The Origin of Candy Corn

For about a week now the kids have been asking me to buy candy corn. I don’t think they even like candy corn. Does anyone like candy corn? But just as the Christmas season wouldn’t be the same without those mysterious fruitcakes, Halloween isn’t complete without the familiar white, yellow and orange candies.

The kids’ request got me thinking about the origin of candy corn. Candy corn just kind of appears every October. I have no idea where candy corn comes from and honestly, I don’t have the time or the inclination to research the matter. But if I had to guess, I’d say the following is probably as accurate an account as any.

As I ponder the origin of this sugary conundrum, my musings drift to the whimsical world of gummy candy. Just as candy corn materializes in October, the allure of gummy bears, worms, and assorted delights in gummy candy bulk seems to be a seasonal riddle in itself. The whimsy of Halloween wouldn’t be complete without the inclusion of gummies, adding another layer of sweetness to the festive tapestry of treats that captivate our taste buds during this spooktacular season.

Many, many years ago, there lived a farmer, Jack O’Lantern. Jack and his wife, Janice, had a son, Jack Jr. In many ways, Mr. and Mrs. O’Lantern were typical parents but they had one fairly onerous rule that caused young Jack quite a bit of angst. Mr. and Mrs. O’Lantern absolutely forbade Jack Jr. from eating sweets. From day one, Jack Jr. was on a strict whole grain, organic, sugar-free diet . . . or so they thought.

In reality, Jack Jr. had a sweet tooth of epic proportion. Pretty much the only things he liked to eat were sweets. You see the problem. While Mr. and Mrs. O’Lantern spent much of their energy making sure Jack Jr. had healthy, nutritious foods to eat, Jack Jr. spent an equal amount of energy tricking his parents into believing he was eating the nutritious foods while instead subsisting on a diet of sugar.

Well, despite his terrible sweet tooth and his childhood of deception, Jack Jr. grew into a young man and became a farmer like his parents. Jack Jr. had some pretty odd habits. While most farmers, including his parents, worked from sunup to sundown, Jack Jr. worked from sundown to sunup. The reason for his unusual schedule was simple. Under the cover of darkness, Jack Jr. could consume all the sugar he wanted in secrecy. Every night he would plow field after field while eating enough sugar to put a less conditioned man into a diabetic coma.

Jack Jr. had a fairly unique way of lighting his way in the dark. Flashlights hadn’t yet been invented but one of his parents’ more plentiful crops was pumpkins. Jack Jr. came up with the brilliant idea of carving out a pumpkin and putting a candle inside. Because he secretly harbored a vendetta against his parents for the whole sugar deprivation thing, he carved his parents’ faces into the pumpkins. Being of simple mind, having stunted his mental growth with sugar, Jack Jr. thought it was just hilarious to be eating all his sugar treats in front of his pumpkin parents while his real parents remained ignorant!

Jack Jr. carried all his treats around in a sack which he stashed away in a secret compartment in his tractor. It was the perfect set-up . . . until one lonely dark night, which was probably the eve of October 31.

As Jack Jr. was plowing his corn field and munching on candy bars, taffy, tootsie rolls, lollipops and gum, he heard a scary voice above the wind. It muttered: “Jack Jack, go back to the barn; you’re in the field of a haunted farm. Go to bed and heed my warning. Don’t come back ‘til tomorrow morning.”

“That was a little odd.” Jack Jr. observed. He listened for more but heard nothing. Not being the sharpest tack in the box, particularly after depriving his body of healthy, nutritious foods his entire life, he did the only thing he could think to do. He downed a gallon of soda, ate some Smarties and kept on plowing.

A little while later, he heard the voice again: “Jack, Jack, turn around. Take your tractor back to town. Leave right now and stay away. Come on back another day.” Well, by now Jack was getting a little anxious. To calm his nerves he ate an extra big handful of M&Ms and washed them down with some Coke. Refreshed, he continued plowing.

A little while later, the wind began to pick up. Jack looked up at the sky to find it colored with weird streaks of orange and yellow and white. He shivered as he listened to what he suspected just might be his final warning: “Jack, Jack, it’s too late now. Turn off the tractor and stop the plow. The candy ghosts are everywhere.  On the ground and in the air.”

Things were not looking good for our friend Jack. He climbed off the tractor and called to the candy ghosts, begging them to leave him alone. He couldn’t for the life of him figure out why the candy ghosts wanted him to leave the field half plowed and why they were so determined to bother him. But then, Jack was admittedly not dealing with a full deck. Finally, after enduring much wind and eerie sounds, it hit him. The candy ghosts didn’t want him, they wanted his sugar stash.

With great reluctance, Jack Jr. took out his sack of candy, sugar drinks and other sweets and held it out as a peace offering to the ghosts. Within seconds the candy ghosts whisked the sack from Jack’s outstretched hands. As bolts of lighting struck the corn field all around him, Jack Jr. ran. He didn’t know exactly why he was running, but he had seen enough scary movies to understand that running was what the situation required.

Jack woke up the next morning lying face up in the middle of the corn field. The first thing he saw when his eyes adjusted to the daylight was the faces of his very unhappy parents. The field was not plowed, the tractor was covered with soda and candy wrappers littered the field.  “The ghosts,” Jack muttered. To his dismay, Jack realized that the candy ghosts were not nearly as discrete as he. They had completely blown his cover.

His mother started yelling about how sugar leads to obesity, his dad started yelling about the effect of sugar on tooth enamel, and Jack just sat there wishing for a juice box and a frosted Pop Tart. All at once, the three of them stopped short. The corn that had been in the field just yesterday did not look like normal corn any more. It was now very unnaturally colored white, yellow and orange and the kernels were shaped like pre-manufactured pyramids. They tasted the mutated corn, not even considering that it might be poisonous, and realized that what had once been a healthy nutritious vegetable were now little blobs of sugar, wax and preservatives.

Jack’s parents were horrified of course but Jack was ecstatic. He went on to market the mysterious crop and make so much money that his parents were no longer concerned about Jack’s weight and teeth. They were too busy managing their investments and going on extravagant cruises. Every year, the O’Lantern family planted regular corn in their field and every year around Halloween, in exchange for a huge sackful of sugar treats, the candy ghosts would turn the corn into the more festive and holiday-appropriate candied version.

Jack and his parents are no longer with us but the field is now owned by a prominent candy company which still uses the O’Lantern’s foolproof methods of corn transformation. I’ve heard that if you stroll the fields on the evening of October 31, you might be so lucky as to hear the spooky chanting of the candy ghosts: “Jack, Jack, you lucky guy. Candy came down from the sky. White, yellow, orange are quite dandy. When your corn turns into candy.”