bitterbutton

ha. more candy history–the gummy bear opened the floodgates of candy gumminess and eventually allowed the treasures that are gummy worms to be invented.  and with good reason, the gummy bear has proven inspirational to many, many people. 

examples:

1) the gummy-bear-rug (and others)

artist YaYa Chou has an amazing series of sculptures crafted from gummy bears.  

2) the giant 13-pound gummy bear

created by a man named matt–it’s enormous and striped.

3) the gummy bear tarot deck (orginally german, english decks for purchase can be found at all kinds of tarot-y websites.)

( i couldn’t find a good image to post…but the gummy bear death card is awesome.  gummy death rides upon a pale horse, like any self-respecting horseman of the apocolypse.)

two things i’d like to point out:

1) baby ruths were named for president grover cleveland’s daughter, ruth. she was the first presidential baby to be born in the white house, and caused an uproar of adoration from the American public.  that’s why the card looks all presidential badge instead of babe ruth and a bat. babe ruth has nothing to do with the caramel, the peanuts, or the chocolate enrobing.

2) i am using historically accurate depictions of baby ruths in this card, despite the fact they look like cross-sections of plant cells (see the xylem? the phloem?).  examples of past baby ruth advertising campaigns:

and actually, it does gets kind of hard to draw candy bars or pictorial representations of the brand.  especially for candy that is named after a person (baby ruth, hershey’s, wrigley’s, etc.) or with an nonsensical word (zagnut, skor, goo goo cluster, etc.). 

right. so, i didn’t want this one to turn out so…witchy.  i don’t think goo goo clusters are really made in a bubbling cauldron surrounded by psychdelic bands of color.  for one thing, they are a strictly southern confection. and for another, there’s just no need to turn to the dark side when you are made of marshmallows, peanuts, caramel, and chocolate.

i need the incentive of an enormous grid of candy!

i had to recolor this; my first color scheme, heavy on the reds, looked like a celebration of the Chocolate Bar of Communism.  and, yes, the angles look weird.  it’s a pity this one is so suckily drawn, because toblerone is one of my favorite candy bars ever!  i used to get for christmas as a kid, and i thought it was SO EXOTIC.  and that my parents were SO elegant and SO worldly for seeking out this special triangle chocolate to put in my stocking. i felt the same way about our occasional nutella breakfasts.

now, this little invention was important because:

1. peanuts are importantly delicious and today’s most successful candybars know that.  right, snickers?
2. the owner of squirrel brand nuts, perrley garish, employed the brilliant marketing strategy of handing out samples to children after school. thus marketing directly to his target audience and, probably, forever linking 3:00PM and/or ringing bells with the insatiable desire to eat candybars in the minds of american youth.  seriously, a bell rings and i need a candy bar.
3. that crazy candy fiend, admiral byrd, also packed squirrel products in his suitcase to the south pole. (right next to his two tons of necco wafers, i’m sure!) 
4. it led to the eventual release of the “squirrel nut zipper” candy by the company.  and without the squirrel nut zipper, we would have never had the squirrel nut zippers and never would have had to suffer through that weird, fleeting resurgance of swing music in the 1990s, with its zoot suits and gap advertising campaigns.

again, i don’t eat conversation hearts.  but, that doesn’t stop me from buying a pack every single valentine’s day. it speaks to the power of tradition, no?

and of all the messages they’ve given me over the years, “be my icon” and “fax me” are my alltime favorites.  like, i know they’re being all new-fangled and talking about computer icons, but whatever! it sounds like a request to allow yourself to be worshipped as a deity, transcribed on a chalk tablet! and that’s just fantastic.

i’ve walked by the New England Confectionery Company; it’s in Boston.  and only after seeing the name in billboard-sized font on the side of the factory did i understand that Necco was a nickname for New England Confectionery Company. 

Necco wafers remind me of little, undelicious slices of sidewalk chalk, to be honest, but the introduction of this type of candy in America was actually ground-breaking.  the founder of NECCO, Oliver Chase, invented the lozenge cutter in 1847.  it was one of the first machines used in candy production and eventually allowed for easy manufacture of, well, uniform slices of sidewalk chalk.  NECCO, as a company, was also ground-breaking–offering life insurance and profit-sharing to its employees by 1922!

the other awesomely fascinating thing about Necco wafers?  their near indestructability! apparently, they are impervious to decomposition like other mere candy mortals.  because of this, people in the early part of the 20th century were always taking them on exploration adventures.  a list from NECCO’s website:

1. in 1913, explorer Donald MacMillan takes Necco Wafers on his Arctic expedition, using them for nutrition and as rewards to Eskimo children.
2. in the 1930’s, Admiral Byrd took 2½ tons of Necco Wafers to the South Pole, practically a pound a week for each of his men during their two-year stay in the Antarctic.
3. during WWII, the majority of Necco wafer production was commissioned by the U.S. government to send to troops abroad.

they’re like the grandfather of astronaut ice cream!