Every year as we roll into October, we come face to face with our candy demons.
For me, October's candy temptation arrives in the form of a little tri-colored mellocreme known as candy corn.
The National Confectioners Association reports that 35 million pounds are produced annually. That's 9 billion pieces.
The innovation in candy corn was the layering of three colors. This made it taxing to produce (all those colors had to be layered by hand in those days). But the bright, layered colors also made the candy novel and visually exciting.
Enter Jelly Belly Candy Company
In the early days, not everybody called it "candy corn." Some people called it chicken feed. Goelitz's packaging(the original manufacturer) from the 1920s featured a proud rooster scratching around in the candy bits and the motto "King of the Candy Corn Fields." (image) The thing is, corn wasn't something Americans ate much of before World War I. There were no sweet hybrids in those days. Corn was coarse and cheap and not very tasty: good food for pigs and chickens. It wasn't until war-time wheat shortages in 1917 that any but the poorest Americans would have considered corn flour, corn meal, or corn bread acceptable foodstuffs. Candy corn, on the other hand, quickly became one of America's favorite treats.
Through the first half of the 20th century, candy corn was first and foremost a variety of "penny candy," those inexpensive candies sold in bulk, primarily for children. A penny or a nickel would buy you a nice little sack in virtually any candy shop or drugstore. Today Brach's and Jelly Belly (formerly Goelitz) are the only national brands of candy corn, but throughout the 20th century many major candy companies included candy corn in their offerings.
Although the eating of candy corn was not exclusive to Halloween in the early 20th century, candy corn did have important festive associations. In addition to the corn shape, which evoked the fall harvest, the orange and yellow candy was a near-perfect match for the traditional colors of Halloween. In the early 1900s, candy corn was likely to make an appearance at Halloween parties, Thanksgiving parties, and all manner of festive autumnal occasions. Candy corn was also a popular addition to Easter baskets, which were traditionally populated with edible farm animals, and it showed up as a part of everyday life, both for eating and for playing or working. I've found references to candy corn in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s in such diverse sources as children's stories, math textbooks, psychology experiments, party-planning handbooks, and baking and decorating books
As Halloween became more and more dominated by candy beginning in the 1950s, candy corn increasingly became the candy for Halloween. There was a dramatic spike in October advertising of candy corn beginning in the 1950s. Other kinds of candy were advertised for Halloween too, but they were advertised just as heavily during the rest of the year, and the more people thought of candy corn as a special Halloween treat, the less likely they were to consider it for ordinary eating at other times.