Posts filed under ‘Candies We Miss’
Early Toy Novelties: Kandyskope
You’ve noticed all the Easter candy toy novelties on the shelves this time of year. Yesterday, my daughter and I were admiring a bird house filled with jelly beans, and a clever little bicycling rabbit with a swirly lollypop in the rear basket that spins around when the bunny pedals the bike. Cute, and irresistible to the under-6 set.
Toys and candy: they are both all about pleasure and fun, little frivolities to enjoy. Adult candies always seem more serious, even at Easter time, wrapped up in sober colors and full of luxury and decadence.
So what about Kandyskope? Here was an early candy toy novelty, from 1913, and it wasn’t just for kids. Kandyskope was for “young and old alike.”
And just what was a Kandyskope? Simple. Take a kaleidoscope, replace the little glass chips with hard candy pieces, and TA DA: Kandyscope! Right on the label, Kandyskope promised “the best show for a dime. Watch the actors, and then eat them!” Pleasing to the eye, pleasing to the palate, and only ten cents.
Children’s penny candies were often shaped like toys: little horses, dogs, guns, flowers, or stars. And children’s candy merchants often gave away little toy prizes with the candy to encourage customer loyalty, cheap little things like pressed tin soldiers or elephants, whistles, puzzles, or marbles. If you had Crackerjacks back in the 1970s or earlier, you remember those little toy prizes. Back in the 1900s, that’s the sort of thing the candy man might have dropped in your sack of penny candy.
Kandyskope aimed much higher. At ten cents, it was an offering for the more lucrative trades. And the whole point of Kandyskope was to be better: “superior in ingenuity, workmanship, and appearance.”
Shortly after its introduction in May 1913, the term “Kandyskope” was trademarked by its manufacturer, Leonhart H. Freund and Company of New York. They thought they were on to something big and wanted to protect their brand. But it wasn’t clear that America was ready for Kandyskope. Within a couple of months, the manufacturer was scolding retailers who couldn’t manage to move the product:
Why does Kandyskope sell well in one store and not the other? The Kandyskope is an intelligent candy toy. It appeals to the intelligent buyer. It has to be demonstrated intelligently to the customer. That is why it is sold by the highest class stores. Do not put it in stock if you cater to cheap trade exclusively.
Alas, it seemed that candy toys requiring demonstration were not destined to become big sellers, at least not when they were surrounded by self-explanatory sorts of candy. Kandyskope disappeared not much later.
But that’s not to say some enterprising candy oculist couldn’t bring it back!
Sources: Kandyskope advertisements in International Confectioner 1913. Kandyskope Trademark Serial Number 70,972 (Oct. 1913). On toy novelties and penny candy, see Wendy Woloson, Refined Tastes: Suger, Confectionery and Consumers in Nineteenth Century America pp. 43-49.
Candy Feeding Bags
Every once in a while I run into an old candy idea that seems ripe for revival. Who’s going to be the candy entrepreneur who brings back “Candy Feeding Bags,” last seen back in 1911?
This one-cent novelty had a lot going for it: convenience, portability, and flavor. You could choose pineapple, strawberry, peach, raspberry, lemon, chocolate, vanilla, or peppermint. The tube running into the bag is a licorice stick, about 8 inches long and 1/2 inch thick. The idea is that you bite the end off the licorice then suck the flavor powder up through the licorice straw:
The powder mixed with the flavor of the licorice produces a combination hard to beat. When the powder is all gone then you eat the tube. Can you beat it?
Sort of like a Fun Dip or Lik-A-Stick crossed with a Pixie Stick, mixed in with a licorice whip.
Of course, in 1911 most people would associate feeding bags with work horses or mules. There still weren’t many motor cars around, so horses pulling wagons would have been a common sight. And to keep those horses working all day long, they would have a bag of grain tied around their snouts for easy snacking.
So why not a feed bag filled with candy? I love the idea of kids running around with these things tied to their necks. Keeps the kiddies happy with their candy feed all day long. Can you beat it? I don’t think you can!
Candy Feeding Bag ad from International Confectioner, April 1911. Feed bag image from Cowboy Showcase.
