Ode to Candy Corn

As the air turns crisp and the month creeps ever closer to Halloween, every candy dish in the office flows like a horn of plenty. Brightly wrapped toffees are nestled on top of a bed of miniatures Baby Ruths, fun sized Snickers, and little bags of M&Ms. While the world uses October to celebrate the invention of chocolate, I use this opportunity to indulge in the season’s finest offering, the candy corn.

It saddens me that this sweet confection is only available once a year. There are so many ways I love to eat them. Sometimes I will bit each color off and have a nibble of white, a bite of orange, and then a little dessert with the yellow. Sometimes I will put two in my mouth and grind my molars on them until they make a sweet paste that I can roll across my tongue. And then there are the times that I put a whole handful in my mouth until all my spit turns into that thick, syrupy slurry that harkens me back to Halloweens of my childhood. Mostly I just pop them into my mouth, one by and one, until I look down and wonder if there is a hole at the bottom of the bag.

Some of you readers just had your salivary gland kick into action and gave your lips an unconscious lick. But just as many curled their lips in disgust, much the way I would at the thought of a vegan meal. Candy corn is a very galvanizing candy. You either love it or hate it. You will never met someone who is wishy-washy on the issue. The response is either, yes, I love them, do you happen to have any on you so that I may enjoy the sweet goodness within? Or, that is disgusting, I would rather suck on my grandmother’s dentures. Think I am lying? Turn to your co-worker next to you and ask them how they feel about it.

I don’t understand those people who feel the bile back up into their throat when they think about my beloved candy corn. Candy corn is simply sugar (good), corn syrup (good), and honey (best). It is candy in its purest form. Three layers of color to represent three forms of sugar that is whipped together into a sweet treat that makes my heart sing. Nothing heralds the coming holiday like a bowl of them at your desk, or a glimpse of the package sitting like a sparkling jewel amid the miles of the other candy that you can buy year round. Nothing is funnier than candy corn fangs, or more fun than making designs on your desk that you are then able to slowly eat away at.

Fun fact for you according to Brach's (who make the best candy corn, but closely followed by the Jelly Belly Company), each year Americans eat enough candy corn that if the kernels were laid end to end, they would circle the Earth four times. My yearly consumption of those perfect drops of pure sugar surly accounts for one circumnavigation. Tomorrow, October 30th, is National Candy Corn Day. I am going to celebrate in style, and to all of my fellow candy corn lovers, pay proper tribute to our tiny tri-colored friends. Happy Halloween!