Ode to candy corn...

Either you love them or you hate them.

This sickening sweet confection has been been around for a long, long time. Over 100 years in fact. I used to like to eat them in layers....heck...I still do. They're a little too sweet for adult Kate though. I find myself mindlessly eat through half a bag....then the sugar hits your stomach like a brick and makes you feel like "uughh...what'd I do that for?" Not too mention, they kinda look like human canine teeth from someone with really bad oral habits. The British perhaps? The ingredients seem relatively basic, but I bet if you got them to the right temperature, you'd wind up with a fiberglass speedboat or a swimming noodle or something. They also are coated with carnuba wax. Isn't my car coated with carnuba wax?? Someone told me recently that they used to like them until they heard of someone's house burning down and the only remaining thing was a perfectly intact and untouched bowl of candy corn. Makes you think....

I don't know...the jury's still out on this one. I think I liked them better when I was a kid. I was in Target a week ago, and they have candy corn soda, from the good folks at Jones Soda Company. Chris and I tried it last year and it is a vile concoction! Don't do it! Just don't do it... But I digress....Here is some interesting, or perhaps not-so-interesting trivia on the legendary candy:

**Candy corn has been around for more than 100 years. George Renninger, an employee of the Wunderlee Candy Company, invented the popular confection in the 1880s and Wunderlee became the first to produce the candy. The Goelitz Candy Company (now Jelly Belly Candy Company) started producing the confection in 1900 and still produces candy corn today.

**Originally, candy corn was made of sugar, corn syrup (not HFCS), fondant and marshmallow, among other things, and the hot mixture was poured into cornstarch molds, where it set up. This original mixture is probably where the name of the candy corn-like Mellocreme Pumpkins comes from. The recipe changed slightly over time and there are probably a few variations in recipes between candy companies, but the use of a mixture of sugar, corn syrup, gelatin and vanilla (as well as honey, in some brands) is the standard.

**More than 35 million pounds of candy corn will be produced this year. That equates to nearly 9 billion pieces, which is enough to circle the moon nearly 21 times if laid end-to-end. That alotta corn....

**A serving of candy corn has about 22 pieces and contains 140 calories, no fat.

Just thought you'd like to know......