Cascarets Candy Cathartic
“Just a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down…”
Mary Poppins had the right idea, of course. Who wouldn’t rather take their medicine candy-style? As it turns out, the relation between candy and medicine has quite a history. Today, I have for you the story of what I believe to be the first medicine in the U.S. to be marketed nationally as a candy: Cascarets Candy Cathartic.
Cascara, the ingredient suggested by “Cascarets,” is derived from the bitter tasting bark of a species of buckthorn tree native to North America. Cascara had been prescribed by druggists and physicians as a remedy for constipation and related ills as early as 1877. But it was not until 1894 that the Sterling Remedy Company came up with a candy version which would turn out to be a huge blockbuster.
Cascarets were made as brown octagonal tablets reputed to have a “pleasant taste–almost as pleasant as chocolate.” They were put up in rectangular tin boxes of six tablets designed to nestle easily in a vest pocket or small handbag. Cascarets quickly captured the nation. Sterling had offices in Chicago, Minneapolis and New York, facilitating a national distribution of their product. They backed their roll-out with a $500,000 advertising push and incentives to retail druggists. By 1899, Cascarets were selling 5,000,000 boxes per year, and were poised to become the top-selling proprietary medicine in the U.S. (source)
Cascara is a powerful drug with unambiguous effects. As the science staff at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Hospital explain, “Cascarosides increase intestinal motility and lead to propulsive contractions.” But around 1900, Americans didn’t just associate constipation with abdominal discomfort or gas or indigestion. Constipation for our great-grandparents was the root evil of just about every ailment and malaise you could think of. And for whatever was wrong with you, a laxative (or purgative or cathartic–the terms were used pretty interchangeably) would do the trick.
Cascarets Candy Cathartics were sold as the universal remedy:
When you have Heartburn, Colic, Coated Tongue, Suspected Breath, Acid-rising-in-throat, Gas-belching, or an incipient Cold, take a Cascaret. Remember, all these are not merely Discomforts, but indications of a serious Cause. …A coming Headache can be warded off in short order, by a single Cascaret, and the cause removed. Heartburn, Gas-belching, Acid-risings in the throat, and Colicky feeling are sure signs of bowel trouble from food poisons, and should be dealt with promptly. One Cascaret will stop the coming trouble, and move on the Bowel load, if taken at the first signs. ( 1905 ad)
Cascarets ads included every American as a potential customer: men and women, old and young. Even nursing infants would benefit it mama would take a Cascarets. But the real benefit in the new candy cathartic was the banishment of the old remedy: castor oil.
Doctors and mothers alike were desperate to find some way of avoiding the nightly struggle to force the nasty liquid down Junior’s screaming throat. Imagine the relief of American children when Cascarets took the place of the daily dose of castor oil. Here’s an ad for Cascarets from 1918 that pretty much tells the whole story:
We’ll let Jane and Michael Banks have the last word:
Never be cross or cruel, Never give us Castor oil, or gruel.
And with Cascarets, there would be Castor oil no more.
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Potato Caramels and Parsnip Nougat
I’m starting to realize that you can make candy out of anything. Rocks, even. Oh, wait, that “rock candy” isn’t really made of rocks… (or is it? see this post for more on the question of rocks in rock candy).
But anything edible, you can bet somebody somewhere tried to make a candy out of it. In fact, in some countries what I might consider “peculiar” for a candy ingredient is quite ordinary. Take Mexican Dulces de Calabasas, for example. Squash candy. I wouldn’t have come up with that. Or an Asian favorite, Durian taffy. That’s made of the fruit that smells, to the un-initiated nose, like a diaper pail. You see how provincial I am when it comes to candy flavors.
But luckily, many others have ventured boldly. Our global village is bringing us all sorts of interesting flavors. And a look to the past shows that even here in America, more intrepid candy inventors have imaginations wider than the produce aisle.
I’m thinking of Mrs. Ellen Gillon, of Honesdale, Pennsylvania. This was a while back, of course, 1911 to be precise. Mrs. Gillon’s husband had died, and she was left to fend for herself. She explained:
One day, when I was thinking of schemes to make money, the idea of vegetable candy occurred to me. I experimented for several weeks before I hit upon the process, and as far as I know, I am the only one in the world who knows it
Mrs. Gillon wouldn’t say how she made the candy, only what it was made of: the finest vegetables she could gather from the garden. At Mrs. Gillon’s shop, you could sample potato caramels, parsnip nougat, turnip fudge, beet marshmallows, and bean taffy.
