June 27, 2018 • 30 mins
The Popsicle brand and other makers of ice pops have been cooling down our summers for over a century. Anney and Lauren explore the battle over the brand name, plus how these frozen treats are made.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Hello, and welp into food stuff. I'm any Rees and
I'm Lauren bog Obam, and today we're talking about the popsicle,
ice pop and other quiescently frozen ice pop desserts. Yes,
because we were not sued yet. We had the Derby
Pie people, but the popsical people. I don't know. It's
(00:32):
another risk that we're taking. It is. We take a
lot of deep risks on the show. It's all for you,
it really is, so. I mean, we're just putting our
necks on the line to tell you about these frozen
streets of the summer. One might call them if one
wanted to, if one so dared, if one dared popsicles,
(00:57):
I I pluralized it. I know the popsicle on our
studio door. Okay, okay, all of this begs the question
or what why are we going through this verbal uh acrobatics,
these verbal acrobatics. What is a popsicle or a popsicle?
What is it? This is a llegal quandary, a legal quandary.
(01:21):
And Lauren, since I've already in trouble with the law,
perhaps you should take this on all right, Well, legally,
a popsicle is a brand of quiescently frozen confections a
k A. Flavored ice, pops quiescently frozen. I'm coming back
to it, okay. In the parlance of our times, popsicles
(01:44):
are usually fruit juice or fruit flavored water with or
without added sweeteners, flavorings, colorings, and or texturizers that's been
frozen in place into an oblong shape with a sturdy
flat stick stuck part way through the center to act
a handle. And the sticks popsicles, and yes, this is
on the Popsicle official Popsicle website. The sticks that they
(02:07):
use are traditionally birch wood. And yes, popsicle is what
you would call a proprietary eponym. That's a word that
that's a that's a legally registered trademark as a company name.
It's the name of a company. But that word has
come to be used generically by you know, the people
at large, to mean any form of whatever thing that
(02:28):
company is famous for. You know, like saying Google when
you mean Internet search, or band aid when you mean
adhesive bandage, or clean X when you mean tissue, coke
when you mean soda, or I mean any soda yea.
Sometimes uh, styrofoam when you mean extruded polystyrene foam. Well,
that's just difficult to say frisbee when you mean throwing disc.
(02:52):
Give me my throwing disc now, I would like to
have fun quickly my throwing discs. It sounds like a
weapon throwing. Oh it does, really do? I mean phrasbees
are sort of weapons anyway, it depends on how good
you aren't catching them. You're totally correct, but okay, So
if you're being legally technically correct, you never use the
(03:15):
word popsicle as a noun. You never you never have
a popsicle. You have a popsicle ice pop. Oh. I
can't wait to annoy someone about this later. Similarly, you
cannot pluralize the word popsicle if you're being if you're
being real on the up and ups about it, you're
you're not going to the store to buy popsicles. You're
going to buy popsicle pops of course, clearly. And if
(03:38):
you said that you love popsicles great taste, Annie, you're
talking about the flavor of a company, and I think
you should look at your life and your choices. What
a fool I am. You'd be correct to say the
great taste of popsicle ice pops Now, I'm just like
a walking commercial. This is language that I took pretty
(03:58):
directly from their web site about how to navigate these
complex problems, because they are complex problems that we all face,
especially in the summer. Yes, oh man, I've faced a
number of ice pop devices during summer months. Ice pop
devices should be the legal name. Let's just be honest. Okay,
(04:22):
So so popsicle, Yes, popsicle is a brand. Um. But
but also you, I mean, you know you're probably not
going to get sued if you talk about popsicles, like
within your own home. I think every place should have
a jar, like a swear jar, but the popsicle jar,
and the company comes around and collects it. Like every
time you say popsical, you put a nickel in there.
At the end of the year, popsicle, the company collects
(04:44):
all the nickels. Or maybe they could have a like
a big one for like Google and KLINEX and all
that stuff and come around. I'm not sure how they
would divvy it up. You need to have different sure compartments.
You're right, but I don't know. We'll have to look
and do separately. Outside of the podcast. If Google as
a whole page about how to navigate talking about their product.
I think it's just for employees, okay, yeah, see, they
(05:08):
were fine. The nickel system is only for popsicles, okay,
although they probably don't need any nickels because each year
popsicle products top two billion in sales, two billion units. Yeah,
and the most popular popsicle brand flavor is cherry. I
found that surprising. Oh, I don't know what I would
(05:30):
I would imagine strawberry, I guess. I guess me too. Yeah.
Tracking down non branded ice pop sales or non popsicle
branded ice pop sales. Rather, it's a little squidgy because
you know, legally the term is quietly frozen confections, and
in terms of market sales, there in the general category
of frozen novelties um, which can encompass things that are
(05:52):
clearly not popsicles one way or another, like you know,
wrapped ice cream cones, ice cream sandwiches, stuff like that.
But in the United States, as of TwixT, the frozen
novelties categories saw one point to billion dollars in sales.
If you don't want to contribute to that one point
two billion dollars, you can make them at home. Yeah. Yeah,
(06:15):
they're pretty easy to make because Okay, the term quiescently
means in a state of inactivity or dormancy, which here
means you don't have to mess with popsicles as you're
freezing them, because they will shape up all on their own,
unlike ice cream, which you have to churn while you're
freezing it to to whip wee bits of air into
like the physical structure to create the right type of
(06:36):
crystallization that gives the finished ice cream that dreamy smooth texture.
But not so with popsicles. If you buy a popsicle mold,
which are pretty cheap but larger groceries like big box stores,
you know on the internets, you can pour pretty much
any juice or soda or booze into the mold, just
leave it in the freezer for a few hours and
(06:57):
have pretty excellent popsicles. Um I mean, I mean straight
straight liquors wouldn't work because the freezing point of alcohol
is way below the freezing point of water. But but
you could water him down and make like a cocktail pop. Yeah.
