Candy - The Treats We All Know and Love

What a delight to a child - you're own little package of paradise!  You could gobble it up all at once, or slowly savor each individual piece.  I hardly eat candy these days.  But while traveling, I alternate between a Payday candy bar or a Snickers - you can't give up all pleasures!

Penny Candy and Jawbreakers - usually for a penny or two cents and procured at the Sullivan Grocery Store in the old community of Reinhardt on East Zacha Drive by the railroad tracks

Peanut Butter Wafers - Halloween-ized candy bars

Junior Mints - miniature chocolate covered mint patties

Fire Stix - a hot cinnamon taffy stick

Boston Baked Beans - I liked them, can't identify the flavor

Payday - nougat bar covered with peanuts created in 1932

Horehound Candy and Rock Candy - seemed like candy from the distant past

Hot Tamales - cinnamon flavored

Raisinettes - chocolate covered raisins that were always eaten at the movie house

Little Wax Bottles - filled with syrup

Root Beer Barrels - shaped like a barrel of root beer

Jordan Almonds - almonds covered with pastel covered sugar coatings

Whitman Sampler - for my mother, but sometimes Russell Stover and Pangburns with women in revealing cowgirl outfits

Necco Wafers - nickle size wafers which melt in your mouth; assorted flavors included orange, lemon, clove, chocolate, cinnamon, licorice and wintergreen.  They were introduced in 1912, but had been previously manufactured as Peerless Wafers.  The wafers were quickly recognized as quick sources of energy by explorers like Donald MacMillan and Richard Byrn, who took them along on trips to the Arctic and the South Pole.  Byrd took along two and a half tons.

Slo Pokes - soft, easy to chew chocolate caramel candy on a stick.  Introduced in 1926 by the F. Hollman and Company, Slo Poke was a favorite for kids because it seemed as if that vanilla-flavored caramel sucker lasted all day.

Zero - sold frozen at the Garland Community Pool.  The Hollywood Candy Company created the double milkshake candy bar combining a chocolate flavored nougat, caramel and milk chocolate covering.  Another early bar had a white chocolate covering.  Originally known as a Double Zero bar, sometime after 1934 the name was changed to Zero.

 

Fleer Dubble Bubble Gum - with a fold up comic of Bazooka Joe and his gang

Bubble Gum Cigars and Cigarettes

Zagnut

Red Hots - small round cinnamon candies

Jujubes - multi-flavored, colored gelatin candy

Jujyfruits - first appeared on the market in 1920.  Each box contained an assortment of fruit-shaped and fruit-flavored candy pieces.  Jujube is an edible berry that grows in tropical climates.

Malted Milk Balls - a movie house favorite

Fizzies - the big treat was putting them in your mouth instead of a glass of water

Charm's Candy Squares - early predecessor of Jolly Ranchers

Sugar Daddy Suckers - another candy on a stick, like Slo Pokes

Tootsie Rolls - go back to 1896 when Leo Hirschfield opened a candy store in New York City.  They were sold for a penny and were named after his daughter, Clara, whom he called Tootsie.  He brought the recipe over from England:  round, chewy and chocolatey.  It is one of our nation's oldest candy bars.  During World War II, Tootsie Rolls were favored by soldiers because they could be kept in pockets and barrack bags and didn't melt.  They were also a source of quick energy.

Oh Henry

Reeses Peanut Butter Cup - 1923 - H.B. Reese was an employee of Milton J. Hershey for a number of years.  In 1923 he opened a factory which combined a winning combination of milk chocolate and peanut butter.

Reeses Pieces - 1978 - used to make the trail that the lovable space creature followed in the movie "E.T."

The Atomic Fireball - 1954

Starburst - originally called Opal Fruits 1960

Pixi Stix - flavored Kool-Aid like powder inside a straw

Moon Pies

Cherry Sours

Cracker Jacks - popcorn, peanuts, candy-coated snacks with a big surprise in every pack;

"So crack a pack of Cracker Jacks, you're bound to crap a pile!"

Hershey Chocolate Bars - the gold standard.  They could always be broken up into squares which helped when you had to share with your sister.  I always preferred Hersheys with almonds with no squares to divide.  Appearing in 1894,  Milton S. Hershey was impressed by the chocolate-making machinery from Germany he saw at the World's Colombian Exposition in 1893.

