's amazing, and we should thank Leslie, the temp at
candystore dot Com that month, who they tasked with doing this.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
You're right for sure? Or Leslie?
Speaker 2 (12:37):
Yeah, poor Leslie, that's a right. Probably wouldn't a bad job,
all right. They also did a poll, and I think
Leslie was in charge of this too, because did they
pull three thousand people.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
Thirty two hundred and forty seven they pour?
Speaker 2 (12:50):
Did they pull thirty five hundred?
Speaker 1 (12:51):
Nope?
Speaker 2 (12:53):
I guess they pulled everyone that they had their email
contact for, which was like you said, three two hundred
and four, and they said that do you like it?
Do you hate it? Why? And nostalgia, which is what
I mentioned that was one of the big reasons why
people get this stuff. It's something they had when they
were a kid that they might have liked the taste
(13:14):
of when they were a kid, and then as adults
they'll say, well, you know, I gotta I gotta be
in that fall spirit and let's let's grab a bag.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
Yeah, and then sweetness was another one for people who
like candy corn, and then conversely, sweetness was a big
reason people don't like candy corn.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
One of the respondents that it was like biting into
a sugar cube, and that's pretty close to accurate. There's
also the waxy texture that puts some people off, including me.
Speaker 2 (13:40):
I actually don't mind that part. Yeah, I'll tell you
what though, I haven't had one in years, but it's
an unforgettable flavor.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
Yeah, I have had it. I can bring that flavor
to mine too, I just I don't want it again.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
Essentially, Yeah, I'm with you.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
And overall though, out of that thirty two and forty
seven Americans, they pulled fifty six percent we're fans and
forty four percent were not. So that there are more people,
at least according to that pole, who like candy corn
than don't.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
That's right. And if you thought it couldn't get any
better everybody, Leslie drilled down even further and found out
how people how people eat them. Fifty one percent just
pop it in their mouth and crunch it like it's
a piece of popcorn. Normal sixteen percent start with the
widest bit, which is the yellow bit, and then thirty
(14:30):
three percent conversely flip it over and start at that little,
smaller white end, Which is amazing to me that someone
actually takes that tiny of a bite of something that small.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
Yeah, some people like that tiny, little white as if
it tastes any different, right, it definitely does not. It
should know. If it does, you might want to take
it back to the store because there's something wrong with.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
The che corn. Yeah, this white part tastes good.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
You got anything else?
Speaker 2 (14:55):
I got nothing else.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
Well, we're getting close to Halloween, everybody, which means short
stuff is out.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
Stuff you should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts my Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Hey, and welcome to the Short Stuff. I'm Josh, and
there's Chuck, and Jerry's here too, and dates here in spirit,
which is appropriate because this is the kind of a
Halloween themed episode of short Stuff. Is it not, Chuck?
Speaker 2 (00:15):
It's spoopy?
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Spoopy spoopy? Is that what you said? For real?
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Yeah? Are you gonna do this bit every year?
Speaker 1 (00:26):
I don't remember you saying it, so yes, as long
as I forget the next day, Yes, every year I'm
going to do.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
This spooky sboo b y is a lighthearted spooky Okay?
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Is that your own trademark slogan? No?
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Look it up?
Speaker 1 (00:44):
Okay, I will look it up. Actually, I'll forget all
about it and won't look it up, and then next
year I'll agree to look it up again.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
We should all pause. Let you look it up? Okay,
since this is short Stuff, we'll just let the tape
roll right.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
Oh, look there it is. Yep, you're right spoopy.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
No, I didn't make it up. It's a thing.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
Okay. You know what else is the thing? Chuck?
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Candy corn?
Speaker 1 (01:11):
Candy corn. That's right, it is a thing. It's one
of the most divisive candies. It's probably the most divisive
holiday candy of all time.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Where do you land?
Speaker 1 (01:23):
Oh, I don't like it at all.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
Okay, do you like it? I mean there's a bit
of a nostalgia play. I don't. I definitely can't say that.
I think it's like, oh boy, this tastes great. I
can't wait to eat it. But like if someone throws
a candy corn in my mouth and I happen to
be chewing, I'll be like, oh, that old, that old memory.
(01:47):
But I don't go puh puh.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
I got you. We need to get one of those
house divided license plates, right, sure. So candy corn is
actually super old. We know it's at least coming up
on one hundred and fifty years old. They think it
came out in the eighteen eighties. And by the way,
thanks big time to history dot com, Better Homes and Gardens,
(02:09):
Always a Treat dot com, mb Henry dot com and
candystore dot com. A lot of dot coms in there.
But the one of the things about candycorn is its
origins are murky. So people just generally say, yeah, this
guy's the inventor.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Yeah exactly, I mean, are we going to that guy?