And not to go on too much of a boost
tangent here, no, never, but certainly in my research, I
went on a really huge boost tangent um. So like,
(07:18):
for the record, you need less than about ten total
alcohol by volume in your mixture in order to freeze
something solid in your home freezer. So that means that
for every like cup of non booze liquid, you can
add about three ounces. It's about two standard shots of
of standard forty is proof alcohol just f y. I
(07:44):
I'm not saying that I have enormous plans for experimenting
with such recipes over the summer or at our next
D and D game, hypothetical plans. Perhaps I would like
to partake hypothetically, and these imagined popsicles understood hypothetically hypothetically.
(08:04):
We do have a local uh popsicle vender, King of Pops,
and they make pop tails Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, which
are cocktails with popsicles, well pops excuse I pops ice
pops inserted in them that sort of likes it melts,
melts down into the cocktail, makes it look and taste
quite lovely. It is very nice. One of my favorite
(08:26):
things that we had an Atlanta Food and Wine was
the poptail from Old Fourth or Old Pals, that Old
Fourth distillery. It was lovely it was. While we're shouting
things out, we should also shout out there's both a
brain Stuff video episode about quiescently frozen confections um that
(08:48):
Josh Clark did and he's some kind of mad genius.
I think it's actually my very favorite video episode of
brain Stuff ever. It's pretty excellent. Yeah. Also mad props
to Paul Decan, who is I'm not going to say
a mad genius, just regular like the even keeled genius,
very even keel genius. He drinks a lot of tea,
he does. Oh man, I respect to hydration as well.
(09:11):
Oh and another show that we that we work in
conjunction with here at How Stuff Works. How Stuff he
missed in history class, did a whole episode about about
good humor versus popsicle. Yeah, intrigue, very much intrigue. Oh,
I would say not. We're going to get a little
(09:33):
bit into that intrigue plus the rest of the history
of the popsicle brand and it's ice pops, ice pops
in general. Right after a quick break for a word
from our sponsor, and we're back. Thank you sponsors, Yes,
(09:57):
thank you for I was going to say our sanity,
but from my sanity. I'm probably just gonna use popsicles.
Please don't sue me, Popsicle company, but you can send
free products. That's cool. Um, popsicles are pretty new in
the scheme of things. It's true that in ancient rooms
(10:17):
slaves were tasked with retrieving ice from way up in
the cold mountains and bringing back blocks of it that
was then crushed up with fruits and spices for their masters.
Sore raising freezes were observed by Marco Polo and Thomas
Jefferson probably made the same things went showing off at Monticello,
because of course he did, of course. But as far
as popsicles, popsicles, we're talking nineteen o five as in CE,
(10:45):
not BC c E. The story goes that an eleven
year old boy in San Francisco or maybe Oakland, where
it was colder because people have looked at the temperatures. Um,
Frank Epperson forgot his glass of powdered drink mix and water.
He's trying to make his own soft aren't good for him,
complete with straw outside overnight when the sun rose, the
kid discovered it, the whole thing had frozen, and upon
(11:08):
licking it, because of course, you're gonna lick it um.
He discovered it was delicious. Young entrepreneur that he was,
he started selling them around his neighborhood in n Now
An adult, Frank started selling them around a nearby amusement
park called Neptune Beach a k a. The West Coast
Coney Island, also the same venue that snow cones debuted.
(11:31):
By the way, armed with proof that his product was
successful in he patented frozen confection of Attractive Appearance, which
can be conveniently consumed without contamination by contact with a
hand without the need for a plate, spoon, fork are
other implement and began marketing them. He didn't call them popsicles, though,
he called them epsicles. Epsicle you know his name, plus icicle.
(11:55):
It was Frank's kids who started referring to them as
popsicles because he was there. Pop see. I read a
bunch of different origin stories about the name. I also
read that it was because of lollipops that makes sense, sickles,
or maybe because he wanted to advertise that they were
made with soda pop popsicles. I probably all three simultaneously. Yeah.
(12:20):
Maybe in branching dimensions, we love our our branching dimensions
at food stuff we do. Unfortunately, Frank had to sell
the patent shortly after to Joe Loco because he was broke.
When asked about this later, Frank responded, I was flat
and had to liquidate. Oh my assets. I haven't been
the same since. Wow the lowco brought the frozen confection
(12:43):
into the national spotlight. Though at the lo lo prize
of a nickel, these babies were hit. It was marketed
as a frozen lollipop. It even withstood the Great Depression,
in part due to the introduction of the two stick popsicle,
while maintaining that about since price point, Yeah, share one
with your friends, two for the price of one. I
can't imagine sharing a popsicle like that. I mean, I
(13:08):
mean you break them apart. Yeah, that's why my life.
I don't have much experience of popsicles. I've got to
say I had a lot of those freezy pops Oh yeah, yeah,
not not straight up popsicles. Those were not a big
thing in my house. Clearly popsicle pete, popsicles, mascot as
(13:29):
in the company Popsicle comes onto the scene in nine,
but confection drama Bow homes infection drama, and this brings
us to good humor? Do not have a good humor
at all? Or maybe they did, I don't know. But
they came out with their own product on a stick,
chocolate covered ice cream, and Low southed their ass for
(13:51):
infringing on their copyright. The court got them to meet
in the middle, awarding Low the domain of water based
pops and Good Humor the domain of milk based. This,
of course, was not the end of it. It involved
a lot of arguments and big questions like what is
ice cream? Lauren? And how does one define sherbet? Anyway?
(14:11):
Keeps us up at night? I know. By World War Two,
the popsicle had become so popular that the eighth Air
Force Unit picked them as a symbol for American Life.
Popsicles Fudgicle debut in ninety six. The double stick popsicle
went away in nineteen eight six. So maybe that explains
why I don't know what to do with it. Um
(14:34):
flavor ice was introduced in nineteen sixty nine by Jail Sirt.
You know those are the things, the popsicles and the
plastic tube sometimes called freezies. Yeah, yeah, it doesn't have
a stick. You just kind of cut off the end
of the sharp, surprisingly sharp plastic tube, but then you
stick it in your face. Yeah. They come usually in
liquid form and then you freeze them, right. And I
(14:55):
have conspiracy theory that no matter where you are, you
have one of these and your freezer somewhere. We have
a lot of them in my freezer actually, and I'm
very confused about why, yes, exactly who bought these wind why?