Mrs. Gillon herself claimed to live “almost entirely on vegetables” and to eat little candy. Once her vegetable confections were perfected, though, she could one supposes, live almost entirely on candy vegetables! Not to mention all the children of the neighborhood, for whom “eat your vegetables” would sound entirely delectable.
Source: Confectioners Journal June 1911, p. 83, quoting from the Philadelphia North American May 6, 1911.
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Nourgarmels and Argoodies
How many candies can you name?
Once you get past the name-brand candy bars, things get pretty generic: gum drops, jelly beans, licorice sticks.
But “generic” never did too well at the box-office; if you want people to buy your candy, you’d better come up with a catchy name!
1909 National Licorice ad
Do you like licorice? What kind? In 1908, the National Licorice Co. of Brooklyn NY suggested these sorts of flexible licorice penny goods:
Buffalo Sticks, Big Piece, Giant Bar, Fluted Bar, Brick, Electric Light Wires, Flexible Sticks, Whips, Cigarettes, Navy Plugs, Triple Tunnel Tubes, Mint Puff Straps, Golf Sticks, Blow Pipes, Triplets, Big Lorimers, Elastic Tubes, Indian Plugs, Pan Pipes, Flexo Chocolate Bars, Curved Stem Pipes, Large Cigars
Over at T.M. Duche & Sons, of New York, they added a few licorice specialties of their own:
Lion Sticks, Fluted Tubes, Subway Tunnels, Eagle Twists, Cigarettes, Monster Tubes, Licorice Gems, Puritana Sticks, Peerless Sticks, Crown Pretzels, Crown Cigars, Teddy Bear Cigars, Skidoo Bars, Happy Days, Jersey Tunnels.
Beyond the millions of possible shapes for licorice were the thousands more candy variations. We’ll never know what most of these tasted like, but I still marvel at the amazing names these candy makers gave to their creations.
The Blue Ribbon Candy Co of Baltimore MD would be pleased to send the candy jobber of 1908 this candy case called “Easy Money Assortment” which included:
Return Balls, Aspinwall Bananas, Devil Crabs, Cocoa Marshmallow Twist, Skidoos, and Small Fries.
From George Blome & Son of Baltimore, you could order penny goods like:
Crimp, Turkish Nougat Bars, Aniseed Hunks, Peanut Fondants, Belmonts, Penny Tarts, Penny Cushions, Satin Pillows, Campaign Buttons, I-Say-So, Chocolate Cushions, Beats All Peanut, Butter Balls, Butter Cakes, Toasted Cream Bars, Orange Dessert, Dinkey Dinks With Counter Pan, Navy Twists, Chocolate Taffy Twists, Chocolate Buttons, Taffy Cuts, Three Jacks, Chocolate Marshmallow Eggs, Wild Strawberries.
A.E. Cohen & Co. of New York City offered the discerning candy eater of 1908 such mystery goods as:
Kokokrisp, Neapolitan Bricks, Krispets, Sphinx Package, Keep Kool, Scorcher, Chocolate Krumble, Mayflower Corn Cake, Dolly Varden Cake, Currant Cake, Kokonut Cake
And last, my personal favorites, from Adams Argood Chocolate Company of Philadelphia:
Nougarmels, Molasnut, and Nutaline Argoodies
Kids, Candy, and the Law
Penny candy has been on my mind lately. Penny candy is of course kid’s candy. I have a fantasy that back in the olden days, kids could just go buy whatever candy they wanted, whenever they wanted. Pennies aren’t so hard to come by, after all (look under the pillows of your couch).
But it turns out that not every one agreed that children should be free to spend their pennies as they chose. In 1909, a Brooklyn alderman came to the city council with a plan: to make it a crime to buy candy. That’s right: he wanted to make it illegal for any child under the age of 16 to purchase candy, unless they were with their parents or some responsible relative. And he meant business: the law would include fines from $10 to $50 (a week’s wages for many) and from 10 to sixty days imprisonment. Luckily for the kids of Brooklyn, the ordinance got shot down.
The full force of the law seems a pretty big stick to keep kids away from their candies.
