April 13, 2026 • 52 mins
This wide category of chewy candies comes in all kinds of flavors and shapes, and can get their bounce from a bunch of different ingredients. Anney and Lauren dig into the history and science behind gummy candies, from baby to bear to bean and beyond.
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
Hello, and welcome to Saber production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
I'm Annie Ree and I'm Lauren Vogelbaum, and today we
have an episode for you about gummy candy.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
Yes, was there any particular reasons? Was on your mind? Lauren?
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Yeah, we just had the Easter holiday. I guess everywhere
that celebrates that. Sure, I was gonna say in the
United States, but it's more, it's more than just here. Yeah,
and uh yeah, here in the US. It does mean
that a lot of kids got Easter baskets with a
(00:45):
lot of candy in them, including maybe not a lot
of maybe maybe not like heavy gummy presence, but probably jellybeans.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
Mm.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
And as I was looking at jellybean for I don't know,
probably the ninth time in the nine years that we've
been doing this, to try to see if we could
get an episode out of it, I was like, probably not,
But what about gummy candy as a whole? And so
here we are.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
Here we are, and it is a wide ranging topic.
There were a lot of ways, a lot of roads
we could have traveled.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
Oh yeah, and a lot of side quests for the future, yes,
including jelly beans.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
I really didn't go too much into them. But yeah,
I don't know if it would be a full of
so but maybe maybe.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
A mini yeah, yeah, sure. There's a lot of little
things like, especially with like confections and yeah, and different
types of cake or cookie that like, right, like don't
really warrant their own like I mean, I mean, I
guess we could talk for half an hour about them,
but how much would it be about that? And how
much would it be I don't know my strong opinions.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
Yeah probably but yeah yeah, well yeah sure, sure we'll
figure it out. We will. And speaking of strong opinions,
yull me candies. Yeah, I wrote in this outline and
I forgot I did my enemies yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
Uh huh, those are the words I'm looking at right now. Nope,
So is this like tooth related or do you just
generally hate gummies? Like on an existential level.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
You know, I have noticed lately because I've been taking
like vitamin gummies that there is a tooth issue. But no,
this is my cheating category. I often say there are
five foods I don't like, but one of them is
a huge, huge cheat and it's that I don't like
artificial fruit flavors.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
I just really don't oh right, right, right, Okay, sure, some.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
Of them I can like, I can hang with, but
it would never be the thing I chose. Like if
I was in an easter bastic situation, I'd be miserable
if it was just gummy candy. Yeah, my friends used
to tell me I got gummy tummy, Gummy tummy, gummy tummy. Yeah,
(03:19):
this just said it made me really grumpy. And I
don't know, I don't know if there's any truth to that,
but I don't seek them out.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
Okay, I'll say that's fair. I love a gummy. I
love chewy, textured things in general, and so so it's
it's a textured thing more so than a flavor thing.
But I do really like the flavor of some particular gummies.
My favorites are like whatever they use for like artificial pineapple.
(03:50):
That's delicious, and it might be pineapple juice and I
might be like slowly poisoning myself a tiny bit every
time I consume it. But the other is those a
little red and blackberries with the little kind of crunchies
on the outside. Oh my goodness. I'll say that this
was a less cravingy episode than I usually have. I
(04:15):
guess I'm I guess yeah, like sugar, I'm kind of
going like, yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
Yeah, you know, there's a time and place, yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
Yeah, and this and certain yeah and certainly types of
I mean, I don't know that hollow hollow episode.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
Yeah, I mean I did. As much as I'm complaining,
I did. I would throw it down with twist and
fills back in the day. And I don't know what
it was about twist and fills that I was cool with,
but hoo if I did love those. And I have
a friend who's like, you know, remember those like candy
places you could go in you just get the like
(04:53):
shovel and scoop, yeah, into the bag.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
Oh yeah, the bulk mix. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
Oh. She like every type of gummy candy you imagine.
But she was a really big fan of peach rings,
and I was disappointed I couldn't find as much history
as I thought I could on peach strings because I
know that it's not just her, they're pretty popular.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
Yeah yeah, yeah, I didn't try looking into that one
in particular, either. But right now, the one of the
movie theaters near me when I was a kid had
a candy place with Ben Candy, and that was one
of my favorite, like go to the movies, like get
your little bag of candy and then go in it
was it was really cool.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
Those were exciting times as a kid. Yes, well, you
can see the past episode we did on Locum or
Turkish Delight.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
Sure also related jello aspects. I guess Karen jenin marshmallows,
licorice kind of sort of glutenous rice.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
Yeah, well, I guess that brings us to a question. Sure,
gummy candies what are they?
Speaker 2 (06:13):
Well, gummy or jelly candies can look like a lot
of things. Literally, they're molded into different shapes. Gummy candies
are candies made from some kind of flavored sweetened gel
that will hold a molded shape and be like relatively
shelf stable at room temperature, but will start melting or
(06:33):
dissolving in your mouth. They're typically small, bite sized because
they are on the spectrum of chewy. In fact that
the gelling agent used will depend on what texture you're
going for in the final product, because gummies can really
range from very tender to kind of sticky to sort
of bouncy to like kind of firmly elastic. The softer
(06:56):
types especially may be coated in some kind of like
fine rain sugar or like a candy shell, to prevent
the pieces from sticking to each other, and or to
provide like textural interest. In the case of the aforementioned
jelly beans, they also get coated in chocolate sometimes. Sure,
this is a category that encompasses just a lot of things, right,
(07:17):
like everything from gummy bears and jelly babies to gum
drops and fruit slices to wine gems to jelly beans.
The flavorings are usually fruit based, but can be like
herb or spice flavored as well, like like a cola
flavored or licorice flavored. Yeah, they can be either opaque
(07:38):
or translucent. They're often brightly colored either way, and they
can be and are molded into pretty much any shape
you want, from soda bottles to sea creatures to burgers
to brains. Good gummy candies are just really bright, little
chewy delights, just little bursts of flavor. They are, in
(08:01):
my opinion anyway, just such a delightful way of making
something that is beautiful and chewy like fruit, but way
less good for you.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
I can see the appeal.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
If you didn't hate the flavors, it would probably help.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
There's probably one out there for me, I just have it.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
Sure, there you go, there you go, all right. So,
as we discussed in our Turkish Delight or Locome episode,
gummy type candies work by figuring out how to make
sugar chewy and moldable to different degrees than just sugar
plus water can achieve on its own through the use
(08:47):
of gelling agents, and there are several different ingredients you
can use to make a gummy. They basically all work
because they consist of these like friendly molecules that'll get
all like slippy bloopy when you heat them up, that
is the science term. But then as they cool down again,
they're so willing to bond up into like a complex
(09:08):
scaffolding with each other and also to form bonds with
water and like hug it into that structure. Molecularly speaking, yeah,
this also means that anything that's water soluble, like sweeteners
and flavorings and colorings can come along for the ride.
When gummies are cooled completely to room temperature, that they'll
(09:31):
have formed up into the shape of whatever you set
them in, so you can make like kind of detailed
molds and wind up with the candy of that shape.
Different gelling agents will do this at different temperatures and
will firm up two different levels of chew. The traditional
gummy gelling agent is gelatin, which is a type of
animal protein made up of these long chains of amino acids.
(09:53):
Gelatin gels up real firm and bouncy, but will melt
in your mouth or pocket or glove compartment. You know,
is why you wind up with some kind of like
Akira gummy if you leave a packet in a car
on the hot day. Anyway, Yeah, this is what standard
like gummy bears and wine gums are made of. If
you want to avoid using animal proteins or you're just
(10:14):
looking for a different texture, there are a number of
plant based sugars and starches that will also form edible gels.
They all really deserve their own episodes, but in brief
and like narrowing in on what we're trying to talk
about today. Okay, you've got corn starch made from corn,
perhaps obviously, which will often form a slightly softer and
(10:37):
stickier gel, think of like gum drops or Swedish fish.
There's pectin which you can get from a lot of
different plants which forms up like tender and not super sticky.
Think of the filling of jelly beans or of like
sunkissed fruit gems if you're familiar with those. Pectin has
really great flavor release properties, like you get a really
(10:59):
flavorful bite with it. Then there's aggar. I just looked
up how to say this, and I'm dubious. I don't
know it. It's derived from seaweed. It's usually used so
that it sets up like very soft and tender, think
of a fruit slices. Yeah, and those are the common ones. Others, though,
(11:23):
like guar gum or caroa genin or tappyoka or potato
starch can be used too. Some chewy candies like licorice
use wheat flour as a gelling starch. But I wouldn't
really categorize those as like a gummy. I don't know.
It just seems like the texture is different. But you
do you you write in let me know. Many manufacturers
(11:46):
will use a combination of these agents to achieve a
particular feel, either like throughout the gummy or sometimes in
different layers in the gummy. However, gelling agents are not
the entire textural picture here, because sugar is complicated enough
that the forms of it you use and in what
(12:08):
ratios will really affect the viscosity and the moisture content
of the gummy goop batter. Sure, yeah, yeah, goop, Let's
go with goop, and both of those affect the final
texture of the candy right, And you can see our
sugar episodes for a little bit more on this, But
(12:28):
like very basically, the white table sugar that we most
commonly encounter is a molecule called sucrose, made up of
fructose and glucose. Sucrose is fairly easy to manufacture from
stuff like sugarcane and sugar beets, but it also really
likes being a crystal, which just makes it tricky to
work with in candy making because, like, if you stir
(12:49):
it wrong as it's melting, you can wind up with
a with a grainy mess instead of a smooth melt.
