American Freedom Machines: The Story of Harley-Davidson

00:00:10
Speaker 1: And we continue with our American Stories. Our next story comes to us from a man who’s simply known as the History Guy. These videos are watched by hundreds of thousands of people of all ages over on YouTube. The History Guy has also heard right here in our American Stories. Let’s take a listen to the History Guy as he tells the story of three controversial candies. Take it away.

00:00:39
Speaker 2: From chocolate to suckers to gumdrops, there’s all sorts of different kinds of candy, and everybody has their favorite. But some candy seems to strike a stronger reaction than others. In fact, some are so divisive that everyone seems to have an opinion on them, whether they love them or they hate them. Black licorice, circus peanuts, and candy corn are perhaps the most delici of candies, yet each of them has their own history that has allowed them to perhaps surprisingly survive as a treat for generations. Boom! Black licorice flavor comes from a plant, a legume, which is widely distributed in Central and Western Asia, Europe, and North Africa. Specifically, it comes from the plant’s root, which has a sweetness thirty to fifty times greater than sucrose. The word licorice comes from a corruption of the original Greek term and means sweet root. The root has been ingested in various forms for millennia. In the earliest reference to it or a similar plant comes from forty-three hundred years ago, in the writings of a Chinese emperor known to experiment with plant remedies. The Chinese writings it could be used as an antidote to toxins, to reduce pain, and is a cure for various other complaints. It was known throughout the medieval world as an herbal medicine. Its cultivation spread throughout Northern Europe, and around the eleventh century made its way to England, particularly around Pontefract in Yorkshire. In German and elsewhere where, it was added to beer, soon used as a flavor additive in cake and bread. In the Middle East and the Mediterranean, licorice was combined with honey into lozenges as a medicine for sore throat, but by then also is that kind of sweet. Netherlands to only leads the world in licorice consumption, and sweet shops in Amsterdam claimed to have been selling licorice sweets since seventeen forty-three. It was probably in the Netherlands where it began being extruded, creating the classic twisted ropes we know today. Napoleon was a particular fan, and he carried sticks to chew to help settle his stomach. It’s been suggested that his love of licorice even turned his teeth black, and that he imbibed licorice drink almost exclusively in his final days. The nineteenth century saw an explosion of sweet production, and at least thirteen factories produced many thousands of black licorice sweets every day in Pontefract. A September 2017 edition of Garden Illustrated notes that, anecdotally, the death knell for the cultivation of licorice root in Pontefract was when American GIs introduced the British to chocolate candy during the Second World War. In the Unit States, licorice companies existed at least since 1845, and later introduced more flavors such as cherry and raspberry twist ropes like Red Vines and Twizzlers. These products have come to be called licorice and red licorice because it was the same shape, and created the term black licorice to refer to traditional licorice-flavored candies. Licorice-flavored Good & Plenty, possibly the oldest branded candy in the United States, was first produced in 1893, but despite its history, the candy is notably polarizing. A February 2018 edition of The Washington Post writes, “some have called it the devil in candy for warm.” BuzzFeed went published a quiz called, “We Know if You Like Black Licorice,” with just one question, and it was a yes or no question. Are you eighty years old? The Post notes that is surveyed by the National Confectioners Association found that only three percent of people said that licorice was a favorite candy when they were a child, and that on a FiveThirtyEight ranking of eighty-six candies, Good & Plenty came in dead last. Yet, black licorice soldiers on. Last August, the website Zippia used Google Trends to examine fifty different popular candies and how often each one is searched for within the United States to determine the most popular Halloween candy in each state. Astoundingly, black licorice came out as the most popular Halloween candy in Colorado, and the flavor remains popular globally, not just in candies, but in beers and alcohol such as Jägermeister, Sambuca, and Ouzo. Licorice flavoring is even present in NyQuil. Perhaps just as divisive are the orange, peanut-shaped marshmallow candies called circus peanuts. For starters, the exact invention of the candy is unknown. Candymaker Spangler has been making them since the 1930s and perfected their recipe in 1941, while Wisconsin-based Melster has been making them since 1919. “We’ve tried to find out why they’re called circus peanuts,” a spokesperson for Spangler