Licorice - I always received a box of assorted licorice every Christmas from my uncle who worked for the National Licorice Company.  I learned early the "sophisticated" candy terms.  The box included licorice pastilles, black licorice and a crunchy candy coating, cut-up twisted licorice sticks (both red and black), licorice nonpareils - licorice covered in small balls of sugary coating, licorice petite fours, and a variety of colorful fruit and coconut pastels with a sweet licorice center.  And of course, black Jelly Beans.  You could also get red and black licorice whips as well as red licorice Twizzlers.

Chuckles - jellied fruit-flavored pieces covered in sugar, 10 to a package - easy to share.  They came out in 1921, and their logo, Mr. Peanut, came out in 1916 from a contest among high school students featuring a peanut figure with a top hat, cane and umbrella.

Mallo Cups - not in our candy tradition in Texas, but important when I married into the Lyons family.  They contained whipped marshmallow and coconut coated with chocolate.  Two cups were included in each package.

Cherry Mash - since 1918;  made from mashed maraschino cherries with a creamy center rolled in ground peanuts and covered in milk chocolate.  The Chase Company marketed the first candy bar to be made west of the Mississippi.  Originally named Cherry Chase, it consisted of a quarter-pound mound of chopped peanuts and chocolate with a center of cherry fondant.

Peanut Butter Sticks - seven layers of creamy peanut butter and crunchy candy.

Sugar Wafers - a mix between a ? ? and a wafer cookie.  Filled with a layer of vanilla marshmallow, sometimes covered in chocolate.

Gum Drops - jellied fruit covered in sugar.

Hershey Kisses - introduced in 1907.  The Kisses were wrapped but the identification plumes? were not introduced until 1921.

The Milk Chocolate Bar and Almond Bar - sold for a nickle until November of 1969 when raw material costs and overhead necessitated a change in price.

Mr. Goodbar - appeared in 1925.  A Hershey product with a different texture - chocolate embedded with peanuts.

Krackel - 1938 - combined crisped rice with milk chocolate - made by Hershey

Kit Kat - was imported from Europe in 1970 and first introduced in the U.S. in 1973.

Baby Ruth - First appeared in 1920.  Was made of a chewy caramel center and peanuts, all covered with chocolate.  Became a hit as a five cent bar.  Made by the Curtiss Candy Company which started in 1916 in Chicago.  Chances are, the Baby Ruth bar wasn't named after the baseball player Babe Ruth.  The commonly accepted story is it was named in honor of a daughter of former President Grover Cleveland.  Ruth Cleveland had been the pet of the nation when she was an infant.

Butterfinger - Came in 1923.  The bar featured a chocolate-covered honeycombed peanut bar.

Mounds Bar - Peter Paul Halajian, already a candy maker, decided to form a larger company.  So he did in 1919 with 5 friends: Kazanjian, Shamlian, Hagopian, Kazanjian and Chonlijian, to form Petal Paul Candies. The Mounds Bar was introduced in 1922 consisting of coconut and bittersweet (now called dark) chocolate.  During the Depression, two bars were put together in a package, still selling for a nickel.

Almond Joy - Produced by Peter Paul Candies.  Featured roasted almonds added to a coconut center, then covered with milk chocolate.  Introduced in 1948 for ten cents due to the cost of ingredients after World War II.

Clark Bar - D.L. Clark Company introduced the Clark Bar in 1917.  Featured honeycombed ground roasted peanuts covered with milk chocolate.

Halloween "Holy Grail" - consisted of receiving small candy bars - Baby Ruth, Butterfinger, Krackel, Mr. Goodbar, Mounds and Almond Joy.

Heath's English Toffee Bar - Developed in 1926 by a retired Illinois school teacher.  Four years later, L.S. Heath tried out his formula on a huge? scale.  The Heath Bar, toffee covered with milk chocolate, was introduced to the national market in 1932.  Most candy companies were producing a four-once bar which sold for a nickel each.  The Heath Bar weighed only one ounce.  Sales rose until it became one of the best selling candies in the country.

Snickers - The number one candy bar for all Americans, Snickers consists of peanuts in caramel on top of peanut butter nougat, all covered with milk chocolate.  When the bar first appeared in 1920 it didn't have a chocolate covering and was called a Mar-O-Bar.  In 1930, the chocolate-covered Snickers bar was born.  Snickers leads all candy bars in nationwide sales.  Here's one bar that can truly claim to be called the Great American Candy Bar!