To help stabilize it, you can add things like invert sugar,
which is basically like free range fructose in glucose not
not in crystal form, or starch derived syrups like corn
(13:10):
syrup or confectioner's glucose, both of which are really happy
being a liquid. These will all lend different textures depending
on their own formulation. Like, these are not single products
so but like generally the syrups set up a little
firmer invert sugar makes a little bit of a softer gel.
(13:31):
It can depend. Also, Gummies can be made partially or
entirely with sugar substitutes, either for low sugar diets or
for products like like gummy vitamins that are supposed to
be like less of a treat and more of a
nutritional supplement. Yeah. After that, the flavorings can include any
(13:51):
number of natural or artificial flavors up to an including
actual fruit juice concentrate, I don't know. Most mixes will
involve a little bit of citric acid to balance the
sweetness of the candy with a bit of tart. Also,
pecked in particular needs acid to gel up, so that's
(14:12):
a whole thing. In a factory, gummy candies are made
very basically like so okay, You prep and measure and
mix the ingredients, heating to dissolve the sugar and the
gelling agent. Then you cook the goop to whatever temperature
required for the gelling agent, then cool it to a
temperature where it's still pourrible. Your goop is then fed
(14:36):
into a dispenser that can measure it into molds. The
molds can be made of different materials. The classic is
a bed of corn starch that's pressed into shape for
every batch and will leave the top side flat. But yeah,
whatever the mold looks like. The filled molds are then
allowed to cool and set, after which the candies can
be turned out and packaged.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
Yes, and in all kinds of shapes. They come, as
you said.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
Laura, Oh my goodness. If you have a favorite one, oh,
please let us know. I have very strong opinions about this.
As a kid today today, I think I'm, you know,
just a good just a simple bear. Simple bear will
suffice a simple bear.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
That's all. That's all you need. You know. What about
the nutrition?
Speaker 2 (15:30):
Oh treats her nice, treats her nice?
Speaker 1 (15:34):
I do, I do want to.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
I felt obligated to put in here a note about
gummy supplements because they are a huge category. Now, okay, like, like,
whenever possible, do try to get your micronutrients from food.
And I say that because like, exactly how effective any
supplement is is going to depend on the nutrients in
(15:58):
question that you're trying to get, and also how the
supplement was made. Also, I feel obligated to say here that,
like generally speaking, like you should not base your nutritional
decisions on something that a celebrity is being paid to
tell you. I feel like everyone here knows that, But
I'm saying that in lieu of reporting on any of
(16:21):
the very upsetting things that I read about celebrity gummy supplements.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
That being said though, I mean, you know, like like
if you or a kid who you're in charge of,
simply will not eat a piece of fruit, yeah, grab
a VITAM and C supplement in gummy form. If that's
what works. You know, like you got to meet people
where they are and prevents and prevents gurvy.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
So long been a historical problem. M m hm m hm. Well,
we do have some numbers for you, we do, okay.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
So I read that the global market for gummy candy
is worth about twenty one billion dollars a year.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
Yeah, I mean that's a lot.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
Again, it's a large category. And also we do have
the supplement thing happening now. So I found a number
of world records. There is a Guinness record for the
greatest distance a gummy candy has flown before a person
has caught it in their mouth.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
Well, okay, so this was achieved in twenty twenty three
by a couple of Harvard students. Their record was one
hundred and seventy seven feet, which is fifty four meters,
and the thrower in in question used a catapult, which
is why I didn't say thrown.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
I'm glad this's worked out. Again. I have so many
final destinations thoughts happening.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
Yeah for good for them, Good for them.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
Yeah, I gave them two thumbs up listeners, you can
see it. Glad it worked out.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
There's also a Guinness record for the largest gummy candy mosaic,
which was achieved in twenty twenty four by Harribo. I
think that they're different pronunciations for that large gummy producer
in English and German, which is horrifying, but that's okay.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:49):
They constructed the art work out of about one hundred
and fifty thousand gummy bears for a total size of
three hundred and fifty three square feet, which is about
thirty three square meters.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
Now I'm realizing that I might have a stickiness aversion
as well.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
Oh yeah, okay, okay, the I cannot help you there,
but the mosaic depicted the Horbo gold Bear mascot, which
is like a yellow bear with a rednecker chief, and
(19:34):
he was on a field of red, orange and green.
I just made assumptions about the bear's gender. Apologies to
the bear. Yes for us, you can be whatever you
want to be, buddy. Yeah, yeah, I'm not here to
hold you back. There's also a Guinness record for the
(19:56):
largest gummy bear. This was achieved in twenty twenty three
by Netherlands based gummy manufacturing equipment manufacturer. Okay, not an
actual producer of gummy bears, but producer of the gummy
manufacturing equipment. All right. The bear in question was eight
feet tall by six and a half feet wide and
(20:19):
three feet deep. All right, that's two and a half
by two by one meters. It weighed three eight hundred
and ten pounds, which is one thousand, seven hundred and
twenty eight kilos, and that is horrifying. This is a
(20:42):
coffin sized gummy bear. I don't I don't know why.
Coffin sized is where my brain immediately went.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
Again, if you somehow got stuck in their final destination rules,
yeah that's scary.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
Yeah, you know, agreed, like I mean like, and I've
lost a hand to a gelatinous cube before, you know,
like this kind of stuff happens. Oh true. Anyway, anyway,
this was their second attempt at creating the bear. The
first one did not set up properly. They weren't even
(21:23):
sure about this one. They were like, well, we're going
to give it another go. Uh yeah. But but it
did indeed set up correctly after nine days of curing.
It was like opaque orange in color and orange in flavor.
From a press release, it didn't sound like they immediately
had a plan for how to serve it to people,
(21:45):
which is part of the requirement for the record, like
it has to be consumed. You can't just make it,
so I don't know. I hope that that turned out
well for them.
Speaker 1 (22:01):
Me too, even though I'm still a little horrified by
this whole thing. I hope that it came to fruition.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
I'm not usually with you on like, especially large things
being necessarily ominous, but this one was just very ominous
to me.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
A big eight foot gum bear. Yeah, no, no thanks.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
I will say that that it that this this bear
beat out a dolphin shaped gummy by weight that had
been produced by a candy manufacturer in Iran in twenty
twenty two. The dolphin was longer, but the bear was
more massive. Makes sense, Yeah, yeah, it does, and one
(22:59):
more for you. As of the year twenty twenty three,
aforementioned major brand, Harbo, was producing over one two hundred
different types of gummy candies for markets around the world,
including over one hundred million gummy bears every day.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
My goodness me, Well, you know they are popular. I'm
the odd one out here.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
I can see. That's all right, And that's okay, that's
okay to admit.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
Yeah, sure, I'm happy for people, right, I don't want
to take it away from anybody.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
Yeah, and more for them, you know, more for them.
Speaker 1 (23:47):
And we do have we have quite a history for
you about this, We do.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
Yeah, and we are going to get into it as
soon as we get back from a quick break for
a word from.
Speaker 1 (23:56):
Our sponsors, and we're back. Thank you, sponsor, Yes, thank you. Okay.
So I know I start pretty much every history section
this way, but it is almost always true. Tracing the
(24:20):
history of gummy candy is tricky, and people disagree on
what qualifies as an ancestor. Sure, some historians argue that
The early predecessors of gummy candies are actually jellies or jams,
which were pretty good ways to preserve fruit. Ancient Egyptians
and Romans may have made basic versions of the candies
themselves with honey and fruit juices. Centuries ago, Japanese rice candies,
(24:45):
which were these treats that were made with brown rice
salt syrup, popularized the idea of a portable jelly and
a sort of fruit jam and a more solid, transportable form,
So that was also a stepping stone, I would say.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
Yeah, yeah. Pete de fruit, which is a type of
fruit gel along the lines of like a concentrated jelly
or jam, developed through like the Middle Ages around France fish.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
Yes, and again you can see your episode. But with
the popularization and spread of the Turkish delight in the
eighteenth century, and that being a gummy, sugary, starchy sweet
often flavored with a variety of things like rose water,
that made its way along trade roots, and that also
spread the idea of these gummy candies.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
Yeah, yeah, And these predecessors relied on different gelling agents,
you know, like anything based on fruit was probably getting
a boost from naturally occurring pectin those rice candies were
made with glutinous rice, so the starch in that helped
set up the texture. Locum or Turkish Delight originally contained
wheat flour. Cornstarch came along in like the mid eighteen
(25:52):
hundreds or so, but all of these starches have like
relatively soft sets.
Speaker 1 (25:59):
Yes, yes, And then Peter Cooper often gets credit with
patenting the production of powdered gelatin in eighteen forty five,
which was a real boon for gummy candy production. It
allowed for structure that was harder to achieve previously. So
now we're going to get into kind of a hodgepodge
of some of the big.
Speaker 2 (26:21):
Names names and products.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
Yeah, yes, starting with Jellybillies, although they have an interesting
roller coaster of how they got to that name. Historians
believe that an Austrian confectioner based in England is to
thank for jelly babies. The story goes that in eighteen
sixty four, the confectioner attempted to make bear shaped gummies
(26:45):
using a mold, but the resulting treats came out looking
more like babies. Okay, and of all the names the
company he worked for could have picked for this product,
they ran with Unclaimed bab Apparently at the time this
is a name that would have amused some people by
(27:08):
the Yeah, I guess it was a part of their life,
so it didn't seem shocking. By the eighteen eighties there
were ads for jelly babies in England. The name Unclaimed
Babies had all but faded away by the nineteen twenties,
and when World War One ended they were rebranded as
(27:28):
Peace Babies, but post World War Two rationing they were
relaunched as jelly Babies. And honestly there was some company
confusion in this whole thing, but from what I understand,
they are the same product. Okay, they just went through
a lot of names and perhaps a lot of like
(27:49):
leadership during the Tom Baker era of Doctor Who the
Doctor was a big fan of jelly babies.