How how long have they been there? Have they always
been there? I don't know. You can get them in
(15:15):
Electroalite sports flavor now did you know that? No? I
did not. Um. Oh, and I love this quote I
found about them, um the cool down choice for cheap
skates everywhere. D Yeah. Their competitor, auto Otter pops, which
is sort of a push up pop situation, came onto
(15:37):
the market in nineteen seventy. Jel eventually got the rights
to them as well. UM, and we mentioned we mentioned
them as sort of the impetus for the blue Raspberry
flavor and our artificial flavoring episode. If you ever heard
that one, want to check it out in Unilever acquired
Popsicle the brand and also Good Humor so that an
(16:00):
end to their legal battle that they had going on,
but it opened the door for another very Derby Pie
esque legal battle to protect the copyright of popsicle capital
p the brand it doesn't want to be clean extor xerox.
Like we mentioned the top. In two thousand ten, they
sued a Brooklyn popmaker, People's Pops for a blog post
that included popsicle a blog post. Don't don't take their name.
(16:25):
That's their valuable property. You know, if I had a name,
maybe i'd feel the same way. Annie, you have a name.
Your your name is Annie Reese. And I'm still waiting
for the Reese's Company. I'm here. Oh not yet, but soon.
Food stuff it has to works dot com you guys.
I can in touch it. I could feel it's on
(16:47):
the way. Frank Everson died in Nighte and is now
part of a food tour in California that also includes
Domingo Gara Deli Yes Yes, of the Good World and
her old pal trader Vic Vic Eversent is also featured
in a Christian self help book about trusting God to
(17:08):
help you discover your purpose in life. Okay, yeah, heck yeah, dude.
Popsicles and crime aside because this is a whole article
I found. Okay, so this is not aside from popsicles
and crimes. This is an aside on. Yes, okay, it's
not like popsicle. Yeah, it should be a character in
a comic book, but no, we're talking about popsicles randomly
(17:32):
coming up in crime. Um. They've been involved in a
surprising amount of crime stories. Um, and I wasn't necessarily
a surprised thanks to all the mind trip I used
to play at the beach. But still okay. One such
case stems from the summer of nineteen thirty five, when
Philadelphians woke up to this headline argues over popsicle vendor
(17:55):
is shot. This resulted from a debt. The vendor had
a crewed of ten cents. When the popsicle vendor couldn't
pay up, the lowner demanded two popsicles as payment. The
vendor disagreed to the terms and got a bullet for
his trouble. It was during the Great Depression, so some
sense was pretty big deal. Yeah, I mean, don't shoot anybody,
but just saying it's a bigger deal than yes. Yes,
(18:18):
A thirteen year old boy who ran a Birmingham, Alabama
ice cream truck got robbed in nineteen fifty two and
the culprit sold six dozen ice cream sandwiches and popsicles
and four dollars. Mmm, they were hungry. I mean, well,
my thing is, how did they not melt six dozen
ice cream sandwiches anyway? Um, take this headline from Los
(18:42):
Angeles and nineteen fifty two parents loose suit over boys
popsicle pool row. Yes, there was a lawsuit that took
eight hours of deliberation from the jury. And it all
started when a young boy showed up at the Seminole
Hot Springs resort pool with not one, but two popsicles
and the eleven year old boy on dy and the
son of the resort's owner would not stand for it. No,
(19:04):
he wouldn't allow it. The moms of the boys got
involved and allegedly through popsicles at each other. The mothers yes,
as mature adults do when they have disagreements, the classic
popsicle defense. The parents of the popsicle boys to the resort,
the resort for forty five hundred dollars but yeah, no dice,
(19:26):
and after chasing a teenage bicycling popsicle thief and calling
the police. A pursuer ended up in trouble with the
cops because he had no license. The nineteen fifty five
Washington d C. Headline was popsicle theft and cheese get
victim and police jam. Oh well yeah. After a dozen
popsicles were stolen in nineteen seventy five, the Hartford Court
(19:49):
ran with this headline, police hope to lick popsicle mystery. Yeah,
I had to include it. Good job, Hartford. Yeah, so
pun worthy of food stuff. I don't I don't have
anything about popsicle crime, but I will say that that
(20:10):
that modernly the popsicle brand does tie ins with all
sorts of other brands. There's a Jawbreaker flavored ice pops,
all kinds of Frozen Disney Frozen related ice pops. Yeah,
it's like it's the whole thing. I just realized how
it's just obvious finger gunny that is yeah, absolutely, yeah,
(20:31):
totally clear. Uh, you know, Despicable Me stuff like that.
The minions bright yellow. I don't know what flavor they are,
Minion flavored? That doesn't sound Oh okay, there you go.
I've seen many a animated foam perfect uh. And this
brings us to the science of creating at a large
(20:54):
scale popsicles or popsicle ice pops the fear in her eyes,
popsicle company, We're going to get to that if we're
still here right after one more quick break for a
word from our sponsor, and we're back. Thank you, sponsor,
(21:19):
Thank you. So let's say that you're a big company
who wants to make a new flavor of ice pop Okay,
it's it's a big commitment, even even for a large
company like yourself, Annie, I have a large company. Yes,
you've got to You've got to create a new mold
(21:40):
for it and place a bulk order, like huge bulk
order of rappers and sticks that you want to probably
specially designed for the case. The mold alone is going
to run you around sixty dollars and uh and and
the design and marketing might be another forty thousand, So
it's expensive. But once you've got those things, the manufacturing
process goes like this. You're gonna mix up a base
(22:02):
of sugars, stabilizers, texturizers, and water which can be sent
out to different vats to have different flavors and colors added.
The mixtures are cooled to just above freezing so that it
it can still be a pumped and poured easily, because
you're gonna pump them across your factory and send the
mixture straight to the molds. The mold machines can carry
like two hundred to three hundred strips of stainless steel molds,
(22:28):
and the whole thing is capable of producing about fourth
house and three hundred and twenty ice pops per hour,
or up to twice that many, depending on the speed
and efficiency of your machine, because there has to be
a rinse in sanitized cycle in between each batch, and
you might have multiple machines, like five machines on your line.