3 Musketeers - Alenandre Dumas' best-known novel "The Three Musketeers" appeared in 1844.  About a hundred years later, in 1932, the Mars Company began the manufacture of a new candy bar bearing the name of Dumas's novel, where the numeral 3 was used, instead of spelling it out.  The bar caused quite a stir in the 1930's because it actually consisted of three bars in one wrapper for just a nickel.  Each of the three was covered in milk chocolate.  The interior of one was a fluffy vanilla nougat, the second a fluffy chocolate nougat and the third a strawberry-flavored nougat.  Today its an elongated single bar with the center of fluffy chocolate nougat.

Milk Duds - Introduced in 1926 by F. Hoffman and Company who was taken over by Milton J. Holloway, the creator of Holloway's Milk Duds.  Milk Duds were small, marble-sized vanilla-flavored chewy caramels covered with milk chocolate.

Milky Way - Frank L. Mars introduced the Milky Way bar in 1923.  This bar featured a chocolate-flavored nougat, topped with caramel and covered with chocolate.

M&Ms - Forest E. Mars Jr., son of Frank L. Mars, founded M&M Limited in Newark, New Jersey.  M&M Plain Chocolate Candies were introduced in 1941.  Forrest's business partner was Bruce Murrie, and the name M&M's was derived from the joining of Mars and Murrie.  American servicemen in World War II also liked this new candy treat because it could withstand extremes in climate because of its unique sugar-coated shell.  In 1954 M&M Peanut Chocolate Candies were introduced.  The advertising slogan "The milk chocolate melts in your mouth, not in your hand" has become one of the classic slogans of comic lore.

Mars Bar - Introduced in 1936 as the  Mars Almond Bar.  The vanilla-flavored nougat was topped with whole roasted almonds and then covered with a thick milk chocolate.

Nestle Crunch - The Nestle milk chocolate bar was introduced in the United States in 1919.  The Nestle Crunch bar was introduced in 1938.  Crisped rice mixed with milk chocolate made for a delicious crunchy bar.

Life Savers - Clarence A. Crane was a small manufacturer of chocolate candies in Cleveland, Ohio in 1912.  Because chocolate sales dropped off in warm weather, Crane developed ?? He didn't have space in the factory, so he used a pill? manufacture to press the mints into shape.  The machine was malfunctioning and the pressing process worked much better when the hard mints were stamped out with a hole in the middle.  Edward J. Noble, an advertising salesman, bought the formula for Live Savers from Crane for $2,900.  The mints became officially known as Pep-O-Mint Life Savers.  Noble ran into trouble immediately.  Within a week's time the mints became stale and flavorless, the old-fashioned cardboard packaging absorbed the peppermint flavor.  He derived a tin-foil wrapping to seal in the mint flavor.  He also had the candy placed, with a price card on it, near the cash register.  He then requested that the cashier make sure that each customer, regardless of what he or she bought, got a nickel in change being returned.  In 1920, five flavors of Life Savers were available.  Other flavors were developed - Butter-Rum and Wint-O-Green when chewed in the dark is said to throw off sparks.

Bit-O-Honey - Appeared in 1924.  Bit-O-Honey was a new kind of bar.  It consisted of six pieces of candy wrapped in waxed paper and then packaged in a wrapper.  Almond bits embedded in a honey-flavored taffy made for long-chewing candy.

Chunky - Came out in the mid-1930's.  Confectioner Philip Silverstein named the candy after his granddaughter who at the time was a "chunky" baby.  It contained Brazil nuts, cashews, raisins and chocolate, and came in a thick almost square shape (actually a truncated pyramid).

Planter's Peanuts - Amadeo Obici came to America from Italy at the age of eleven.  As a young adult he operated a peanut stand and in 1906 incorporated the Planter's Nut and Chocolate Factory.

Chick-O-Stick - Came out in 1938 from the Atkinson Candy Company in Lufkin, Texas.  It is a honeycombed candy filled with peanut butter in toasted coconut.  When originally introduced, it was called Chicken Bone.  The name was changed to Chick-O-Stick in 1955 when interstate shipments began.

Candy History Source:

The Great American Candy Bar Book

Ray Brockel, Houghton Mifflin Co.

Boston 1982