Speaker 2 (27:58):
Yep, that is mostly how I know what those are me.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
Too, so that's why I thought should include that. Yeah.
A British candy maker named Charles Gordon Maynard released a
line of wine gums in nineteen oh nine. At the time,
they were one of the first commercially available candies to
incorporate gelatine. Of note, they didn't actually involve wine just
sweet fruity flavors. Yeah yeah, And they came in a
(28:26):
variety of basic shapes and still do and still do.
Sometime in the nineteen thirties, the Cola gummy debuted in
the US. You know, those Coca Cola flavored bottled shaped gummies.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
Yep, yep.
Speaker 1 (28:41):
Stepping back a bit, in nineteen twenty Hans Reigel Senior,
a German purveyor of sweets, started his own venture called Haribo.
The name was a combination of his own names and
the town he was from, Bond, Germany. It was a basic,
small operation in the early day, him working out of
his kitchen with basic equipment like a stove and a kettle.
(29:05):
Eventually he hired his first employee, his wife, who primarily
delivered his sweetes via bicycle. In the beginning. At first,
Rigel specialized in hard candies, but as time passed he
started experimenting with gummy candies, something that others in his
field had already been doing. This led to the creation
of the dancing Bear gummy candy in nineteen twenty two.
(29:28):
The shape, which was bigger and slimmer than we are
accustomed to with modern gummy bears, was inspired by actual
dancing bears featured at festivals in Europe from the past,
and this practice was, to say, to say the least,
pretty abusive to bears. It involved taking bear cubs and
training them to dance under threat of pain. But that's
(29:51):
where the inspiration came from. Reigel's sons fought for the
German side in World War Two, and Regel himself died
in nineteen forty five. His wife, Gertrude took over the
business once her sons were released from being prisoners of war.
They took charge and they really grew the whole thing
pretty rapidly, especially in the aftermath of the war. Their
(30:12):
number of employees grew from about thirty right after the
war's end to about one thousand by nineteen fifty. They
were also one of the first companies to run ads
on television in Germany, and these ads helped popularize Golden Bears,
as they were called by then, and they slowly spread
across Europe, even across the Berlin Wall into East Germany. Yes,
(30:36):
and Harribo rebranded their dancing bears as gold Bears in
nineteen sixty.
Speaker 2 (30:40):
Okay, yeah, so bear abuse and Nazis in the fun
gummy candy episode. Here we are yeah.
Speaker 1 (30:49):
Ooh, you never know where it will go.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
Meanwhile, over in Sweden a candy company called Malacco Malacco,
I'm not sure how to say it right in and
let us know. They had gotten their start making licorice
candies in the nineteen thirties and sometime in the nineteen
fifties decided to develop a gummy type product, and they
(31:15):
came up with what's called over there pastel fish, a
cornstarch based fish shaped gummy in a number of colors
and flavors. It hit the American market in nineteen fifty
seven as Swedish Fish, and I need y'all to know
that the official website for Swedish Fish has a huge
(31:36):
banner running along the bottom that says the number one
fish shaped candy in all caps, just running constantly by
you and I find that important extremely charming.
Speaker 1 (31:58):
Shout your winds to the evans right.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
Find what you specialize in and celebrate yes uh. In
nineteen eighty, the first Japanese company entered the gummy game.
The large food and pharma company Meiji, released their Cola
Up gummies. That year, their popular Juicy Gummy line of
(32:24):
fruit flavored soft gummies debuted in nineteen eighty eight.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
In nineteen eighty one, Herman Golditz Candy Company became the
first to produce gummy bears in the United States. The
company later adopted the name jelly Belly. They'd already been
producing jelly beans, but they wanted to have a product
to compete with golden bears. Aw mm hmm. Around the
same time, the German company Trolley released gummy worms, then
(32:53):
called gummy Squiggles. Gummy Squiggles.
Speaker 2 (32:57):
Yeah, yeah, you guys, Gummy war are only from nineteen
eighty one.
Speaker 1 (33:03):
I know, and I'm pretty sure this is when peach
rings are from. I couldn't find definitive proof.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
Gummy worms are only from nineteen eighty one.
Speaker 1 (33:14):
We got a lot of gummy innovation in the eighties.
Speaker 2 (33:16):
I actually we Oh my goodness, we did. Uh huh, yep,
We're about to go through it all right. Yes.
Speaker 1 (33:25):
It wasn't until nineteen eighty two that Harribo made it
to the US, and at this point, yes, there was
this competition. However, Harribo was determined pushing their products in
grocery stores and other businesses, and they really did take off,
to the point that Disney aired an animated television show
called The Adventures of the Gummy Bears from nineteen eighty
(33:48):
five to nineteen ninety one, and people really do credit
the shape as a large part of their staying power,
which makes sense to me.
Speaker 2 (33:55):
Yeah, yeah, if y'all missed The Adventures of the Gum Bears, this,
like the theme song from it, is one of the
things that just lives in my head for no good reason.
Speaker 1 (34:06):
For absolutely, we can't get rid of it. It's just.
Speaker 2 (34:10):
It's nope, take it up space.
Speaker 1 (34:13):
That's where it stays.
Speaker 2 (34:14):
I don't know my own phone number sometimes, but that's
in there.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
Yes, I would love to hear you sing it later.
I'll be very frilled.
Speaker 2 (34:23):
Cool. Another American competitor, Alminisee.
Speaker 1 (34:31):
I didn't.
Speaker 2 (34:31):
I didn't look that one up at all. I'm sorry.
I feel like I'm mangling a number of proper nouns
in this episode. They got into gummies in the nineteen nineties.
Shout out to listener Sparkling Blue for bringing a whole
bunch of those into the office back in the day. Yes,
very tasty. I had never had them before. Delightful. In
the mid eighties, gummy style fruit snacks debuted in the
(34:55):
United States and fruit snacks is a different episode really,
but like I wanted to mention them here because fruit
snacks really are just gummy candies, usually cornstarch based gummies
that are marketed as like a healthy snack for kids.
I mean, they do involve a certain amount of like
fruit and or juice or are often fortified with vitamin C.
(35:19):
They'll give you a burst of energy, I guess I
you know, calories. Anyway, the earliest example of these I
could find are General Mills Fruit Wrinkles.
Speaker 1 (35:31):
Fruit wrinkles fruit.
Speaker 2 (35:32):
Wrinkles, which is just the best name for something that you
want humans to consume. I'm a paul they I think
they were meant to look like like like raisins a
little bit. Anyway. They came out in nineteen eighty six
(35:53):
on the heels of General Mills having introduced fruit roll
ups a few years prior. Uh Anyway, Shark Bites Forever,
best fruit snack, best fruit snack.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
Where do you think Gushers falls into all this?
Speaker 2 (36:14):
Counted as they're Canada, they're counted as a fruit snack,
I think, okay, yeah, okay.
Speaker 1 (36:21):
That yeah, that will have to be a separate episode
because I have more. Oh.
Speaker 2 (36:24):
Oh, I've been wanting to do a dedicated Gusher's episode. Yes, I,
and I will say that during my reading for this episode,
I've found an incredibly cursed sentence if you follow if
you follow me on Blue Sky, you've already read it. Perhaps,
(36:45):
but okay, here we are. Gushers recently dropped a limited
edition designer sneaker, available exclusively in the metaverse.
Speaker 1 (36:55):
Ooh, yeah, that's that. Feels like we're in a Blackbinger episode.
For sure. It's not good.
Speaker 2 (37:06):
Oh, I cannot wait for that Gusher's episode. But speaking
of innovation and vitamins in gummies, gummy type nutritional supplements
first appeared in the mid nineteen nineties. A couple different
companies around the world claimed to be the first right around,
(37:28):
like ninety six ninety seven. I found one in the
US and one in Germany. I didn't like dig into
the patents to call them on it today, so yeah.
Speaker 1 (37:39):
TROLYUS released a line of roadkill themed gummies in two
thousand and four. They were not well received at all,
and they were discontinued the following year after many complaints,
including one by the New Jersey Society for the Prevention
of cruelty to animals if you haven't seen them. It's
(38:01):
like a snake kind of flattened out in the middle. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (38:05):
Yeah, anyway, it's like kind of like a cute sea
little tire track. Yeah, kind of over over. Sure I
understand how that's offensive. I'm not totally sure about, like
how we have come to a divide in like eating
a representation of a worm or a bear or or
(38:29):
a living snake is fine, but the roadkill one is
line too far?
Speaker 1 (38:35):
Okay, line too far. And the the backtracking that the
like marketing did hilarious to me because they were like,
clearly this was a bad idea, we shouldn't have done it, Like, well,
who are you throwing under the bus here because it
got approved?
Speaker 2 (38:55):
Yeah, like you created a whole manufacturing line devoted to it.
Speaker 3 (38:58):
So anyway, clearly a lot about it.
