Fooditorial

Food Fight!

Candy Corn

Lewis Black sides with Simon on this one.

I Have Nothing but Scorn for Candy Corn

By Simon McCormack

My biggest issue with candy corn is that it tastes like nothing more than pure sugar.

I don't mean it in the sense that all candy, in some way or another, tastes like sugar. I mean it tastes exactly like eating a handful of pure, white cane sugar.

Worse still, it comes in a highly deceptive package. Candy corn is brightly colored, indicating it might have some kind of fruit taste, and its unique cone shape dazzles the eye.

Furthermore, unlike more reputable candies, candy corn only seems to surface around the Halloween season. Perhaps the candy corn manufacturers feel it's best to let everyone they've duped into consuming their product the previous year have some time to forget the harrowing experience, so that we may once again be tricked into ingesting this bite-sized poison.

And where do these manufacturers get off affiliating their product with corn? You can't just pretend you're selling a new form of corn and expect folks not to notice. Even the most synthetically produced products with a fruit or vegetable in their title, such as fruit snacks, make some attempt to at least taste like their namesake. I doubt any reasonable human being biting into a piece of candy corn is reminded of corn—or of anything except previous episodes in which they've forced themselves to vomit.

In short, candy corn is an abomination, and each year it threatens to ruin an otherwise decent holiday with its foul taste and misleading name. I urge everyone who dreams of a candy corn-free society to have hope; because for every one person who, because of some sort of genetic abnormality, actually likes candy corn, there are literally dozens of good, honest people who can't stand the sight of it.

We Built this Country on Candy Corn

Maren Tarro

Candy corn is a sugary tribute to the agricultural prowess of America’s heartland. These small, tricolored kernels of sweet autumnal delight pay tribute to the men and women upon whose backs this country was built. Like the farmers and ranchers that sculpted this fine land, candy corn has carved out a niche in our hearts that serves to remind us of a simpler time; a time when just a dab of honey could lift spirits and make everything all right.

This uncomplicated treat brings several forms of sugar (cane sugar, corn syrup and honey) together into one refined goody. The pyramid-shaped delicacy we call candy corn is so much more than candy; it is a tiny confectionary monument to the merging of tillage and industry. Its corny architecture is a nod to the harvest that sustains us while its mass-availability pays homage to man’s mastery over nature through machines.

Candy corn, with its oddly creamy, nearly marshmallowy texture, falls down the esophagus much the way the October leaves fall to the ground. Candy corn, which perches on the brink of too sweet but rests firmly on being just sweet enough, pushes boundaries much like our horticulturist homesteaders.

Every time you pop one of these seeds of honeyed goodness into your mouth, you acknowledge the sweat our forefathers have shed and the ingenuity they put forth to bring this pleasure to us. Hershey's can’t offer you this. Neither can M&M's. And those weird, chewy nuggets of peanut butter hell wrapped in black and orange wax paper simply don’t compare.

Candy corn embodies what it is to be an American.

If you don’t like candy corn you might be a communist. And not the cool kind who hangs out in coffee shops writing bad poetry, but the kind of communist who eats babies for breakfast.