Candy Corn

There is a special love for, and from, candy as an old-fashioned treat: scooped from glass jars at the corner candy store, shaken out of Christmas stockings, made lovingly in Easter kitchens. For a few cents, one could come away with a paper bag of penny candy: licorice in black pipes and red Scotties, nubs of salt water taffy bound in waxed paper, hard discs of cinnamon or butterscotch, wax straws of rainbow corn syrup. At the five and dime, the beloved Brach’s display offered toffees shot through with orange or raspberry, sugary jellies and orange slices, chewy bejeweled nougats, tri-colored coconut stacks. Grandmothers hand-dipped cream drops and shattered pans of brittle, while chocolatiers offered fancies as romantic as a box of Valentine’s Day chocolate and as humble as a Hershey bar. At the Saturday matinee we clamped our jaws tight with jujubes, crunched malted milk balls too loudly, chased sour balls down the aisle. And at Halloween, we trick or treat.

I was surprised to learn that, according to recent statistics from the National Confectioner’s Association, of the four major candy holidays in the United States, Halloween is third in sales and consumption. (Easter wins, if you’re wondering). Try telling that to any trick or treater, whatever their age. In our urban home, we fill the candy dishes early in October and keep filling (and depleting) them straight through to All Saint’s Day. Chocolate from peanut butter cups to wafers is the perennial favorite, along with miniature bars and the occasional pumpkin novelty. I keep a vintage canning jar, since decoupaged with yesteryear’s haunted house, sacred to hold my annual stash of one of my favorite of all candies: candy corn.

Even as someone who often jokes that I like all the candy that no one else does, I was, fittingly for Halloween, startled to learn just how passionately people don’t like candy corn. As with my beloved Sees molasses chips, I often felt alone, but then I learned that it’s not so much that no one likes forgotten candies, it’s that each candy has its own devoted audience. Candy cornthusiasts populate the world as visibly as creatives sewing, knitting, and crafting their fervor for the world to see, to workaday individuals who, simply by buying a bag, contribute to candy corn being the single best selling seasonal candy in the US market. In that way, candy corn represents the season not just as the harvest symbol it is patterned after but as the reality of Election Day. Candy corn is the true democracy of individual voices, some affirming, some dissenting, acting in unison to address, even influence, culture.

Candy corn is a success story that could not be truer to America’s highest vision of itself. Candy corn comes from roots so humble it was originally named “chicken feed.” The confectioner widely credited with candying chicken feed is George Renninger, who worked for the Wunderlee Candy Company in Philadelphia in the wonderful job of candymaker. As with many great American accomplishments, candy corn has stayed true to itself through over a century of change. It is still made from the same basic recipe using mostly the same technique as when Renninger invented chicken feed in the 1880s. Candy corn is a fondant, meaning in candymaking a moldable mixture, in this case of marshmallow, corn syrup, and sugar. While some newfangled confectioners flavor their candy corn with honey, traditionally it is vanilla. After the mixture is melted together, it is divided into thirds, each to be colored distinctive white, yellow, or orange, then tumbled through cornstarch into molds individuated to each kernel. As the corn cools, the colors meld together into their signature stripes. As a drum pan candy, once cooled, the kernels are tumbled with sugar wax to give them their gimme shine.

Anyone who’s been to the penny candy counter or the local apothecary knows that candy corn begat an entire subspecies of fondant candies targeted to the holidays and seasons. Autumn corn tumbles into the candy jar not only as the traditional tri-color of candy corn but the brown and orange variety reflecting the racist context of the Indian corn mnemonic. In New York City, an autumnal stroll through the Village always included a stop at Li-Lac. Their autumn mix tumbled into a glassine bag as a hayride of butterscotch corn ears, chocolate cornucopias, and mallow pumpkins. Perhaps truest to the season, one can find a Halloween mix of vanilla ghosts, licorice bats, and maple fraidy cats - sometimes producing the secret delight of a sugary witch.

Candy corn can be given as individual packets from the trick or treat bowl, but it is a communal treat, meant to be grabbed by the handful. For a treat, place candy corn and popcorn in bowls alongside each other at the Halloween party, or for a trick, mix them together. Candy corn kernels are designed to make an ear of corn: obtain a tube of fondant from a bake shop, and insert the kernels, white tip forward, in ascending rows around the fondant circle. If you wish, place a sign – suitably scary or appropriately adorable – to commemorate National Candy Corn Day. Some will cavil, but die-hard candy lovers from Halloween spooks to Harvest Homesteaders will sneak a nibble of these sweet kernels of old-fashioned candy history.

Resources
Spirit Boards and Fortune Tellers
Trick or Treat Votive Wrap
Salt Water Taffy