Candy said in a 2003 article in The North Bay Bohemian. “We’ve asked people in this Begler family. We’ve asked historians from Barnum & Bailey Circus, but no one knows.” For that matter, no one knows why they’re orange or why they’re flavored like bananas, and various theories have been put forward for their origins, including that they originated with traveling circuses, but nothing has been conclusively proven. Authors Richard and Anna Kate Cartel suggest in their 2008 book, Food Bites: The Science of the Foods We Eat, that the history of circus peanuts is clouded, perhaps because nobody wants to admit that they’re responsible for developing this much-maligned product. What is clear is that the treat, hated widely across the Internet, has an odd and enduring popularity, has served at least 120 years as an apparently uniquely American treat. Owner of candy wholesaler Candy Favorites even calls them not so much candy as a marcana like black licorice. Marshmallow itself has a long history, nating back to ancient Egypt, when it was made with sad from the mallow plant commonly found in marshes, likely mixed with honey and nuts and often used medicinally. It became a popular treat in the 1800s in France, but increasing demand led them to find a new method of making marshmallows using the starch mogul system, where cornstarch could be put into molds and the water and sugar mixes poured in. The traditional mallow is replaced with gelatin, which created a stable product. Steve Kerr, a vice president at Spangler, says they are the company’s most difficult-to-make candy because you’ve got all these variables coming together. Gelatin, sugar, water, and corn syrup are the main ingredients, but the moisture level is most important to achieve that unique texture. While they’re often so despised that people seem confused that they even still exist, Zippia’s survey found that circus peanuts were the most popular Halloween candy in Oklahoma, and they’ve had a more popular legacy in the form of breakfast cereal. According to General Mills, John Hollahan came up with the idea for Lucky Charms cereal when he chopped up circus peanuts into Cheerios, which led to the creation of mar bits to the tiny marshmallow pieces that are their magic. Like circus peanuts, candy corn’s origins date to the 1800s. There is some disagreement, however; it’s usually said to have been invented in Philadelphia by German immigrant Philip Wonderley. In 1865, Wonderley arrived in the United States, and in 1871, began making candy in Philadelphia, and in 1876, was joined by George Renneger. According to Wonderly’s children, Renneger said to have invented buttercream, or the material for candy corn, in 1888. Renneger’s early works were shaped like acorns, turnips, and pumpkins, and the exact genesis of the candy corn is less clear. Its popularity came later when Golitz Candy, now known as Jelly Belly, began producing them in 1898 or 1900. While it has always resembled a corn kernel, it wasn’t always known as candy corn, but instead as chicken feed or chicken corn. Golitz claims it was so successful that it carried them through the Depression in two World Wars and made up a significant part of their income. But candy corn has its haters. A reviewer on the website The Takeout describes the texture as “Satan’s earwax.” Ranking by bulk sales website says a candy corn is among the top ten favorite candies in America, but when doing a consumer survey of worst candy, candy corn ranked number one, just ahead of circus peanuts, while the Zippia method found candy corn to be the most popular Halloween candy in West Virginia, and a 2013 National Confectioners Association survey found that it was the second most favorite candy behind the overwhelming winner of chocolate. But despite the controversy, 35 million pounds of it are produced each year, some nine billion pieces. So why do we keep these candies around for generations, even though they engender such bittriol? Well, I mean, some people seem to legitimately like them. But maybe we keep them around because they have such a wonderful history. You could call that nostalgia, you could call that addition, you could even call that provenance, or you could simply acknowledge that history deserves to be remembered.

00:09:07
Speaker 1: And a terrific job on the production, editing, and storytelling by our own Greg Hengler, and a special thanks to the History Guy. If you want more stories of forgotten history, please subscribe to his YouTube channel, “The History Guy.” “History Deserves to Be Remembered.” It’s a terrific channel. You know, we’re grateful that he partners with us on so many of his stories. And what a story about, well, my favorite candy, which is, of course, Good & Plenty, and my daughter laughing the whole time listening to this segment because she has told me repeatedly that only people over 100 years old. Edith, and I take that as a compliment. The story of the three most despised candies, two of which I love because I love candy corn, too. On Our American Stories.