These filled molds. Once you once you pump your mix
(22:50):
into them, they're gonna pass through a long tank filled
with a salt brine that's cooled to like negative thirty
degrees fahrenheit, that's about negative thirty two degrees celsius. And
the tank is is maybe about twenty ft long, and
over the course of this journey through the tank, the
pops will freeze up, with the center solidifying during that
last three to four feet right before that point. Therefore,
(23:13):
when the pop liquid is just frozen enough to support
a stick. An injector pushes in the stick. Once it
totally frozen. A warming tank will heat the outside of
the molds just enough to let the pops release, and
then they are dropped into their individual baggies, held open
by gusts of air. Wow, beautiful popsicle symphony. It's a
(23:40):
beautiful ice pop symphony, sometimes conducted by the brand popsicle.
There you go. That's clear as day. It is so
much better way to say it out loud. I'll try
to keep that in mind. I have a history. There's
a long lost from a video stuff promo video. Well,
(24:02):
it's still post it someday we should. It was fun.
We got to have a food fight. It was great.
But I could not pronounce quiescently and Laurence juggling and
I keep ruining, and I have a popsicle in my hand,
and we don't have a backup popsicle. No, because we're fools.
And thought I'd be able to pronounce quiescently, which now
(24:24):
I can do. But at the time and the moment,
it was stressful. It was very stressful. I think I
think I only ruined shots by by missing a juggle,
like maybe only four times. Yeah, We had such big
plans for that video, and we were the ones that
were like, we're gonna have juggling in a popsicle and
(24:45):
the same I'm saying, you know, we're gonna be walking
and the whole thing. Yeah, at least you weren't on
roller blades in the initial version of the script. You
were like, I have to be on rollerblades, that I
have to be eating this popsicle and you have to
be juggling, and that's what it's going to And then
there was going to be a confanity Canyonette and Cannon
petty Cannon. Yeah, not canyon although and if that sounds fun, yeah,
I'd do that too. Anyway, we'll get that up on
(25:06):
line somewhere. But in the meanwhile, this brings us to
the end of our Popsical episode and two. Listener Maile, okay, okay,
I want to start out by saying that, um, we
have been delighted by the just pouring in of emails
(25:30):
describing your favorite peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are without jelly.
Oh yeah, oh yes, absolutely, thank you. It has been excellent.
You'll probably hear more of those, um and future episodes
because we did get quite a lot, and they are.
They are wonderful. But we're gonna start with this one
from Miranda. She wrote, my P B and J preference
(25:52):
is very personal to me. Like you both mentioned, I
always had smooth peanut butter and strawberry jelly, but my
sandwich had to be placed under the cold pack and
mile lunchbox. For some reason, I loved how it made
the sandwich cold and smashed it together a bit. I
can't explain exactly why I liked it, but I was
adamant that my sandwich had to be smashed by the
ice pack. I am a student naval aviator training to
(26:13):
be a Coastguard pilot. When I first started flying, I
was getting air sick. I was told that peanut butter
is a great thing to eat before your flight's to
have something to settle your stomach. And it worked. Now
I have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich before each flight,
and I make sure to keep it under my ice
pack in my lunch box. I guess some old habits
die hard. Also in college, it was a frequent occurrence
(26:34):
that freshman would stand up at a lunch with a
fresh jar of peanut butter. One without the seal taken off,
they would They would yell fire in the hole and
smash the jar skippy peanut butter on their forehead to
break open the seal. Peanut butter would fly everywhere and
people would stand up and cheer. However, everyone would yell
much louder and boo you if you weren't strong enough
(26:56):
to break the seal with your forehead. A strange tradition
in our school. I still have no idea where it
came from, but I did get hit with a flying
glob of peanut butter one day. Good times were had
by all except my staying sweater. That is a very
interesting tradition, Rand. I've never heard of that before, and
I don't think I'd be able to do it. I
(27:16):
don't know. I kind of want to try, I know
you do. Its like a something I need to prove
to myself. This is one of the ones that we
can't do in the studio though. Yeah, I think I
think that's an outdoor activity. Okay, okay, reconvene. Later, Rachel
(27:38):
wrote about our Crawfish episode. I live in Houston, Texas,
which is an incredible, incredible food city. Not only does
it have some southern charm, but it's also home to
some kick ass text backs and of course Texas barbecue.
But did you know that Houston is also the most
diverse city in the country. Because of this, Houston has
an insane amount of international and regional food options. I
(28:00):
say all this because you mentioned a crawfish restaurant in
Atlanta owned by a Vietnamese family at the beginning of
the episode. But did you know that vietcasion is its
own type of cuisine here in Houston. Vietcasion came about
starting in the late seventies and early eighties after the
Vietnam War, when a lot of Vietnamese refugees came to
the e Gulf Coast, but especially after a large influx
(28:20):
of Vietnamese came to Houston after Katrina. Shrimping is a
major industry in Vietnam, so when Vietnamese people moved here,
they easily transitioned to the crawfish industry. Being so close
to Louisiana, it makes sense that Houston has a lot
of Cajun cuisine. However, when the Vietnamese started cooking crawfish
after boiling, they would finish them in all the delicious
(28:41):
Vietnamese seasonings such as garlic and lemongrass sauteed with butter butter.
This is of course sacrilegious in Louisiana, but Houstonians love
their viet Cajun mudbugs. They do sound delicious. Oh that
sounds great. I mean adding butter to anything isn't really
not hasty. Yeah, it's hard. Nothing's coming to mind immediately. No,
(29:07):
but I'm sure there's something here. There has to be something. Well,
we'll investigate with one of our well known food stuff
investigations and get to the bottom of it, will But
in the meantime, please keep those emails coming. You can
email us at food Stuff at how stuff works dot com.
You can also find us on social media. We are
(29:29):
on Twitter and Facebook at food stuff hs W. Also
over on Instagram at food stuff and we hope to
hear from you. Thank you as always to our amazing
superproducer Dylan Fagan, who has his other headphones on and
is listening to something else entirely um oh blated shout
out to our research assistant Christopher hassiotis for given us
(29:51):
a whole bunch of peanut butter research to get us
kickstarted on that episode. Who's just a terrific human person.
We're hoping to get him on the show sometime kind
of soon, because he's a font of amazing food facts.
