Sugar Savvy

A lifelong fan of candy corn, I was both excited and skeptical about conducting this pre-Halloween candy corn roundup. I thought I might have trouble coming up with ample subject matter. I mean, as much as I love the stuff, how much is there, really, to say about candy corn? Well, a whole bushel, as it turns out.

Over the past week or so, I have been putting out my candy corn feelers, trying to determine which of my friends enjoy the corn enough to weigh in on the issue. “So,” I’ll say, “where do you stand on candy corn?”

The responses fall into 3 basic categories:

1. “Ugh. I can’t stand it.”
2. “I used to like it alright, but I think I o.d.’d on it once and now I just can’t eat it anymore.”
3. “I LOVE candy corn!”

The first group, of course, I brushed aside. I had no use for them, or them, me. (But hell, who hasn’t gotten sick from eating too much candy corn? Isn’t this sort of a given?)
And that’s when it occurred to me that there indeed exists a divide that falls between the lovers and the non-lovers. The candy corn lovers, as many times as we’ve munched our way into a c.c.-induced nausea, always come back for more love/abuse. Pathological? Perhaps.

Although I couldn’t disagree more with the following statement, this quote from comedian Lewis Black perhaps best illustrates this love/hate cc relationship experienced by so many of us:

All of the candy corn that was ever made was made in 1911. And so, since nobody eats that stuff, every year there’s a ton of it left over. And the candy corn company sends the guys out into the villages, to collect out of the dumpsters all the candy corn we’ve thrown away. They wash it! They wash it! I’ll never forget the first time my mother gave me candy corn. She said, ‘Here Lewis! This is corn that tastes like candy!’ (takes it, eats it) … ‘This tastes like crap!’ And every year since then, Halloween is returned and I, like an Alzheimer’s patient, find myself in a room, and the room has a table in it, and on the table, is a bowl of candy corn. And I look at it, as if I’ve never seen it before. ‘Candy corn,’ I think. ‘Corn that tastes like candy. I can’t wait.’ (takes it, takes a bite) ‘SON OF A BITCH!’
- Lewis Black, Comedy Central Presents

First, a little history:

An employee of the Wunderlee Candy Company named George Renninger invented Candy corn in the 1880’s. Wunderlee then began producing the candy. In 1900, The Goelitz Company (now Jelly Belly) also began production of the treat. While the manufacturing process has been modernized considerably, the recipe has changed very little from the original.

According to the National Confectioners’ Association website, candy corn was first popular among farmers due to its “agrarian appearance.” Uhh, yeah … just like how Hot Tamales are a big hit within the Mexican American community due to their uncanny resemblance to meat wrapped in masa and corn husks? I’m going to let that one slide…

October 30th is National Candy Corn Day. Candy corn certainly does deserve its own day – as recognition for its remarkable longevity in popularity, if nothing else.

What difference, you might be saying, could there possible be between those five identical-seeming kernels pictured above? Candy corn is candy corn is candy corn, right? Wrong.

Comparing the ingredients, they all start out the same:
Sugar (natch), followed by corn syrup. But after that, they begin to differ somewhat. All use salt and confectioners’ glaze in varying amounts, and all but Jelly Belly and Brach’s use egg whites. Only Zachary’s and Target DO NOT use gelatin, and, most markedly, Jelly Belly is the only one of the group that does not contain real honey (or fake honey, for that matter).

I have long-maintained that Sathers/Farley makes my favorite candy corn. I like their matte finish and dried frosting-like texture, their off-brand generic-ness holding a certain “indie” appeal. To be honest, I had mentally composed the hypothesis to this tasting before it had even started, with the assumption that no other brand would trump the Sathers. However, I managed to keep an open mind (and mouth) and not discriminate. The inclusion of the Target brand to the panel was actually a bit of a fluke. I didn’t realize that Target carried its own brand, but because I just happened to be there last weekend and somehow found myself lurking in the candy section (imagine!) I spotted the bag and tossed it in my basket. “The more the merrier,” I happily murmured.

So imagine my surprise when the Target and Zachary’s actually came in AHEAD of the Sather’s.

Pictured, from left to right:
Target, Zachary, Brach’s, Sathers, Jelly Belly.

Here’s how it all shook out:

1st and 2nd places (a tie): ZACHARY and TARGET
11 oz bag = 99 cents

Due to their striking similarity in both taste and appearance, I wondered if the Target Brand was not, in fact, produced by Zachary and sold under their own label. A phone call to the Zachary headquarters in Frankfort, Indiana confirmed this suspicion. According to John Krakowski, Zachary Kitchen Manager, “The texture is smooth and velvety, which is a direct result of selecting and using only premium ingredients.” I concur.

The woman at the company’s headquarters with whom I spoke was very helpful and friendly, by the by, and when I offered my high praise for their product, she informed me that Zachary candy corn was awarded the 2005 BEST TASTE AWARD in a blind taste test by The American Culinary Chef’s Best. Mazel tov, I exclaimed, duly impressed. It doesn’t get too much better than that!

3rd place: FARLEY’S and SATHERS (one and the same.)

4oz bag = 59¢ or 2/$1
Despite being one-upped by Zachary, I still quite enjoy the Sathers. My very good friends and fellow cc-lovers Robert and Hurley, placed this one at the top of the list, due mainly to its creamy texture. Sathers might, however, be the ugly duckling of the group. The finish is more matte than glossy and the kernels tend to be misshapen. But unless you’re using the corn in a creation of some sort of macaroni/candy corn fall harvest mosaic, this hardly matters. The gluttony-eschewing side of me appreciates that Sathers is made available in this smaller quantity, preventing me from polishing off an entire 11 oz bag in one sitting. In weak and dark moments, this has, in fact, been done.

4th place: BRACH’S.
10.5 oz bag = $1.39 (purchased on sale at Walgreen’s for $1)

I wouldn’t turn my nose up at a bowl of Brach’s corn, but it does seem a bit grittier and less mallow-textured than the above contenders. These are perhaps the most handsome kernels, and due to their detectably larger size, they win first prize in the category of “best candy-fang.”

5th place: JELLY BELLY
Bulk candy bin = $6.99/lb

One would think that the pioneer of the group would have fared a little bit better in the tasting. I, for one, have never been particularly impressed with the Jelly Belly candy corn. I buy it only because it is available in the bulk bins at my neighborhood grocery store, so now and again I’ll purchase a couple-few for a quick fix. Only when I sampled it next to the others did I realize that it is a noticeably inferior kernel. It is waxy and possesses a synthetic texture, providing none of the buttery smoothness of its superiors. Like I said, candy corn is NOT candy corn. And, as I also mentioned, Jelly Belly does not even bother to use honey. Yes, it is the cutest and shiniest and if it weren’t for the fact that it is priced at $6.99/lb(!), I would just hush-up and let them be. But goddamn! It is 400% more expensive than Zachary, Target and Brach’s. This is highway robbery – a veritable crime of confection. Who do they think they are? Added to my already negative Ronald Reagan association with Jelly Belly (not their fault, really), I walked away from this last-place finisher with a bitter taste in my mouth.

Mercifully, I still have approximately 37 ounces of the other 4 brands leftover in order to wash away the bitterness.