Speaker 2 (39:06):
Horribo opened their first plant in the United States just
in twenty twenty three. It's at in Wisconsin. This was
a like a like a three hundred million dollar investment,
and so like, clearly the company thinks that gummy candy
is not going anywhere. And then I wanted to end
on kind of a fun science note, Okay, so as
(39:30):
of the twenty twenties, this team of researchers has been
developing a way to teach kids with vision impairment about
molecular structure through gummy candy. All right, So they mold
the shape of molecules in gummy and people can use
(39:50):
their mouths to explore how the shape works, all right,
And like in studies, participants were just as good, if
not better, remembering structures that they learned with their mouths.
Then they were at structures that they learned by touch
with their hands, and in both cases they were only
(40:14):
very slightly less adept at this task than cited participants
who were using a visual So that's wild and cool,
very cool. They also did use some like three D
printed non edible silicone models as well, which are cool
because they're like washable and reusable and they've got a
(40:34):
threat attached so that you don't swallow them. If you
were immediately worried about that, don't worry. But yeah, all
of this is so just so awesome because like traditionally,
people with impaired vision have been really discouraged from learning chemistry,
partially because our typical learning materials are so visual and
(40:54):
hand sized tactile models are just too big and expensive
when you're talking about needing like a whole chemistry textbook
worth of them, right.
Speaker 1 (41:04):
Yeah, that's really cool. I love it when we get
these science notes at the end, never expecting them.
Speaker 2 (41:16):
People get up, people get up to just awesome things.
So cool, they really do.
Speaker 1 (41:21):
And a lot of them are food related because a
lot of people are passionate about food. I will say
as we end this one, I would love for listeners
to write in from other countries because there were so
many gummy candies from like Australia had a few. There
were a lot of countries where I couldn't find enough
(41:43):
to really say other than oh they exist. Yeah, I
know that they're like iconic and popular.
Speaker 2 (41:51):
Yeah yeah. If you have a favorite company, if you
have a favorite specific shape or flavor, or yeah, any
of that. If you have a memory of a discontinued
the gummy you have lost along the way, Oh my goodness.
We want to hear about all of it.
Speaker 1 (42:09):
We really do, really do. But I think that's what
we have to say about gummy candies for now.
Speaker 2 (42:15):
I believe it is. We do already have some listener
mail for you, though, and we are going to get
into that as soon as we get back from one
more quick break for a word from our sponsors.
Speaker 1 (42:33):
And we're back. Thank you sponsor, Yes, thank you, and
we're back with gummy tummy whatever that is. So today
we have two messages about slogan. Actually a lot of
(42:54):
people have written in about slogan. Oh ya, yes, so
please keep those coming in. Bob wrote, your slow Gin
episode reminded me of one of my best experiences with slogin.
We cut a hole on the end of a watermelon
and inserted a bottle of slogin so it infused the watermelon.
(43:15):
Best watermelon ever. We were at a county fair and
fed the rides to the chickens. The roosters croved all night.
God not those roosters drunk, says a part as they
say in Australia.
Speaker 2 (43:37):
Oh that sounds so delicious though, Oh my goodness.
Speaker 1 (43:40):
It does. And I actually have a couple of related
thoughts based on our episode before we get into those.
I have done this with a bottle of vodka. You
have to be careful because of the distribution, Oh sure,
because we didn't move the watermelon around all so like
(44:01):
right underneath where the bottle was it was like playing
Russian Roulette with every piece of amazing. Yes, you didn't
know for sure, but also we didn't really go into it.
I don't think there was really a reason for us
to go into it in this episode. But I have
a good friend who went through a period where she
(44:23):
was infusing gummy bears with alcohol. Oh okay, okay, and
so we would have these alcoholic gummy bears. So she
made like a home solo yellow gummy bear and carbonite
molds and it had alcohol in it. And we didn't
talk about jellow shots. But yeah, you can infuse alcohols
(44:44):
into many types of gummies.
Speaker 2 (44:47):
Interesting, okay, all right, Yeah, I mean I guess that
my brain just went, like my brain just did like
a molecular model thing of trying to figure out exactly
how that work. That. I guess I need someone to
print me a gummy molecule.
Speaker 1 (45:06):
This it fairly illustrates. Yeah, how your mind works and
who you are. It's fantastic. I'm just like my good
friend one time made me some alcoholic coming bars and
you're like, what's the molecular structure we need to dig
into this? Ah? Cool? Cool though?
Speaker 2 (45:25):
Yeah, Okay, Bart wrote your self appointed and utterly unofficial
Irish correspondent Bart here from the heart of Slow Country.
Your timing on the Slojin episode just could not be better,
because slows are very much on my mind at the moment,
because they are in full bloom at the moment. Two
weeks ago, there wasn't a slow flower to be found
(45:47):
here in County Kildare my pronunciations, I think anyway, it's
fine and east of Ireland. Then a week ago they
just exploded into bloom. I chose that word carefully because
they don't just flower. They splowed into flower. Each individual
flower is only about a quarter of an inch across
at most, but they flower so densely it looks like
(46:07):
their branches are covered in snow. The illusion is helped
by the fact that the leaves don't appear until the
flowers have started to die back, so you really do
have a dark barked shrub covered in white, without a
single other color to be seen. Here's a close up
of one of these beautiful little blooms I shot about
a week ago, a few hundred yards from my front door.
(46:28):
Illustration attached. We'll get to it later. Each spring I
post at least a few shots of slow blossoms to
social media, and each year I blow a few more
people's minds. So many people who enjoy slow gin have
no idea what a slow is, and it seems to
surprise them to no end that they are tart, little
wannabee plums that start off as teeny, little beautiful white flowers.
(46:52):
I'm not actually a fan of gin, so I've never
actually had slow gin. But as a kid, I loved
the homemade scones with homemade slow gem some of the
neighborhood Irish bummies would serve us each autumn. Sadly I
haven't had it in years. It seems no one is
producing slow jam commercially around here. I always hope to
find some at a farmer's market or something, but no
(47:12):
joy yet. Fingers crossed. Finally, you mentioned their use as
a hedging plant and hinted at their thorns being really
quite something. Those are indeed both true facts, and they
are also very much related. Cows have bloody tough skins.
In fact, they are literally raw leather, so it takes
a serious thorn to stop a cow from barging through
(47:34):
a hedgerow. Blackthorn branches are so densely packed, and those
thorns so sharp and strong that even a cow hasn't
got a chance. As kids, we too were masters of
finding gaps and hedgerows, and since we were a lot
smaller than cows, our success rate was a lot higher.
But even us kids didn't stand a chance against a
blackthorn hedge. I don't remember exactly when I learned to
(47:57):
steer clear of them, but it was very early in
my childhood, and get the impression it was one of
those lessons I didn't need to learn twice. One last
anecdote to illustrate the strength of those thorns. I cycle
a lot in Ireland, and when we cut our hedges,
we just cover our roads and thorns of all kinds, brambles, hawthorns,
and of course blackthorns. After many years of punctures, I
(48:19):
switched to kevlar reinforced tires and they take most of
the thorns on the road in their stride, most, but
not all, those blackthorns. Bloody blackthorns still manage to punch
their way through that kevlar layer. That stuff stops bullets,
but it's no match for big, mature blackthorn. Finally, finally,
(48:41):
here's my most recent shot of some slowberries with their
distinctive silvery dusting, shot last August, and yet to return
to this photo of this little of this little slow flower. Yeah,
it is just the prettiest little five pedaled white flower
(49:01):
with Oh I'm forgetting all of my flower terms right now,
you know, like like just just little little little woobly
yellow pallen bits coming up out of the center in
this really pretty little spray. And uh, like a like
a little like a little all white soakura blossom, sure
or or something along those lines, because plum blossoms and
(49:24):
soakura and yeah, these are all related plants. Oh gosh,
that's pretty.
Speaker 1 (49:30):
Yes, thank you so much for writing it about this. I,
as I said, did not know anything about slow me
neither not know it was a berry or whatever. It
is a droop, always tricking me with the droops.
Speaker 2 (49:49):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (49:49):
And it is beautiful. The flower is really beautiful. The
berries are beautiful. And I have to say, I love
I just wouldn't mess with these these black thorn if
a cow can't get through, if it's taking on kevlar.
(50:10):
Mm hmmm, I can see why it was used in hedgerows.
Speaker 2 (50:16):
Oh my goodness, Oh my goodness. Yeah, that is a
very serious that is that that's that's a very serious thorn. Yeah,
I would I would respect that natural fencing as well.
Speaker 1 (50:28):
Mm hmm. And it looks so pretty right. Every slow
has its thorn a missed title opportunity.
Speaker 2 (50:42):
Mm hmmm mm hmmm. Oh my goodness.
Speaker 1 (50:51):
But it looks lovely.
Speaker 2 (50:53):
It does, it does, And I now I I love
whenever I get craving for something I've never had before.
And I really want to try some slow jam as well,
which I'm also realizing is an excellent pun.
Speaker 1 (51:09):
Yeah, oh yeah, slow jam.
Speaker 2 (51:13):
My brain went to ToeJam as in like ToeJam and
er all. But but you had a good pun instinct,
thank you.
Speaker 3 (51:21):
Yeah, but you know we're firing on all pun cylinders
right now. Yes, yes, yes, well, thank you to both
of these listeners for writing it. If you would like
to write to us, you can Our email is hello
at savorpod dot com.
Speaker 2 (51:36):
We're also on social media. You can find us on
Blue Sky and Instagram at saber pod, and we do
hope to hear from you. Savor is production of iHeartRadio.
For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, you can visit
the iHeartRadio app Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows. Thanks as always to our super producers
Dylan Fagan and Andrew Howard. Thanks to you for listening,
(51:57):
and we hope that lots more good things are coming
your way.