Is amazing food fact font. Thanks to you for listening,
and we hope that lots more good things are coming
your way.
Hello, and welp into food stuff. I'm any Rees and
I'm Lauren bog Obam, and today we're talking about the popsicle,
ice pop and other quiescently frozen ice pop desserts. Yes,
because we were not sued yet. We had the Derby
Pie people, but the popsical people. I don't know. It's
(00:32):
another risk that we're taking. It is. We take a
lot of deep risks on the show. It's all for you,
it really is, so. I mean, we're just putting our
necks on the line to tell you about these frozen
streets of the summer. One might call them if one
wanted to, if one so dared, if one dared popsicles,
(00:57):
I I pluralized it. I know the popsicle on our
studio door. Okay, okay, all of this begs the question
or what why are we going through this verbal uh acrobatics,
these verbal acrobatics. What is a popsicle or a popsicle?
What is it? This is a llegal quandary, a legal quandary.
(01:21):
And Lauren, since I've already in trouble with the law,
perhaps you should take this on all right, Well, legally,
a popsicle is a brand of quiescently frozen confections a
k A. Flavored ice, pops quiescently frozen. I'm coming back
to it, okay. In the parlance of our times, popsicles
(01:44):
are usually fruit juice or fruit flavored water with or
without added sweeteners, flavorings, colorings, and or texturizers that's been
frozen in place into an oblong shape with a sturdy
flat stick stuck part way through the center to act
a handle. And the sticks popsicles, and yes, this is
on the Popsicle official Popsicle website. The sticks that they
(02:07):
use are traditionally birch wood. And yes, popsicle is what
you would call a proprietary eponym. That's a word that
that's a that's a legally registered trademark as a company name.
It's the name of a company. But that word has
come to be used generically by you know, the people
at large, to mean any form of whatever thing that
(02:28):
company is famous for. You know, like saying Google when
you mean Internet search, or band aid when you mean
adhesive bandage, or clean X when you mean tissue, coke
when you mean soda, or I mean any soda yea.
Sometimes uh, styrofoam when you mean extruded polystyrene foam. Well,
that's just difficult to say frisbee when you mean throwing disc.
(02:52):
Give me my throwing disc now, I would like to
have fun quickly my throwing discs. It sounds like a
weapon throwing. Oh it does, really do? I mean phrasbees
are sort of weapons anyway, it depends on how good
you aren't catching them. You're totally correct, but okay, So
if you're being legally technically correct, you never use the
(03:15):
word popsicle as a noun. You never you never have
a popsicle. You have a popsicle ice pop. Oh. I
can't wait to annoy someone about this later. Similarly, you
cannot pluralize the word popsicle if you're being if you're
being real on the up and ups about it, you're
you're not going to the store to buy popsicles. You're
going to buy popsicle pops of course, clearly. And if
(03:38):
you said that you love popsicles great taste, Annie, you're
talking about the flavor of a company, and I think
you should look at your life and your choices. What
a fool I am. You'd be correct to say the
great taste of popsicle ice pops Now, I'm just like
a walking commercial. This is language that I took pretty
(03:58):
directly from their web site about how to navigate these
complex problems, because they are complex problems that we all face,
especially in the summer. Yes, oh man, I've faced a
number of ice pop devices during summer months. Ice pop
devices should be the legal name. Let's just be honest. Okay,
(04:22):
So so popsicle, Yes, popsicle is a brand. Um. But
but also you, I mean, you know you're probably not
going to get sued if you talk about popsicles, like
within your own home. I think every place should have
a jar, like a swear jar, but the popsicle jar,
and the company comes around and collects it. Like every
time you say popsical, you put a nickel in there.
At the end of the year, popsicle, the company collects
(04:44):
all the nickels. Or maybe they could have a like
a big one for like Google and KLINEX and all
that stuff and come around. I'm not sure how they
would divvy it up. You need to have different sure compartments.
You're right, but I don't know. We'll have to look
and do separately. Outside of the podcast. If Google as
a whole page about how to navigate talking about their product.
I think it's just for employees, okay, yeah, see, they
(05:08):
were fine. The nickel system is only for popsicles, okay,
although they probably don't need any nickels because each year
popsicle products top two billion in sales, two billion units. Yeah,
and the most popular popsicle brand flavor is cherry. I
found that surprising. Oh, I don't know what I would
(05:30):
I would imagine strawberry, I guess. I guess me too. Yeah.
Tracking down non branded ice pop sales or non popsicle
branded ice pop sales. Rather, it's a little squidgy because
you know, legally the term is quietly frozen confections, and
in terms of market sales, there in the general category
of frozen novelties um, which can encompass things that are
(05:52):
clearly not popsicles one way or another, like you know,
wrapped ice cream cones, ice cream sandwiches, stuff like that.
But in the United States, as of TwixT, the frozen
novelties categories saw one point to billion dollars in sales.
If you don't want to contribute to that one point
two billion dollars, you can make them at home. Yeah. Yeah,
(06:15):
they're pretty easy to make because Okay, the term quiescently
means in a state of inactivity or dormancy, which here
means you don't have to mess with popsicles as you're
freezing them, because they will shape up all on their own,
unlike ice cream, which you have to churn while you're
freezing it to to whip wee bits of air into
like the physical structure to create the right type of
(06:36):
crystallization that gives the finished ice cream that dreamy smooth texture.
But not so with popsicles. If you buy a popsicle mold,
which are pretty cheap but larger groceries like big box stores,
you know on the internets, you can pour pretty much
any juice or soda or booze into the mold, just
leave it in the freezer for a few hours and
(06:57):
have pretty excellent popsicles. Um I mean, I mean straight
straight liquors wouldn't work because the freezing point of alcohol
is way below the freezing point of water. But but
you could water him down and make like a cocktail pop. Yeah.
And not to go on too much of a boost
tangent here, no, never, but certainly in my research, I
went on a really huge boost tangent um. So like,
(07:18):
for the record, you need less than about ten total
alcohol by volume in your mixture in order to freeze
something solid in your home freezer. So that means that
for every like cup of non booze liquid, you can
add about three ounces. It's about two standard shots of
of standard forty is proof alcohol just f y. I
(07:44):
I'm not saying that I have enormous plans for experimenting
with such recipes over the summer or at our next
D and D game, hypothetical plans. Perhaps I would like
to partake hypothetically, and these imagined popsicles understood hypothetically hypothetically.