Speaker 1 (02:34):
Sh No, let's talk about where it came from. Originally,
we think.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
Yeah, because previous to the actual corn, they were making
these kinds of candies. And that's not to say the
ones that were shaped that way, in color that way,
but we're talking about mellow cream.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
Yeah. You know those candy pumpkins. Yeah, that's mellow cream,
right exactly. That to me is quintessential mellow cream, even
more than candycorn. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
And apparently they used to make all sorts of phony
vegetables made out of that junk because Americans were still
farming and they could you know, if you had a
little seven year old, you could be like, you got
to work in the field all day. When you come home,
you're going to get this mellow cream asparagus tip.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
Or mellow cream back choi.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Yeah, oh boy.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
You would think these little kids who were being forced
into child labor, the last thing they would want to
see in their candy were agricultural products. But apparently that's
all they had to choose from. Now. The other thing
to know about this this context that candy corn emerge
from is that these candies were available year round, and
the thing that made candy corns stand out among its
(03:41):
peers is that it had three colors, technically two colors
and the presence of all color.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
Yeah. I like that. I like the way you put it.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
So let's talk about the guy who actually is credited
with inventing this. Probably is who cares at this point.
He's been credited for so long it doesn't really matter.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
Yeah, And he's from Philadelphia, and they like to take
credit for everything. So we're talking about George Renninger is
how I would pronounce it, or Renninger maybe, And he
worked at the Wonderly Candy Company in Philly, the Brotherly
Love City. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
And the reason why he's credited is that he was
an employee there and they are known to be the
first company to start producing these, and I guess he
was a candy designer there. So Wonderly Candy Company was
the first to put these out. They were out for
a little while, and you could, like I said, they
were available year round. All of these things were, and
(04:42):
they weren't associated with Halloween. You could find them at
just about any celebration where they had candy treats. But
the thing to know about them is they were so
you know, like candy cigarettes or little candy people that
you eat are candy things that look like other stuff.
That's what candy corn was originally meant to be. And
(05:02):
of course candy corn it's in the name, but we
think of it today as like little kernels of corn
that you would like eat. It was originally marketed as
candy corn in the sense that corn was chicken feed.
So this was basically candy chicken feed. Is how candy
corn started out.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Yeah, because apparently, and this is something that I didn't know.
This to me is the fact of the show is
that including a little bit after World War One, but
previous to that, in a few years after apparently corn
was kind of like a like a it's not a
vegetable to start right, Yes, it was a garbage starch
(05:41):
like people. It wasn't on the plates of most Americans,
and you had to have been really hard up for
food apparently to eat corn as a human.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
It was just for chickens exactly. So this is what
kids were eating. They would go to the store and
get a box of chicken feed from the Golitz candy company.
So this is the company that really exposed candy corn
to the world.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
Which is I love corn. Do you like corn?
Speaker 1 (06:08):
Yeah? I like corn on the cob for some reason,
once you take it off the cob, I think it's disgusting.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
Oh, even in like a dish like a Lotte or
like a salad or something.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
It depends. It really depends on the dish. But like
if it's canned, I mean, oh god, I can barely
like talk about it.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
You know the old story of when I was missing
that front tooth and I would eat corn, and that
would be little rows of uneaten corn every like two inches.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
That was a Mad magazine cover too. I think it
was so candy corns out there, the genies out of
the bottle, as they say, kids are eating this candy
chicken feed. But then by like the mid twentieth century,
people ate corn normally, and by the mid twentieth century,
Halloween was very much associated with candy. I think around
(06:55):
this time is when candy corn really became linked to Halloween.
It would be weird to see candy corn at Easter,
but that's how it used to be. Friends.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
Yeah, but now it's linked starting in the mid twentieth century,
like you said, to Halloween, and we will take a break, yeah, yeah,
and we'll talk about how you make this stuff right
after this all right. You went to that website alwaysatreat
(07:46):
dot com and they had a pretty good story there
about how they used to manufacture this, and it's not
a whole lot different than they do it today. Obviously
it's automated today, but back then, you would get a
bunch of dudes and they would get sugar in corn
syrup and some other you know, magical ingredients, and they
(08:06):
would cook it and these big kettles and boil it
all up. They would ad a little marshmallow, maybe a
little fond it to smooth it out a little bit,
and forty five pounds at a time they would make
this warm slurry and they would pour it into buckets
called runners, and then these guys called stringers would walk
(08:28):
backwards down a line and pour this candy into these
little little molds, these little trays in that classic iconic
kernel shape.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
Yeah, and the trays were made of corn starch, and
it would take three passes. For some reason, I don't
understand why the stringers, the guys pouring the candy corn
slurry into the mold, would walk backwards, do you.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
No, I don't know. I was trying to think it
might be easier to pour I mean it was probably
had something to do with the setup.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
I mean, I could understand if you're left handed you're
walking backwards, but or if you're right handed, Yeah, I
think right handed you'd be walking backwards if the thing
was on your left. There's no explanation I can find
for why they would walk backwards.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Well, they are from Philly, so maybe they were just
like we're candy corn stringers, we walk backwards.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
Yeah, probably that's the answer is as good as any.
But the whole thing is that we would take three
passes because they would put the white in, then the yellow,
and then the orange. And that's how it was originally made.