Hello, and welcome to Saber production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
I'm Annie Ree and I'm Lauren Vogelbaum, and today we
have an episode for you about gummy candy.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
Yes, was there any particular reasons? Was on your mind? Lauren?
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Yeah, we just had the Easter holiday. I guess everywhere
that celebrates that. Sure, I was gonna say in the
United States, but it's more, it's more than just here. Yeah,
and uh yeah, here in the US. It does mean
that a lot of kids got Easter baskets with a
(00:45):
lot of candy in them, including maybe not a lot
of maybe maybe not like heavy gummy presence, but probably jellybeans.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
Mm.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
And as I was looking at jellybean for I don't know,
probably the ninth time in the nine years that we've
been doing this, to try to see if we could
get an episode out of it, I was like, probably not,
But what about gummy candy as a whole? And so
here we are.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
Here we are, and it is a wide ranging topic.
There were a lot of ways, a lot of roads
we could have traveled.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
Oh yeah, and a lot of side quests for the future, yes,
including jelly beans.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
I really didn't go too much into them. But yeah,
I don't know if it would be a full of
so but maybe maybe.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
A mini yeah, yeah, sure. There's a lot of little
things like, especially with like confections and yeah, and different
types of cake or cookie that like, right, like don't
really warrant their own like I mean, I mean, I
guess we could talk for half an hour about them,
but how much would it be about that? And how
much would it be I don't know my strong opinions.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
Yeah probably but yeah yeah, well yeah sure, sure we'll
figure it out. We will. And speaking of strong opinions,
yull me candies. Yeah, I wrote in this outline and
I forgot I did my enemies yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
Uh huh, those are the words I'm looking at right now. Nope,
So is this like tooth related or do you just
generally hate gummies? Like on an existential level.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
You know, I have noticed lately because I've been taking
like vitamin gummies that there is a tooth issue. But no,
this is my cheating category. I often say there are
five foods I don't like, but one of them is
a huge, huge cheat and it's that I don't like
artificial fruit flavors.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
I just really don't oh right, right, right, Okay, sure, some.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
Of them I can like, I can hang with, but
it would never be the thing I chose. Like if
I was in an easter bastic situation, I'd be miserable
if it was just gummy candy. Yeah, my friends used
to tell me I got gummy tummy, Gummy tummy, gummy tummy. Yeah,
(03:19):
this just said it made me really grumpy. And I
don't know, I don't know if there's any truth to that,
but I don't seek them out.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
Okay, I'll say that's fair. I love a gummy. I
love chewy, textured things in general, and so so it's
it's a textured thing more so than a flavor thing.
But I do really like the flavor of some particular gummies.
My favorites are like whatever they use for like artificial pineapple.
(03:50):
That's delicious, and it might be pineapple juice and I
might be like slowly poisoning myself a tiny bit every
time I consume it. But the other is those a
little red and blackberries with the little kind of crunchies
on the outside. Oh my goodness. I'll say that this
was a less cravingy episode than I usually have. I
(04:15):
guess I'm I guess yeah, like sugar, I'm kind of
going like, yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
Yeah, you know, there's a time and place, yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
Yeah, and this and certain yeah and certainly types of
I mean, I don't know that hollow hollow episode.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
Yeah, I mean I did. As much as I'm complaining,
I did. I would throw it down with twist and
fills back in the day. And I don't know what
it was about twist and fills that I was cool with,
but hoo if I did love those. And I have
a friend who's like, you know, remember those like candy
places you could go in you just get the like
(04:53):
shovel and scoop, yeah, into the bag.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
Oh yeah, the bulk mix. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
Oh. She like every type of gummy candy you imagine.
But she was a really big fan of peach rings,
and I was disappointed I couldn't find as much history
as I thought I could on peach strings because I
know that it's not just her, they're pretty popular.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
Yeah yeah, yeah, I didn't try looking into that one
in particular, either. But right now, the one of the
movie theaters near me when I was a kid had
a candy place with Ben Candy, and that was one
of my favorite, like go to the movies, like get
your little bag of candy and then go in it
was it was really cool.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
Those were exciting times as a kid. Yes, well, you
can see the past episode we did on Locum or
Turkish Delight.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
Sure also related jello aspects. I guess Karen jenin marshmallows,
licorice kind of sort of glutenous rice.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
Yeah, well, I guess that brings us to a question. Sure,
gummy candies what are they?
Speaker 2 (06:13):
Well, gummy or jelly candies can look like a lot
of things. Literally, they're molded into different shapes. Gummy candies
are candies made from some kind of flavored sweetened gel
that will hold a molded shape and be like relatively
shelf stable at room temperature, but will start melting or
(06:33):
dissolving in your mouth. They're typically small, bite sized because
they are on the spectrum of chewy. In fact that
the gelling agent used will depend on what texture you're
going for in the final product, because gummies can really
range from very tender to kind of sticky to sort
of bouncy to like kind of firmly elastic. The softer
(06:56):
types especially may be coated in some kind of like
fine rain sugar or like a candy shell, to prevent
the pieces from sticking to each other, and or to
provide like textural interest. In the case of the aforementioned
jelly beans, they also get coated in chocolate sometimes. Sure,
this is a category that encompasses just a lot of things, right,
(07:17):
like everything from gummy bears and jelly babies to gum
drops and fruit slices to wine gems to jelly beans.
The flavorings are usually fruit based, but can be like
herb or spice flavored as well, like like a cola
flavored or licorice flavored. Yeah, they can be either opaque
(07:38):
or translucent. They're often brightly colored either way, and they
can be and are molded into pretty much any shape
you want, from soda bottles to sea creatures to burgers
to brains. Good gummy candies are just really bright, little
chewy delights, just little bursts of flavor. They are, in
(08:01):
my opinion anyway, just such a delightful way of making
something that is beautiful and chewy like fruit, but way
less good for you.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
I can see the appeal.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
If you didn't hate the flavors, it would probably help.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
There's probably one out there for me, I just have it.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
Sure, there you go, there you go, all right. So,
as we discussed in our Turkish Delight or Locome episode,
gummy type candies work by figuring out how to make
sugar chewy and moldable to different degrees than just sugar
plus water can achieve on its own through the use
(08:47):
of gelling agents, and there are several different ingredients you
can use to make a gummy. They basically all work
because they consist of these like friendly molecules that'll get
all like slippy bloopy when you heat them up, that
is the science term. But then as they cool down again,
they're so willing to bond up into like a complex
(09:08):
scaffolding with each other and also to form bonds with
water and like hug it into that structure. Molecularly speaking, yeah,
this also means that anything that's water soluble, like sweeteners
and flavorings and colorings can come along for the ride.
When gummies are cooled completely to room temperature, that they'll
(09:31):
have formed up into the shape of whatever you set
them in, so you can make like kind of detailed
molds and wind up with the candy of that shape.
Different gelling agents will do this at different temperatures and
will firm up two different levels of chew. The traditional
gummy gelling agent is gelatin, which is a type of
animal protein made up of these long chains of amino acids.
(09:53):
Gelatin gels up real firm and bouncy, but will melt
in your mouth or pocket or glove compartment. You know,
is why you wind up with some kind of like
Akira gummy if you leave a packet in a car
on the hot day. Anyway, Yeah, this is what standard
like gummy bears and wine gums are made of. If
you want to avoid using animal proteins or you're just
(10:14):
looking for a different texture, there are a number of
plant based sugars and starches that will also form edible gels.
They all really deserve their own episodes, but in brief
and like narrowing in on what we're trying to talk
about today. Okay, you've got corn starch made from corn,
perhaps obviously, which will often form a slightly softer and
(10:37):
stickier gel, think of like gum drops or Swedish fish.
There's pectin which you can get from a lot of
different plants which forms up like tender and not super sticky.
Think of the filling of jelly beans or of like
sunkissed fruit gems if you're familiar with those. Pectin has
really great flavor release properties, like you get a really
(10:59):
flavorful bite with it. Then there's aggar. I just looked
up how to say this, and I'm dubious. I don't
know it. It's derived from seaweed. It's usually used so
that it sets up like very soft and tender, think
of a fruit slices. Yeah, and those are the common ones. Others, though,
(11:23):
like guar gum or caroa genin or tappyoka or potato
starch can be used too. Some chewy candies like licorice
use wheat flour as a gelling starch. But I wouldn't
really categorize those as like a gummy. I don't know.
It just seems like the texture is different. But you
do you you write in let me know. Many manufacturers
(11:46):
will use a combination of these agents to achieve a
particular feel, either like throughout the gummy or sometimes in
different layers in the gummy. However, gelling agents are not
the entire textural picture here, because sugar is complicated enough
that the forms of it you use and in what
(12:08):
ratios will really affect the viscosity and the moisture content
of the gummy goop batter. Sure, yeah, yeah, goop, Let's
go with goop, and both of those affect the final
texture of the candy right, And you can see our
sugar episodes for a little bit more on this, But
(12:28):
like very basically, the white table sugar that we most
commonly encounter is a molecule called sucrose, made up of
fructose and glucose. Sucrose is fairly easy to manufacture from
stuff like sugarcane and sugar beets, but it also really
likes being a crystal, which just makes it tricky to
work with in candy making because, like, if you stir
(12:49):
it wrong as it's melting, you can wind up with
a with a grainy mess instead of a smooth melt.
