Raise your hand if you’ve ever been snarky about candy corn.
Now raise your other hand if you eat it anyway. Yeah, I see you.
It’s National Candy Corn Day, and no candy gets more hassle around this time of year than this one.
That’s despite figures from the National Confectioners Association saying that candy makers produce some 9 billion candy corn pieces a year.
I mean, somebody’s eating this stuff!
Candy corn goes back to the 1880s but it really hit its stride in the years after World War II.
Sugar rations were lifted and Halloween formed its unshakeable alliance with candy.
Before then, Halloween treats were often things like popcorn or peanuts as well as sweets.
This was a time when a big percentage of the population still lived on farms.
Halloween is right around harvest time, after all, so candy makers brought back candy corn and other agricultural themed treats, including candy turnips.
Is this why there’s a backlash? That we’re becoming so anti-veggie that the mere mention of one in the same breath of candy throws us for a loop?
I don’t know, but a 2013 survey found candy corn was still the second most popular Halloween candy of all! Second to chocolate, by 60 points, but still, second place!
This week in American Fork, Utah, a very creepy haunted house is open for its twisted business.
And it gets points for the name: the Strangling Brothers Haunted Circus.
Creepiest show on earth?
The Saccharine History of Candy Corn (National Geographic)
2019 Strangling Brothers Haunted Circus (Visit Salt Lake)
Backing Cool Weird Awesome on Patreon is so, so sweet
Candy corn photo by Rodger via Flickr/Creative Commons