And basically nothing has changed except, like you said, it's
become automated. They use essentially the same ingredients, which are
you ready for this? It's like you said, made with sugar.
(09:42):
It's made with fondon, which is sugar water and corn syrup.
It's made with corn syrup, which is a whole bunch
of different sugars, mostly glucose, vanilla flavoring, and marshmallow cream
which is made from corn syrup, sugar water and eggs.
There's a lot of sugar in these things, and they
alt them into a slurry, all those ingredients and they
(10:03):
pour them into corn cornstarch molds just like they did
one hundred something years ago.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
Yeah. Boom, boom boom. They just layer up the colors
just like that. More than and this is according to
the National Confectioners Association. The NCAA says thirty five million
pounds of this stuff, which amounts to nine billion pieces
of candy corn, are produced annually in modern times.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
Yes, and even in keeping in tradition, they make the
machines work backward for some reason when they're pouring the slurry.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
That's right, And are we done? Of course not, because
somehow you found actual survey statistics on how popular this
stuff was.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
Yeah, because there's a thing. It's been around for almost
one hundred and fifty years for a reason, and the
reason is there's some people out there who actually like
candy corn.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
I know, it's weird. It's a weird thing to say,
but it's true. So much so that the National Retail
Iteration a font of statistics that have to do with shopping,
purchasing and consumerism in general, so that in twenty nineteen,
ninety five percent of people who shopped for Halloween stuff
bought candy corn one of them. I wasn't either. We're
(11:17):
in that weird five percent, but I can't believe it.
The thing is is, I don't think all those people
are eating candy corn necessarily. No.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
And it turns out if you go on to crafty websites,
there are all kinds of fun little crafts you can
do with candy corn because it is a you know,
the color itself lends itself to sort of fall feelings
and fall crafts, so you can do all kinds of stuff. Basically,
you can hot glue it on whatever you want to.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
Basically. Yeah, I saw a cute one. I can't remember where,
but if you spike a pumpkin, you can make a
little candy corn pumpkin hedgehog. Ah. That's cute, that's adorable. Okay,
So I found some more stats too, all.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
Right, let's hear it, like, oh, I don't know where's
it popular?
Speaker 1 (12:03):
Yeah, candystore dot Com looked over sixteen years of their
shipping data. That's amazing to identify the top three favorite
candies for each state, and candy corn was in the
top three. It was not the first for any state,
but it was in the top three for a bunch
of different states, from South Carolina to Maine to North
Dakota to Michigan to New York, and then nationwide it
(12:23):
was number eight.
Speaker 2 (12:25):
That's amazing, and we should thank Leslie, the temp at
candystore dot Com that month, who they tasked with doing this.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
You're right for sure? Or Leslie?
Speaker 2 (12:37):
Yeah, poor Leslie, that's a right. Probably wouldn't a bad job,
all right. They also did a poll, and I think
Leslie was in charge of this too, because did they
pull three thousand people.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
Thirty two hundred and forty seven they pour?
Speaker 2 (12:50):
Did they pull thirty five hundred?
Speaker 1 (12:51):
Nope?
Speaker 2 (12:53):
I guess they pulled everyone that they had their email
contact for, which was like you said, three two hundred
and four, and they said that do you like it?
Do you hate it? Why? And nostalgia, which is what
I mentioned that was one of the big reasons why
people get this stuff. It's something they had when they
were a kid that they might have liked the taste
(13:14):
of when they were a kid, and then as adults
they'll say, well, you know, I gotta I gotta be
in that fall spirit and let's let's grab a bag.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
Yeah, and then sweetness was another one for people who
like candy corn, and then conversely, sweetness was a big
reason people don't like candy corn.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
One of the respondents that it was like biting into
a sugar cube, and that's pretty close to accurate. There's
also the waxy texture that puts some people off, including me.
Speaker 2 (13:40):
I actually don't mind that part. Yeah, I'll tell you
what though, I haven't had one in years, but it's
an unforgettable flavor.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
Yeah, I have had it. I can bring that flavor
to mine too, I just I don't want it again.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
Essentially, Yeah, I'm with you.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
And overall though, out of that thirty two and forty
seven Americans, they pulled fifty six percent we're fans and
forty four percent were not. So that there are more people,
at least according to that pole, who like candy corn
than don't.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
That's right. And if you thought it couldn't get any
better everybody, Leslie drilled down even further and found out
how people how people eat them. Fifty one percent just
pop it in their mouth and crunch it like it's
a piece of popcorn. Normal sixteen percent start with the
widest bit, which is the yellow bit, and then thirty
(14:30):
three percent conversely flip it over and start at that little,
smaller white end, Which is amazing to me that someone
actually takes that tiny of a bite of something that small.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
Yeah, some people like that tiny, little white as if
it tastes any different, right, it definitely does not. It
should know. If it does, you might want to take
it back to the store because there's something wrong with.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
The che corn. Yeah, this white part tastes good.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
You got anything else?
Speaker 2 (14:55):
I got nothing else.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
Well, we're getting close to Halloween, everybody, which means short
stuff is out.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
Stuff you should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
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