To help stabilize it, you can add things like invert sugar,
which is basically like free range fructose in glucose not
not in crystal form, or starch derived syrups like corn
(13:10):
syrup or confectioner's glucose, both of which are really happy
being a liquid. These will all lend different textures depending
on their own formulation. Like, these are not single products
so but like generally the syrups set up a little
firmer invert sugar makes a little bit of a softer gel.
(13:31):
It can depend. Also, Gummies can be made partially or
entirely with sugar substitutes, either for low sugar diets or
for products like like gummy vitamins that are supposed to
be like less of a treat and more of a
nutritional supplement. Yeah. After that, the flavorings can include any
(13:51):
number of natural or artificial flavors up to an including
actual fruit juice concentrate, I don't know. Most mixes will
involve a little bit of citric acid to balance the
sweetness of the candy with a bit of tart. Also,
pecked in particular needs acid to gel up, so that's
(14:12):
a whole thing. In a factory, gummy candies are made
very basically like so okay, You prep and measure and
mix the ingredients, heating to dissolve the sugar and the
gelling agent. Then you cook the goop to whatever temperature
required for the gelling agent, then cool it to a
temperature where it's still pourrible. Your goop is then fed
(14:36):
into a dispenser that can measure it into molds. The
molds can be made of different materials. The classic is
a bed of corn starch that's pressed into shape for
every batch and will leave the top side flat. But yeah,
whatever the mold looks like. The filled molds are then
allowed to cool and set, after which the candies can
be turned out and packaged.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
Yes, and in all kinds of shapes. They come, as
you said.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
Laura, Oh my goodness. If you have a favorite one, oh,
please let us know. I have very strong opinions about this.
As a kid today today, I think I'm, you know,
just a good just a simple bear. Simple bear will
suffice a simple bear.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
That's all. That's all you need. You know. What about
the nutrition?
Speaker 2 (15:30):
Oh treats her nice, treats her nice?
Speaker 1 (15:34):
I do, I do want to.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
I felt obligated to put in here a note about
gummy supplements because they are a huge category. Now, okay, like, like,
whenever possible, do try to get your micronutrients from food.
And I say that because like, exactly how effective any
supplement is is going to depend on the nutrients in
(15:58):
question that you're trying to get, and also how the
supplement was made. Also, I feel obligated to say here that,
like generally speaking, like you should not base your nutritional
decisions on something that a celebrity is being paid to
tell you. I feel like everyone here knows that, But
I'm saying that in lieu of reporting on any of
(16:21):
the very upsetting things that I read about celebrity gummy supplements.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
That being said though, I mean, you know, like like
if you or a kid who you're in charge of,
simply will not eat a piece of fruit, yeah, grab
a VITAM and C supplement in gummy form. If that's
what works. You know, like you got to meet people
where they are and prevents and prevents gurvy.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
So long been a historical problem. M m hm m hm. Well,
we do have some numbers for you, we do, okay.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
So I read that the global market for gummy candy
is worth about twenty one billion dollars a year.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
Yeah, I mean that's a lot.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
Again, it's a large category. And also we do have
the supplement thing happening now. So I found a number
of world records. There is a Guinness record for the
greatest distance a gummy candy has flown before a person
has caught it in their mouth.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
Well, okay, so this was achieved in twenty twenty three
by a couple of Harvard students. Their record was one
hundred and seventy seven feet, which is fifty four meters,
and the thrower in in question used a catapult, which
is why I didn't say thrown.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
I'm glad this's worked out. Again. I have so many
final destinations thoughts happening.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
Yeah for good for them, Good for them.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
Yeah, I gave them two thumbs up listeners, you can
see it. Glad it worked out.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
There's also a Guinness record for the largest gummy candy mosaic,
which was achieved in twenty twenty four by Harribo. I
think that they're different pronunciations for that large gummy producer
in English and German, which is horrifying, but that's okay.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:49):
They constructed the art work out of about one hundred
and fifty thousand gummy bears for a total size of
three hundred and fifty three square feet, which is about
thirty three square meters.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
Now I'm realizing that I might have a stickiness aversion
as well.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
Oh yeah, okay, okay, the I cannot help you there,
but the mosaic depicted the Horbo gold Bear mascot, which
is like a yellow bear with a rednecker chief, and
(19:34):
he was on a field of red, orange and green.
I just made assumptions about the bear's gender. Apologies to
the bear. Yes for us, you can be whatever you
want to be, buddy. Yeah, yeah, I'm not here to
hold you back. There's also a Guinness record for the
(19:56):
largest gummy bear. This was achieved in twenty twenty three
by Netherlands based gummy manufacturing equipment manufacturer. Okay, not an
actual producer of gummy bears, but producer of the gummy
manufacturing equipment. All right. The bear in question was eight
feet tall by six and a half feet wide and
(20:19):
three feet deep. All right, that's two and a half
by two by one meters. It weighed three eight hundred
and ten pounds, which is one thousand, seven hundred and
twenty eight kilos, and that is horrifying. This is a
(20:42):
coffin sized gummy bear. I don't I don't know why.
Coffin sized is where my brain immediately went.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
Again, if you somehow got stuck in their final destination rules,
yeah that's scary.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
Yeah, you know, agreed, like I mean like, and I've
lost a hand to a gelatinous cube before, you know,
like this kind of stuff happens. Oh true. Anyway, anyway,
this was their second attempt at creating the bear. The
first one did not set up properly. They weren't even
(21:23):
sure about this one. They were like, well, we're going
to give it another go. Uh yeah. But but it
did indeed set up correctly after nine days of curing.
It was like opaque orange in color and orange in flavor.
From a press release, it didn't sound like they immediately
had a plan for how to serve it to people,
(21:45):
which is part of the requirement for the record, like
it has to be consumed. You can't just make it,
so I don't know. I hope that that turned out
well for them.
Speaker 1 (22:01):
Me too, even though I'm still a little horrified by
this whole thing. I hope that it came to fruition.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
I'm not usually with you on like, especially large things
being necessarily ominous, but this one was just very ominous
to me.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
A big eight foot gum bear. Yeah, no, no thanks.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
I will say that that it that this this bear
beat out a dolphin shaped gummy by weight that had
been produced by a candy manufacturer in Iran in twenty
twenty two. The dolphin was longer, but the bear was
more massive. Makes sense, Yeah, yeah, it does, and one
(22:59):
more for you. As of the year twenty twenty three,
aforementioned major brand, Harbo, was producing over one two hundred
different types of gummy candies for markets around the world,
including over one hundred million gummy bears every day.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
My goodness me, Well, you know they are popular. I'm
the odd one out here.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
I can see. That's all right, And that's okay, that's
okay to admit.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
Yeah, sure, I'm happy for people, right, I don't want
to take it away from anybody.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
Yeah, and more for them, you know, more for them.
Speaker 1 (23:47):
And we do have we have quite a history for
you about this, We do.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
Yeah, and we are going to get into it as
soon as we get back from a quick break for
a word from.
Speaker 1 (23:56):
Our sponsors, and we're back. Thank you, sponsor, Yes, thank you. Okay.
So I know I start pretty much every history section
this way, but it is almost always true. Tracing the
(24:20):
history of gummy candy is tricky, and people disagree on
what qualifies as an ancestor. Sure, some historians argue that
The early predecessors of gummy candies are actually jellies or jams,
which were pretty good ways to preserve fruit. Ancient Egyptians
and Romans may have made basic versions of the candies
themselves with honey and fruit juices. Centuries ago, Japanese rice candies,
(24:45):
which were these treats that were made with brown rice
salt syrup, popularized the idea of a portable jelly and
a sort of fruit jam and a more solid, transportable form,
So that was also a stepping stone, I would say.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
Yeah, yeah. Pete de fruit, which is a type of
fruit gel along the lines of like a concentrated jelly
or jam, developed through like the Middle Ages around France fish.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
Yes, and again you can see your episode. But with
the popularization and spread of the Turkish delight in the
eighteenth century, and that being a gummy, sugary, starchy sweet
often flavored with a variety of things like rose water,
that made its way along trade roots, and that also
spread the idea of these gummy candies.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
Yeah, yeah, And these predecessors relied on different gelling agents,
you know, like anything based on fruit was probably getting
a boost from naturally occurring pectin those rice candies were
made with glutinous rice, so the starch in that helped
set up the texture. Locum or Turkish Delight originally contained
wheat flour. Cornstarch came along in like the mid eighteen
(25:52):
hundreds or so, but all of these starches have like
relatively soft sets.
Speaker 1 (25:59):
Yes, yes, And then Peter Cooper often gets credit with
patenting the production of powdered gelatin in eighteen forty five,
which was a real boon for gummy candy production. It
allowed for structure that was harder to achieve previously. So
now we're going to get into kind of a hodgepodge
of some of the big.
Speaker 2 (26:21):
Names names and products.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
Yeah, yes, starting with Jellybillies, although they have an interesting
roller coaster of how they got to that name. Historians
believe that an Austrian confectioner based in England is to
thank for jelly babies. The story goes that in eighteen
sixty four, the confectioner attempted to make bear shaped gummies
(26:45):
using a mold, but the resulting treats came out looking
more like babies. Okay, and of all the names the
company he worked for could have picked for this product,
they ran with Unclaimed bab Apparently at the time this
is a name that would have amused some people by
(27:08):
the Yeah, I guess it was a part of their life,
so it didn't seem shocking. By the eighteen eighties there
were ads for jelly babies in England. The name Unclaimed
Babies had all but faded away by the nineteen twenties,
and when World War One ended they were rebranded as
(27:28):
Peace Babies, but post World War Two rationing they were
relaunched as jelly Babies. And honestly there was some company
confusion in this whole thing, but from what I understand,
they are the same product. Okay, they just went through
a lot of names and perhaps a lot of like
(27:49):
leadership during the Tom Baker era of Doctor Who the
Doctor was a big fan of jelly babies.
