Jimmies

WBZ's Jordan Rich talks with Susan Mara Bregman, author of "New England Sweets: Doughnuts, Bonbons & Whoopie Pies," about the origin of "jimmies." 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Welcome to another edition of Connosser's Corner Jr. Here New
England Sweets, Donuts, Bond Bonds and Whoope Pies. There's a
book we've been focusing now on several episodes. The author
is a good friend of mine, Susan Mara Bregman, and
around these parts we refer to chocolate sprinkles as Jimmy's,
and Susan's got the story behind the story.

Speaker 2 (00:21):
So sprinkles, as we know, are just little pieces of
candy that you sprinkle all over ice cream. The most
common types are the multicolored ones, and they're often called
rainbow sprinkles and chocolate sprinkles. But in New England, of course,
chocolate sprinkles are called Jimmy's. No one really knows why.

Speaker 3 (00:37):
Some people think it's just the word like jim jam
which means, you know, like a little knickknack or something.
But there's a company in Brooklyn.

Speaker 2 (00:46):
There's a company that was in Brooklyn called the Just
Born Company, and today they're known for peeps and Mike
and Ike candies, but back in the day they also
made chocolate sprinkles. They claim to have come up with
the name Jimmy's and they claim that they named them
Jimmy's because the man who ran the sprinkle machine was

(01:06):
named James Bartholomew. So that's the official story from the
Just Born company, but a lot of people in Boston
somehow associate Jimmy's with the Jimmy Fund. But honestly, the
timing doesn't really work, and I think it probably was
the Brooklyn story that is true.

Speaker 1 (01:24):
Susan Mara Bregman, author of her new book New England
Sweets More. Coming up with Susan on Connoisseur's Corner w Z,
Boston's news radio