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Writer's pictureSteven Hansen

Yummy Origin Stories: Circus Peanuts

Updated: 1 day ago

We love food! We especially love creative food treats that were invented to make us happy, if not necessarily healthy. You just know the origin stories of those delightful products have to be interesting and probably surprising, too!


circus peanuts

Halloween will be here before you know it. Stores have had vast displays of individually wrapped candy treats on their shelves since August. Probably by now, all the good stuff is gone. So, what you’ll find instead are bags and bags of the sad contenders for the annual Worst Halloween Candy lists. We’re talking Tootsie Rolls, Mary Janes, Necco Wafers, and their doomed ilk.


Worst Halloween Candy List

In fact, Candystore.com, one of the largest online candy emporiums, surveyed 12,000 of their customers and combined that data with seven other lists to create a comprehensive rundown of the most reviled Halloween candy ever. And the number 1 worst candy treat ever foisted upon unlucky trick-or-treaters? Circus peanuts.



the worst halloween candy chart

Love ’em or hate ’em, circus peanuts are definitely the cilantro or pineapple pizza of the candy world. They are hard marshmallow, orange colored, jumbo peanut-shaped confections that taste like bananas. Nothing about them makes sense, even as a silly novelty. Why do they even exist? Who would invent such a thing?



History

“The history of circus peanuts is clouded,” state Richard and AnnaKate Hartel in their 2008 book, Food Bites: The Science of the Foods We Eat. “Perhaps…it's because nobody wants to admit that they're responsible for developing this much-maligned product.”


black and white picture of old candy store

As best we know, molded marshmallow circus peanuts were invented in the late 1800s. They were sold unwrapped by the piece from 5-and-10-cent store candy counter jars, along with other loose penny candies. They have been manufactured by many different companies over the years, though the various brands of the candies were, and still are, virtually identical.


Were marshmallow circus peanuts originally sold at circuses, hence their name? It’s doubtful. Certainly, real peanuts, often salted and warmed, were popular snacks sold by vendors at traveling circuses. But candy circus peanuts are highly susceptible to temperature and humidity and couldn’t be kept stable outside the candy store counter until the invention of cellophane packaging in the 1940s.



They Remain Popular Somehow

Today Brach’s Candy and Spangler Candy Company are the leading manufacturers. (Spangler produces 32,000 pounds of them per day.) And much to the loathing of circus peanut aficionados – and there are many – the candies now come in various other flavors and colors beyond the traditional banana-flavored, orange-colored peanut.


circus peanuts being made in a factory


The Lucky Charms Connection

Interestingly, the inspiration for Lucky Charms breakfast cereal was sparked in 1964 when a General Mills employee shaved bits of circus peanuts into a bowl of Cheerios. A new cereal novelty was created. Brilliant or unfortunate? We’ll let you decide.


a bowl of lucky charms cereal


And then a Spinoff

If you are not a fan of circus peanuts on their own, you may enjoy Circus Peanut Jello Salad, a surprising Halloween concoction.


a piece of circus peanut salad

 

Or you can just microwave them for laughs:



  


:-) Please like and share with anyone you know who loves (or hates) circus peanuts! Thanks.

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