(08:04):
We do have a local uh popsicle vender, King of Pops,
and they make pop tails Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, which
are cocktails with popsicles, well pops excuse I pops ice
pops inserted in them that sort of likes it melts,
melts down into the cocktail, makes it look and taste
quite lovely. It is very nice. One of my favorite
(08:26):
things that we had an Atlanta Food and Wine was
the poptail from Old Fourth or Old Pals, that Old
Fourth distillery. It was lovely it was. While we're shouting
things out, we should also shout out there's both a
brain Stuff video episode about quiescently frozen confections um that
(08:48):
Josh Clark did and he's some kind of mad genius.
I think it's actually my very favorite video episode of
brain Stuff ever. It's pretty excellent. Yeah. Also mad props
to Paul Decan, who is I'm not going to say
a mad genius, just regular like the even keeled genius,
very even keel genius. He drinks a lot of tea,
he does. Oh man, I respect to hydration as well.
(09:11):
Oh and another show that we that we work in
conjunction with here at How Stuff Works. How Stuff he
missed in history class, did a whole episode about about
good humor versus popsicle. Yeah, intrigue, very much intrigue. Oh,
I would say not. We're going to get a little
(09:33):
bit into that intrigue plus the rest of the history
of the popsicle brand and it's ice pops, ice pops
in general. Right after a quick break for a word
from our sponsor, and we're back. Thank you sponsors, Yes,
(09:57):
thank you for I was going to say our sanity,
but from my sanity. I'm probably just gonna use popsicles.
Please don't sue me, Popsicle company, but you can send
free products. That's cool. Um, popsicles are pretty new in
the scheme of things. It's true that in ancient rooms
(10:17):
slaves were tasked with retrieving ice from way up in
the cold mountains and bringing back blocks of it that
was then crushed up with fruits and spices for their masters.
Sore raising freezes were observed by Marco Polo and Thomas
Jefferson probably made the same things went showing off at Monticello,
because of course he did, of course. But as far
as popsicles, popsicles, we're talking nineteen o five as in CE,
(10:45):
not BC c E. The story goes that an eleven
year old boy in San Francisco or maybe Oakland, where
it was colder because people have looked at the temperatures. Um,
Frank Epperson forgot his glass of powdered drink mix and water.
He's trying to make his own soft aren't good for him,
complete with straw outside overnight when the sun rose, the
kid discovered it, the whole thing had frozen, and upon
(11:08):
licking it, because of course, you're gonna lick it um.
He discovered it was delicious. Young entrepreneur that he was,
he started selling them around his neighborhood in n Now
An adult, Frank started selling them around a nearby amusement
park called Neptune Beach a k a. The West Coast
Coney Island, also the same venue that snow cones debuted.
(11:31):
By the way, armed with proof that his product was
successful in he patented frozen confection of Attractive Appearance, which
can be conveniently consumed without contamination by contact with a
hand without the need for a plate, spoon, fork are
other implement and began marketing them. He didn't call them popsicles, though,
he called them epsicles. Epsicle you know his name, plus icicle.
(11:55):
It was Frank's kids who started referring to them as
popsicles because he was there. Pop see. I read a
bunch of different origin stories about the name. I also
read that it was because of lollipops that makes sense, sickles,
or maybe because he wanted to advertise that they were
made with soda pop popsicles. I probably all three simultaneously. Yeah.
(12:20):
Maybe in branching dimensions, we love our our branching dimensions
at food stuff we do. Unfortunately, Frank had to sell
the patent shortly after to Joe Loco because he was broke.
When asked about this later, Frank responded, I was flat
and had to liquidate. Oh my assets. I haven't been
the same since. Wow the lowco brought the frozen confection
(12:43):
into the national spotlight. Though at the lo lo prize
of a nickel, these babies were hit. It was marketed
as a frozen lollipop. It even withstood the Great Depression,
in part due to the introduction of the two stick popsicle,
while maintaining that about since price point, Yeah, share one
with your friends, two for the price of one. I
can't imagine sharing a popsicle like that. I mean, I
(13:08):
mean you break them apart. Yeah, that's why my life.
I don't have much experience of popsicles. I've got to
say I had a lot of those freezy pops Oh yeah, yeah,
not not straight up popsicles. Those were not a big
thing in my house. Clearly popsicle pete, popsicles, mascot as
(13:29):
in the company Popsicle comes onto the scene in nine,
but confection drama Bow homes infection drama, and this brings
us to good humor? Do not have a good humor
at all? Or maybe they did, I don't know. But
they came out with their own product on a stick,
chocolate covered ice cream, and Low southed their ass for
(13:51):
infringing on their copyright. The court got them to meet
in the middle, awarding Low the domain of water based
pops and Good Humor the domain of milk based. This,
of course, was not the end of it. It involved
a lot of arguments and big questions like what is
ice cream? Lauren? And how does one define sherbet? Anyway?
(14:11):
Keeps us up at night? I know. By World War Two,
the popsicle had become so popular that the eighth Air
Force Unit picked them as a symbol for American Life.
Popsicles Fudgicle debut in ninety six. The double stick popsicle
went away in nineteen eight six. So maybe that explains
why I don't know what to do with it. Um
(14:34):
flavor ice was introduced in nineteen sixty nine by Jail Sirt.
You know those are the things, the popsicles and the
plastic tube sometimes called freezies. Yeah, yeah, it doesn't have
a stick. You just kind of cut off the end
of the sharp, surprisingly sharp plastic tube, but then you
stick it in your face. Yeah. They come usually in
liquid form and then you freeze them, right. And I
(14:55):
have conspiracy theory that no matter where you are, you
have one of these and your freezer somewhere. We have
a lot of them in my freezer actually, and I'm
very confused about why, yes, exactly who bought these wind why?