Speaker 2 (27:58):
Yep, that is mostly how I know what those are me.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
Too, so that's why I thought should include that. Yeah.
A British candy maker named Charles Gordon Maynard released a
line of wine gums in nineteen oh nine. At the time,
they were one of the first commercially available candies to
incorporate gelatine. Of note, they didn't actually involve wine just
sweet fruity flavors. Yeah yeah, And they came in a
(28:26):
variety of basic shapes and still do and still do.
Sometime in the nineteen thirties, the Cola gummy debuted in
the US. You know, those Coca Cola flavored bottled shaped gummies.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
Yep, yep.
Speaker 1 (28:41):
Stepping back a bit, in nineteen twenty Hans Reigel Senior,
a German purveyor of sweets, started his own venture called Haribo.
The name was a combination of his own names and
the town he was from, Bond, Germany. It was a basic,
small operation in the early day, him working out of
his kitchen with basic equipment like a stove and a kettle.
(29:05):
Eventually he hired his first employee, his wife, who primarily
delivered his sweetes via bicycle. In the beginning. At first,
Rigel specialized in hard candies, but as time passed he
started experimenting with gummy candies, something that others in his
field had already been doing. This led to the creation
of the dancing Bear gummy candy in nineteen twenty two.
(29:28):
The shape, which was bigger and slimmer than we are
accustomed to with modern gummy bears, was inspired by actual
dancing bears featured at festivals in Europe from the past,
and this practice was, to say, to say the least,
pretty abusive to bears. It involved taking bear cubs and
training them to dance under threat of pain. But that's
(29:51):
where the inspiration came from. Reigel's sons fought for the
German side in World War Two, and Regel himself died
in nineteen forty five. His wife, Gertrude took over the
business once her sons were released from being prisoners of war.
They took charge and they really grew the whole thing
pretty rapidly, especially in the aftermath of the war. Their
(30:12):
number of employees grew from about thirty right after the
war's end to about one thousand by nineteen fifty. They
were also one of the first companies to run ads
on television in Germany, and these ads helped popularize Golden Bears,
as they were called by then, and they slowly spread
across Europe, even across the Berlin Wall into East Germany. Yes,
(30:36):
and Harribo rebranded their dancing bears as gold Bears in
nineteen sixty.
Speaker 2 (30:40):
Okay, yeah, so bear abuse and Nazis in the fun
gummy candy episode. Here we are yeah.
Speaker 1 (30:49):
Ooh, you never know where it will go.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
Meanwhile, over in Sweden a candy company called Malacco Malacco,
I'm not sure how to say it right in and
let us know. They had gotten their start making licorice
candies in the nineteen thirties and sometime in the nineteen
fifties decided to develop a gummy type product, and they
(31:15):
came up with what's called over there pastel fish, a
cornstarch based fish shaped gummy in a number of colors
and flavors. It hit the American market in nineteen fifty
seven as Swedish Fish, and I need y'all to know
that the official website for Swedish Fish has a huge
(31:36):
banner running along the bottom that says the number one
fish shaped candy in all caps, just running constantly by
you and I find that important extremely charming.
Speaker 1 (31:58):
Shout your winds to the evans right.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
Find what you specialize in and celebrate yes uh. In
nineteen eighty, the first Japanese company entered the gummy game.
The large food and pharma company Meiji, released their Cola
Up gummies. That year, their popular Juicy Gummy line of
(32:24):
fruit flavored soft gummies debuted in nineteen eighty eight.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
In nineteen eighty one, Herman Golditz Candy Company became the
first to produce gummy bears in the United States. The
company later adopted the name jelly Belly. They'd already been
producing jelly beans, but they wanted to have a product
to compete with golden bears. Aw mm hmm. Around the
same time, the German company Trolley released gummy worms, then
(32:53):
called gummy Squiggles. Gummy Squiggles.
Speaker 2 (32:57):
Yeah, yeah, you guys, Gummy war are only from nineteen
eighty one.
Speaker 1 (33:03):
I know, and I'm pretty sure this is when peach
rings are from. I couldn't find definitive proof.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
Gummy worms are only from nineteen eighty one.
Speaker 1 (33:14):
We got a lot of gummy innovation in the eighties.
Speaker 2 (33:16):
I actually we Oh my goodness, we did. Uh huh, yep,
We're about to go through it all right. Yes.
Speaker 1 (33:25):
It wasn't until nineteen eighty two that Harribo made it
to the US, and at this point, yes, there was
this competition. However, Harribo was determined pushing their products in
grocery stores and other businesses, and they really did take off,
to the point that Disney aired an animated television show
called The Adventures of the Gummy Bears from nineteen eighty
(33:48):
five to nineteen ninety one, and people really do credit
the shape as a large part of their staying power,
which makes sense to me.
Speaker 2 (33:55):
Yeah, yeah, if y'all missed The Adventures of the Gum Bears, this,
like the theme song from it, is one of the
things that just lives in my head for no good reason.
Speaker 1 (34:06):
For absolutely, we can't get rid of it. It's just.
Speaker 2 (34:10):
It's nope, take it up space.
Speaker 1 (34:13):
That's where it stays.
Speaker 2 (34:14):
I don't know my own phone number sometimes, but that's
in there.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
Yes, I would love to hear you sing it later.
I'll be very frilled.
Speaker 2 (34:23):
Cool. Another American competitor, Alminisee.
Speaker 1 (34:31):
I didn't.
Speaker 2 (34:31):
I didn't look that one up at all. I'm sorry.
I feel like I'm mangling a number of proper nouns
in this episode. They got into gummies in the nineteen nineties.
Shout out to listener Sparkling Blue for bringing a whole
bunch of those into the office back in the day. Yes,
very tasty. I had never had them before. Delightful. In
the mid eighties, gummy style fruit snacks debuted in the
(34:55):
United States and fruit snacks is a different episode really,
but like I wanted to mention them here because fruit
snacks really are just gummy candies, usually cornstarch based gummies
that are marketed as like a healthy snack for kids.
I mean, they do involve a certain amount of like
fruit and or juice or are often fortified with vitamin C.
(35:19):
They'll give you a burst of energy, I guess I
you know, calories. Anyway, the earliest example of these I
could find are General Mills Fruit Wrinkles.
Speaker 1 (35:31):
Fruit wrinkles fruit.
Speaker 2 (35:32):
Wrinkles, which is just the best name for something that you
want humans to consume. I'm a paul they I think
they were meant to look like like like raisins a
little bit. Anyway. They came out in nineteen eighty six
(35:53):
on the heels of General Mills having introduced fruit roll
ups a few years prior. Uh Anyway, Shark Bites Forever,
best fruit snack, best fruit snack.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
Where do you think Gushers falls into all this?
Speaker 2 (36:14):
Counted as they're Canada, they're counted as a fruit snack,
I think, okay, yeah, okay.
Speaker 1 (36:21):
That yeah, that will have to be a separate episode
because I have more. Oh.
Speaker 2 (36:24):
Oh, I've been wanting to do a dedicated Gusher's episode. Yes, I,
and I will say that during my reading for this episode,
I've found an incredibly cursed sentence if you follow if
you follow me on Blue Sky, you've already read it. Perhaps,
(36:45):
but okay, here we are. Gushers recently dropped a limited
edition designer sneaker, available exclusively in the metaverse.
Speaker 1 (36:55):
Ooh, yeah, that's that. Feels like we're in a Blackbinger episode.
For sure. It's not good.
Speaker 2 (37:06):
Oh, I cannot wait for that Gusher's episode. But speaking
of innovation and vitamins in gummies, gummy type nutritional supplements
first appeared in the mid nineteen nineties. A couple different
companies around the world claimed to be the first right around,
(37:28):
like ninety six ninety seven. I found one in the
US and one in Germany. I didn't like dig into
the patents to call them on it today, so yeah.
Speaker 1 (37:39):
TROLYUS released a line of roadkill themed gummies in two
thousand and four. They were not well received at all,
and they were discontinued the following year after many complaints,
including one by the New Jersey Society for the Prevention
of cruelty to animals if you haven't seen them. It's
(38:01):
like a snake kind of flattened out in the middle. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (38:05):
Yeah, anyway, it's like kind of like a cute sea
little tire track. Yeah, kind of over over. Sure I
understand how that's offensive. I'm not totally sure about, like
how we have come to a divide in like eating
a representation of a worm or a bear or or
(38:29):
a living snake is fine, but the roadkill one is
line too far?
Speaker 1 (38:35):
Okay, line too far. And the the backtracking that the
like marketing did hilarious to me because they were like,
clearly this was a bad idea, we shouldn't have done it, Like, well,
who are you throwing under the bus here because it
got approved?
Speaker 2 (38:55):
Yeah, like you created a whole manufacturing line devoted to it.
Speaker 3 (38:58):
So anyway, clearly a lot about it.
Speaker 2 (39:06):
Horribo opened their first plant in the United States just
in twenty twenty three. It's at in Wisconsin. This was
a like a like a three hundred million dollar investment,
and so like, clearly the company thinks that gummy candy
is not going anywhere. And then I wanted to end
on kind of a fun science note, Okay, so as
(39:30):
of the twenty twenties, this team of researchers has been
developing a way to teach kids with vision impairment about
molecular structure through gummy candy. All right, So they mold
the shape of molecules in gummy and people can use
(39:50):
their mouths to explore how the shape works, all right,
And like in studies, participants were just as good, if
not better, remembering structures that they learned with their mouths.
