It’s actually Halloween, and Tanner and Jerry Agar are in full costume (Frankenstein and Little Bo Peep, for those listening on the radio) to dig into how Halloween, and its candy, went from homemade to store-bought.
Tanner opens with the Stone Fence, an 1862 Jerry Thomas cocktail of rye, hard apple cider and bitters. Then we trace trick-or-treating from Celtic roots to popcorn balls to the 1954 Milky Way ad that made Halloween a candy holiday, and where the poisoned-candy panic really came from.
Does candy taste worse than when you were a kid? Tanner gives four reasons it might: changing recipes, shrinking sizes, your own taste buds, and nostalgia. Plus the Canadian origin of Sour Patch Kids and the science of why sour candy hurts so good.
To close, Tanner takes on the candies still made exactly like they used to be, from candy corn to circus peanuts, and how a chef would save them. (Mostly by melting them down. Except one: the wax bottles, which are beyond saving.)
Happy Halloween. Don’t be the house that gives out raisins.
Halloween Isn’t What It Used to Be
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