How how long have they been there? Have they always
been there? I don't know. You can get them in
(15:15):
Electroalite sports flavor now did you know that? No? I
did not. Um. Oh, and I love this quote I
found about them, um the cool down choice for cheap
skates everywhere. D Yeah. Their competitor, auto Otter pops, which
is sort of a push up pop situation, came onto
(15:37):
the market in nineteen seventy. Jel eventually got the rights
to them as well. UM, and we mentioned we mentioned
them as sort of the impetus for the blue Raspberry
flavor and our artificial flavoring episode. If you ever heard
that one, want to check it out in Unilever acquired
Popsicle the brand and also Good Humor so that an
(16:00):
end to their legal battle that they had going on,
but it opened the door for another very Derby Pie
esque legal battle to protect the copyright of popsicle capital
p the brand it doesn't want to be clean extor xerox.
Like we mentioned the top. In two thousand ten, they
sued a Brooklyn popmaker, People's Pops for a blog post
that included popsicle a blog post. Don't don't take their name.
(16:25):
That's their valuable property. You know, if I had a name,
maybe i'd feel the same way. Annie, you have a name.
Your your name is Annie Reese. And I'm still waiting
for the Reese's Company. I'm here. Oh not yet, but soon.
Food stuff it has to works dot com you guys.
I can in touch it. I could feel it's on
(16:47):
the way. Frank Everson died in Nighte and is now
part of a food tour in California that also includes
Domingo Gara Deli Yes Yes, of the Good World and
her old pal trader Vic Vic Eversent is also featured
in a Christian self help book about trusting God to
(17:08):
help you discover your purpose in life. Okay, yeah, heck yeah, dude.
Popsicles and crime aside because this is a whole article
I found. Okay, so this is not aside from popsicles
and crimes. This is an aside on. Yes, okay, it's
not like popsicle. Yeah, it should be a character in
a comic book, but no, we're talking about popsicles randomly
(17:32):
coming up in crime. Um. They've been involved in a
surprising amount of crime stories. Um, and I wasn't necessarily
a surprised thanks to all the mind trip I used
to play at the beach. But still okay. One such
case stems from the summer of nineteen thirty five, when
Philadelphians woke up to this headline argues over popsicle vendor
(17:55):
is shot. This resulted from a debt. The vendor had
a crewed of ten cents. When the popsicle vendor couldn't
pay up, the lowner demanded two popsicles as payment. The
vendor disagreed to the terms and got a bullet for
his trouble. It was during the Great Depression, so some
sense was pretty big deal. Yeah, I mean, don't shoot anybody,
but just saying it's a bigger deal than yes. Yes,
(18:18):
A thirteen year old boy who ran a Birmingham, Alabama
ice cream truck got robbed in nineteen fifty two and
the culprit sold six dozen ice cream sandwiches and popsicles
and four dollars. Mmm, they were hungry. I mean, well,
my thing is, how did they not melt six dozen
ice cream sandwiches anyway? Um, take this headline from Los
(18:42):
Angeles and nineteen fifty two parents loose suit over boys
popsicle pool row. Yes, there was a lawsuit that took
eight hours of deliberation from the jury. And it all
started when a young boy showed up at the Seminole
Hot Springs resort pool with not one, but two popsicles
and the eleven year old boy on dy and the
son of the resort's owner would not stand for it. No,
(19:04):
he wouldn't allow it. The moms of the boys got
involved and allegedly through popsicles at each other. The mothers yes,
as mature adults do when they have disagreements, the classic
popsicle defense. The parents of the popsicle boys to the resort,
the resort for forty five hundred dollars but yeah, no dice,
(19:26):
and after chasing a teenage bicycling popsicle thief and calling
the police. A pursuer ended up in trouble with the
cops because he had no license. The nineteen fifty five
Washington d C. Headline was popsicle theft and cheese get
victim and police jam. Oh well yeah. After a dozen
popsicles were stolen in nineteen seventy five, the Hartford Court
(19:49):
ran with this headline, police hope to lick popsicle mystery. Yeah,
I had to include it. Good job, Hartford. Yeah, so
pun worthy of food stuff. I don't I don't have
anything about popsicle crime, but I will say that that
(20:10):
that modernly the popsicle brand does tie ins with all
sorts of other brands. There's a Jawbreaker flavored ice pops,
all kinds of Frozen Disney Frozen related ice pops. Yeah,
it's like it's the whole thing. I just realized how
it's just obvious finger gunny that is yeah, absolutely, yeah,
(20:31):
totally clear. Uh, you know, Despicable Me stuff like that.
The minions bright yellow. I don't know what flavor they are,
Minion flavored? That doesn't sound Oh okay, there you go.
I've seen many a animated foam perfect uh. And this
brings us to the science of creating at a large
(20:54):
scale popsicles or popsicle ice pops the fear in her eyes,
popsicle company, We're going to get to that if we're
still here right after one more quick break for a
word from our sponsor, and we're back. Thank you, sponsor,
(21:19):
Thank you. So let's say that you're a big company
who wants to make a new flavor of ice pop Okay,
it's it's a big commitment, even even for a large
company like yourself, Annie, I have a large company. Yes,
you've got to You've got to create a new mold
(21:40):
for it and place a bulk order, like huge bulk
order of rappers and sticks that you want to probably
specially designed for the case. The mold alone is going
to run you around sixty dollars and uh and and
the design and marketing might be another forty thousand, So
it's expensive. But once you've got those things, the manufacturing
process goes like this. You're gonna mix up a base
(22:02):
of sugars, stabilizers, texturizers, and water which can be sent
out to different vats to have different flavors and colors added.
The mixtures are cooled to just above freezing so that it
it can still be a pumped and poured easily, because
you're gonna pump them across your factory and send the
mixture straight to the molds. The mold machines can carry
like two hundred to three hundred strips of stainless steel molds,
(22:28):
and the whole thing is capable of producing about fourth
house and three hundred and twenty ice pops per hour,
or up to twice that many, depending on the speed
and efficiency of your machine, because there has to be
a rinse in sanitized cycle in between each batch, and
you might have multiple machines, like five machines on your line.