And if some though it should be a crime for kids to buy candies for themselves, others were willing to go further. How about the citizen who wrote to the New York papers with this suggestion: make it illegal for any one over the age of 14 to offer or give candy to anyone under 14. The reason they gave? To cut down on kidnapping. Uh huh. Because the kidnappers are going to think twice if they realize that the candy lure they are using is against the law…
About those stick candies in the image: those are the original version of the kind of “old fashioned stick candies” you see today every once in a while. They were about 2 1/2 inches long, wrapped in wax paper with a paper label that stated the flavor. They sold for a penny a piece at the shop; this ad is selling to the retalier, a box of 450 sticks at $2.25. Some of the flavors in this box are pretty familiar: lemon, peppermint, spearmint. But there is also sassafrass, clove, and rose. Sassafrass is similar to root beer, and clove is a flavor you might find these days in spice drops or Necco wafers, but I don’t know any rose flavored candies!
Source: Confectioners Journal Feb 1909 p. 74: “A Weird Story from Brooklyn”; Confectioners Journal May 1914 p. 102 (no title).
Langston Hughes Sings the Blues for Penny Candy
If you were a kid in the 1930s, you knew a lot about penny candy. It was what kids could afford, their biggest indulgence, their own consumer paradise. They were cheap, colorful, varied, and sold directly to children at the little candy stores. Familiar candies like marshmallows, licorice, hard candies, suckers, caramels and the like were sold at so many per penny. Like most candy before the rise of the “self-service” supermarket in the late 1940s, penny candies were dispensed from bins or boxes by the clerk, and they were usually not wrapped or branded. The rise of wrapping technologies and materials, especially after the first world war, as well as the new importance of advertising in the 1920s, began to shift some of the children’s market to wrapped goods and bars costing 5 or 10 cents. But penny candies continued to be the major kiddie attraction. Penny candies were a big part of childhood in those days:
They would keep a child wondering and looking for a long time before spending his small change. There used to be bright red cinnamon drops at a cent a tiny cup. And big yellow or green gum drops at two for a penny. And coconut strips the colors of the flag in waxed paper.
That’s Langston Hughes, believe it or not. He is best known as one of America’s most beloved poets and a major figure in African American literature. He also was an unrepentant candy lover. And a sad candy lover: by 1948, when he wrote the essay I’m quoting, penny candy had all but disappeared.
In the 1940s the children’s candy market began to experience dramatic changes. By 1946, the portion of the total candy output that was produced for the penny market had fallen to less than 4 percent. Both long term and short term forces conspired to make penny candy a nostalgic memory by mid-century. Penny candy had always represented the bottom end of the candy trade. “Better” candy stores avoided penny candy sales, viewing the children’s trade as an inconvenience and a distraction. Profit margins on penny goods were razor thin, and the penny candy merchant had to spend more on labor to serve the demanding but small-spending customers making numerous small purchases. The U.S. entry into World War II in 1942 brought the rationing of sugar and other candy ingredients. The candy industry succeeded in having candy designated an “essential food,” thereby assuring their continued access to sugar and other necessary commodities, but prices rose significantly. During the years of the war, about half the nation’s candy production went to provisioning the military, thereby creating reducing the amount of candy that could be sold domestically. The result of these forces was to drive out the penny candy trade. Bulk and box candies were far more profitable, and manufacturers, even those with nostalgic ties to the candy past, could no longer make economic sense of the penny lines.
No one was more eloquent in mourning than Hughes, who described the parched candy landscape that had replaced the jeweled palaces of his childhood:
Nowadays, most of the candies displayed in grocery shops (at least in the big towns) seem to be the standard brands of Hershey’s and O. Henry’s the same from coast to coast–monotonously unvarying–and costing a nickel or more. Not even a child can shop for a penny in this day and age. And they don’t have the fun of peeping and peering and puzzling and selecting such as one had when faced with a wonderful array of unwrapped penny candies in the old days.
Source: Langston Hughes, “Childhood Memories Of Good Old Home,” The Chicago Defender 18 December 1948.
Some Candies You Won’t Be Making for the Holidays
This time of year, some people fire up the stove to make home made candies. Maybe some walnut fudge? or how about candied orange peels?