Then they were at structures that they learned by touch
with their hands, and in both cases they were only
(40:14):
very slightly less adept at this task than cited participants
who were using a visual So that's wild and cool,
very cool. They also did use some like three D
printed non edible silicone models as well, which are cool
because they're like washable and reusable and they've got a
(40:34):
threat attached so that you don't swallow them. If you
were immediately worried about that, don't worry. But yeah, all
of this is so just so awesome because like traditionally,
people with impaired vision have been really discouraged from learning chemistry,
partially because our typical learning materials are so visual and
(40:54):
hand sized tactile models are just too big and expensive
when you're talking about needing like a whole chemistry textbook
worth of them, right.
Speaker 1 (41:04):
Yeah, that's really cool. I love it when we get
these science notes at the end, never expecting them.
Speaker 2 (41:16):
People get up, people get up to just awesome things.
So cool, they really do.
Speaker 1 (41:21):
And a lot of them are food related because a
lot of people are passionate about food. I will say
as we end this one, I would love for listeners
to write in from other countries because there were so
many gummy candies from like Australia had a few. There
were a lot of countries where I couldn't find enough
(41:43):
to really say other than oh they exist. Yeah, I
know that they're like iconic and popular.
Speaker 2 (41:51):
Yeah yeah. If you have a favorite company, if you
have a favorite specific shape or flavor, or yeah, any
of that. If you have a memory of a discontinued
the gummy you have lost along the way, Oh my goodness.
We want to hear about all of it.
Speaker 1 (42:09):
We really do, really do. But I think that's what
we have to say about gummy candies for now.
Speaker 2 (42:15):
I believe it is. We do already have some listener
mail for you, though, and we are going to get
into that as soon as we get back from one
more quick break for a word from our sponsors.
Speaker 1 (42:33):
And we're back. Thank you sponsor, Yes, thank you, and
we're back with gummy tummy whatever that is. So today
we have two messages about slogan. Actually a lot of
(42:54):
people have written in about slogan. Oh ya, yes, so
please keep those coming in. Bob wrote, your slow Gin
episode reminded me of one of my best experiences with slogin.
We cut a hole on the end of a watermelon
and inserted a bottle of slogin so it infused the watermelon.
(43:15):
Best watermelon ever. We were at a county fair and
fed the rides to the chickens. The roosters croved all night.
God not those roosters drunk, says a part as they
say in Australia.
Speaker 2 (43:37):
Oh that sounds so delicious though, Oh my goodness.
Speaker 1 (43:40):
It does. And I actually have a couple of related
thoughts based on our episode before we get into those.
I have done this with a bottle of vodka. You
have to be careful because of the distribution, Oh sure,
because we didn't move the watermelon around all so like
(44:01):
right underneath where the bottle was it was like playing
Russian Roulette with every piece of amazing. Yes, you didn't
know for sure, but also we didn't really go into it.
I don't think there was really a reason for us
to go into it in this episode. But I have
a good friend who went through a period where she
(44:23):
was infusing gummy bears with alcohol. Oh okay, okay, and
so we would have these alcoholic gummy bears. So she
made like a home solo yellow gummy bear and carbonite
molds and it had alcohol in it. And we didn't
talk about jellow shots. But yeah, you can infuse alcohols
(44:44):
into many types of gummies.
Speaker 2 (44:47):
Interesting, okay, all right, Yeah, I mean I guess that
my brain just went, like my brain just did like
a molecular model thing of trying to figure out exactly
how that work. That. I guess I need someone to
print me a gummy molecule.
Speaker 1 (45:06):
This it fairly illustrates. Yeah, how your mind works and
who you are. It's fantastic. I'm just like my good
friend one time made me some alcoholic coming bars and
you're like, what's the molecular structure we need to dig
into this? Ah? Cool? Cool though?
Speaker 2 (45:25):
Yeah, Okay, Bart wrote your self appointed and utterly unofficial
Irish correspondent Bart here from the heart of Slow Country.
Your timing on the Slojin episode just could not be better,
because slows are very much on my mind at the moment,
because they are in full bloom at the moment. Two
weeks ago, there wasn't a slow flower to be found
(45:47):
here in County Kildare my pronunciations, I think anyway, it's
fine and east of Ireland. Then a week ago they
just exploded into bloom. I chose that word carefully because
they don't just flower. They splowed into flower. Each individual
flower is only about a quarter of an inch across
at most, but they flower so densely it looks like
(46:07):
their branches are covered in snow. The illusion is helped
by the fact that the leaves don't appear until the
flowers have started to die back, so you really do
have a dark barked shrub covered in white, without a
single other color to be seen. Here's a close up
of one of these beautiful little blooms I shot about
a week ago, a few hundred yards from my front door.
(46:28):
Illustration attached. We'll get to it later. Each spring I
post at least a few shots of slow blossoms to
social media, and each year I blow a few more
people's minds. So many people who enjoy slow gin have
no idea what a slow is, and it seems to
surprise them to no end that they are tart, little
wannabee plums that start off as teeny, little beautiful white flowers.
(46:52):
I'm not actually a fan of gin, so I've never
actually had slow gin. But as a kid, I loved
the homemade scones with homemade slow gem some of the
neighborhood Irish bummies would serve us each autumn. Sadly I
haven't had it in years. It seems no one is
producing slow jam commercially around here. I always hope to
find some at a farmer's market or something, but no
(47:12):
joy yet. Fingers crossed. Finally, you mentioned their use as
a hedging plant and hinted at their thorns being really
quite something. Those are indeed both true facts, and they
are also very much related. Cows have bloody tough skins.
In fact, they are literally raw leather, so it takes
a serious thorn to stop a cow from barging through
(47:34):
a hedgerow. Blackthorn branches are so densely packed, and those
thorns so sharp and strong that even a cow hasn't
got a chance. As kids, we too were masters of
finding gaps and hedgerows, and since we were a lot
smaller than cows, our success rate was a lot higher.
But even us kids didn't stand a chance against a
blackthorn hedge. I don't remember exactly when I learned to
(47:57):
steer clear of them, but it was very early in
my childhood, and get the impression it was one of
those lessons I didn't need to learn twice. One last
anecdote to illustrate the strength of those thorns. I cycle
a lot in Ireland, and when we cut our hedges,
we just cover our roads and thorns of all kinds, brambles, hawthorns,
and of course blackthorns. After many years of punctures, I
(48:19):
switched to kevlar reinforced tires and they take most of
the thorns on the road in their stride, most, but
not all, those blackthorns. Bloody blackthorns still manage to punch
their way through that kevlar layer. That stuff stops bullets,
but it's no match for big, mature blackthorn. Finally, finally,
(48:41):
here's my most recent shot of some slowberries with their
distinctive silvery dusting, shot last August, and yet to return
to this photo of this little of this little slow flower. Yeah,
it is just the prettiest little five pedaled white flower
(49:01):
with Oh I'm forgetting all of my flower terms right now,
you know, like like just just little little little woobly
yellow pallen bits coming up out of the center in
this really pretty little spray. And uh, like a like
a little like a little all white soakura blossom, sure
or or something along those lines, because plum blossoms and
(49:24):
soakura and yeah, these are all related plants. Oh gosh,
that's pretty.
Speaker 1 (49:30):
Yes, thank you so much for writing it about this. I,
as I said, did not know anything about slow me
neither not know it was a berry or whatever. It
is a droop, always tricking me with the droops.
Speaker 2 (49:49):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (49:49):
And it is beautiful. The flower is really beautiful. The
berries are beautiful. And I have to say, I love
I just wouldn't mess with these these black thorn if
a cow can't get through, if it's taking on kevlar.
(50:10):
Mm hmmm, I can see why it was used in hedgerows.
Speaker 2 (50:16):
Oh my goodness, Oh my goodness. Yeah, that is a
very serious that is that that's that's a very serious thorn. Yeah,
I would I would respect that natural fencing as well.
Speaker 1 (50:28):
Mm hmm. And it looks so pretty right. Every slow
has its thorn a missed title opportunity.
Speaker 2 (50:42):
Mm hmmm mm hmmm. Oh my goodness.
Speaker 1 (50:51):
But it looks lovely.
Speaker 2 (50:53):
It does, it does, And I now I I love
whenever I get craving for something I've never had before.
And I really want to try some slow jam as well,
which I'm also realizing is an excellent pun.
Speaker 1 (51:09):
Yeah, oh yeah, slow jam.
Speaker 2 (51:13):
My brain went to ToeJam as in like ToeJam and
er all. But but you had a good pun instinct,
thank you.
Speaker 3 (51:21):
Yeah, but you know we're firing on all pun cylinders
right now. Yes, yes, yes, well, thank you to both
of these listeners for writing it. If you would like
to write to us, you can Our email is hello
at savorpod dot com.
Speaker 2 (51:36):
We're also on social media. You can find us on
Blue Sky and Instagram at saber pod, and we do
hope to hear from you. Savor is production of iHeartRadio.
For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, you can visit
the iHeartRadio app Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows. Thanks as always to our super producers
Dylan Fagan and Andrew Howard. Thanks to you for listening,
(51:57):
and we hope that lots more good things are coming
your way.
Savor News
Hosts And Creators
Anney Reese
Lauren Vogelbaum
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