These filled molds. Once you once you pump your mix
(22:50):
into them, they're gonna pass through a long tank filled
with a salt brine that's cooled to like negative thirty
degrees fahrenheit, that's about negative thirty two degrees celsius. And
the tank is is maybe about twenty ft long, and
over the course of this journey through the tank, the
pops will freeze up, with the center solidifying during that
last three to four feet right before that point. Therefore,
(23:13):
when the pop liquid is just frozen enough to support
a stick. An injector pushes in the stick. Once it
totally frozen. A warming tank will heat the outside of
the molds just enough to let the pops release, and
then they are dropped into their individual baggies, held open
by gusts of air. Wow, beautiful popsicle symphony. It's a
(23:40):
beautiful ice pop symphony, sometimes conducted by the brand popsicle.
There you go. That's clear as day. It is so
much better way to say it out loud. I'll try
to keep that in mind. I have a history. There's
a long lost from a video stuff promo video. Well,
(24:02):
it's still post it someday we should. It was fun.
We got to have a food fight. It was great.
But I could not pronounce quiescently and Laurence juggling and
I keep ruining, and I have a popsicle in my hand,
and we don't have a backup popsicle. No, because we're fools.
And thought I'd be able to pronounce quiescently, which now
(24:24):
I can do. But at the time and the moment,
it was stressful. It was very stressful. I think I
think I only ruined shots by by missing a juggle,
like maybe only four times. Yeah, We had such big
plans for that video, and we were the ones that
were like, we're gonna have juggling in a popsicle and
(24:45):
the same I'm saying, you know, we're gonna be walking
and the whole thing. Yeah, at least you weren't on
roller blades in the initial version of the script. You
were like, I have to be on rollerblades, that I
have to be eating this popsicle and you have to
be juggling, and that's what it's going to And then
there was going to be a confanity Canyonette and Cannon
petty Cannon. Yeah, not canyon although and if that sounds fun, yeah,
I'd do that too. Anyway, we'll get that up on
(25:06):
line somewhere. But in the meanwhile, this brings us to
the end of our Popsical episode and two. Listener Maile, okay, okay,
I want to start out by saying that, um, we
have been delighted by the just pouring in of emails
(25:30):
describing your favorite peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are without jelly.
Oh yeah, oh yes, absolutely, thank you. It has been excellent.
You'll probably hear more of those, um and future episodes
because we did get quite a lot, and they are.
They are wonderful. But we're gonna start with this one
from Miranda. She wrote, my P B and J preference
(25:52):
is very personal to me. Like you both mentioned, I
always had smooth peanut butter and strawberry jelly, but my
sandwich had to be placed under the cold pack and
mile lunchbox. For some reason, I loved how it made
the sandwich cold and smashed it together a bit. I
can't explain exactly why I liked it, but I was
adamant that my sandwich had to be smashed by the
ice pack. I am a student naval aviator training to
(26:13):
be a Coastguard pilot. When I first started flying, I
was getting air sick. I was told that peanut butter
is a great thing to eat before your flight's to
have something to settle your stomach. And it worked. Now
I have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich before each flight,
and I make sure to keep it under my ice
pack in my lunch box. I guess some old habits
die hard. Also in college, it was a frequent occurrence
(26:34):
that freshman would stand up at a lunch with a
fresh jar of peanut butter. One without the seal taken off,
they would They would yell fire in the hole and
smash the jar skippy peanut butter on their forehead to
break open the seal. Peanut butter would fly everywhere and
people would stand up and cheer. However, everyone would yell
much louder and boo you if you weren't strong enough
(26:56):
to break the seal with your forehead. A strange tradition
in our school. I still have no idea where it
came from, but I did get hit with a flying
glob of peanut butter one day. Good times were had
by all except my staying sweater. That is a very
interesting tradition, Rand. I've never heard of that before, and
I don't think I'd be able to do it. I
(27:16):
don't know. I kind of want to try, I know
you do. Its like a something I need to prove
to myself. This is one of the ones that we
can't do in the studio though. Yeah, I think I
think that's an outdoor activity. Okay, okay, reconvene. Later, Rachel
(27:38):
wrote about our Crawfish episode. I live in Houston, Texas,
which is an incredible, incredible food city. Not only does
it have some southern charm, but it's also home to
some kick ass text backs and of course Texas barbecue.
But did you know that Houston is also the most
diverse city in the country. Because of this, Houston has
an insane amount of international and regional food options. I
(28:00):
say all this because you mentioned a crawfish restaurant in
Atlanta owned by a Vietnamese family at the beginning of
the episode. But did you know that vietcasion is its
own type of cuisine here in Houston. Vietcasion came about
starting in the late seventies and early eighties after the
Vietnam War, when a lot of Vietnamese refugees came to
the e Gulf Coast, but especially after a large influx
(28:20):
of Vietnamese came to Houston after Katrina. Shrimping is a
major industry in Vietnam, so when Vietnamese people moved here,
they easily transitioned to the crawfish industry. Being so close
to Louisiana, it makes sense that Houston has a lot
of Cajun cuisine. However, when the Vietnamese started cooking crawfish
after boiling, they would finish them in all the delicious
(28:41):
Vietnamese seasonings such as garlic and lemongrass sauteed with butter butter.
This is of course sacrilegious in Louisiana, but Houstonians love
their viet Cajun mudbugs. They do sound delicious. Oh that
sounds great. I mean adding butter to anything isn't really
not hasty. Yeah, it's hard. Nothing's coming to mind immediately. No,
(29:07):
but I'm sure there's something here. There has to be something. Well,
we'll investigate with one of our well known food stuff
investigations and get to the bottom of it, will But
in the meantime, please keep those emails coming. You can
email us at food Stuff at how stuff works dot com.
You can also find us on social media. We are
(29:29):
on Twitter and Facebook at food stuff hs W. Also
over on Instagram at food stuff and we hope to
hear from you. Thank you as always to our amazing
superproducer Dylan Fagan, who has his other headphones on and
is listening to something else entirely um oh blated shout
out to our research assistant Christopher hassiotis for given us
(29:51):
a whole bunch of peanut butter research to get us
kickstarted on that episode. Who's just a terrific human person.
We're hoping to get him on the show sometime kind
of soon, because he's a font of amazing food facts.
Is amazing food fact font. Thanks to you for listening,
and we hope that lots more good things are coming
your way.
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Anney Reese
Lauren Vogelbaum
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