We’re accustomed to the typical fruits and nuts that flavor our candy. But over the past century, some intrepid inventors have pushed the boundaries of “candy flavor” to experiment with new and strange candies:
Horseradish Bonbons: A recipe published in 1915 suggested boiling horseradish in sugar syrup, and using this as a base for a chewy candy treat. You can enjoy it as a snack, or as a side dish with your Roast Beef.
Candy from Cottonseed: The Saint Louis Cotton Oil Company found itself with a lot extra cottonseed on its hands in 1915. Why not cottonseed candy? They produced caramels and a chewy taffy-like candy. The project never took off, as the market value of the oil was too high to make the candy a practical proposition. But tasters found it agreeable, and said if they didn’t know what it was, they would have taken it for a good brand of molasses candy.
Alfalfa Candy: In 1915, a man in Montana claimed he could make 75 varieties of candy from alfalfa. This would be, I suppose, the sort of candy you would offer your horse or your hamster.
Lima Bean Taffy: How to get the kiddies to eat more vegetables? Hide them in the candy! A century before Jessica Seinfeld and the Sneaky Chef, Mary Elizabeth Hall came up with a whole cookbook of “alternative” vegetable candies. Vegetable candy seemed a great solution for intemperate candy lovers: it “furnishes the valuable element of sugar so combined with nutritious vegetable bases that, because of the bulk, there is no temptation to overeat!” Or, perhaps, because of the taste… (Candy-Making Revolutionized, 1912)
Alayam: This was an experimental candy made from sweet potatoes. The mid-century story of Alayam is an interesting case of what happens when agricultural policy meets the candy dish. Another “not quite ready for prime time” experiment, you can read more about it in the post about Alayam.
Candy Fortification: Synthetic Vitamin A
In the 1950s, vitamins were all the rage. Prior to the work of the chemists, the usual way Americans took their vitamin A was in cod liver oil. But what if instead, people could get their vitamin A from something yummy, say, candy?
Everybody needs vitamin A. So it was a potentially lucrative project for the chemical industry to develop a synthetic, stable form of Vitamin A. The prize was enormous: the military and the government were very interested in increasing the nutritive value of foods that could be stored and transported easily. In particular, the U.S. Army was interested in fortifying Army rations including candy, peanut butter, milk powder, and crackers with a palatable, stable form of vitamin A.
In 1952, Pfizer developed a technique of gelatin stabilization that minimized the deterioration of the vitamin, and contributed no objectionable taste or odor. They tested chocolate bars fortified with the gelatinized vitamin A and found 92 percent retention after four weeks storage at 45 C (they don’t specify, but these must have been the modified military chocolate, as ordinary chocolate would have gotten pretty melty at this temperature, equivalent to 113 F).
How much chocolate was consumed with vitamin A supplementation we don’t know. But we do know that synthetic vitamin A in amounts in excess of the RDA is pretty toxic. It’s usually called “retinol,” and today it is more familiar as a skin treatment than as a food additive. On the other hand, a candy bar that could prevent vitamin A deficiency and treat your acne flare ups might be pretty useful.
Source: “Vitamin A Fortification Research,” Candy Industry 12 February 1952.
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Igniting Cough Drops
Violent candies: It’s not about the taste, but about the action. Pop Rocks explode in your mouth. Extreme Sours of all sorts burn the skin off your cheeks. Wintergreen Lifesavers emit sparks when chomped in the dark. Dear candy, don’t just sit there; DO SOMETHING!
How delightful it must have been for whoever discovered the igniting cough drop, back in 1913. One typically seeks such medicated confection for its soothing, cooling properties. One does not expect pyrotechnics.
A popular cough lozenge ingredient in the day was chlorate of potash; mixed up with a little sugar, it promised a tasty and effective treatment for respiratory discomfort. But when you rubbed the lozenge on the igniting strip of a safety-match box, watch out! The lozenge would light up like a match and burn.
It’s a cough drop. No, it’s a match. No, it’s a cough drop AND a match!
Confectioners Journal called it “killing two birds with one stone.” One wonders how it could have been as tasty as claimed. Of course, in 1913 those chalky Necco-style wafers were popular, too.
Source: “Killing Two Birds With One Stone” Confectioners Journal, Jan. 1914 p. 93
More: Chemistry expert Anne Marie Helmenstine explains Candy Triboluminescence (those sparks from Wintergreen Lifesavers).
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