...Jujy Dreams

Twizzlers vs. Jujyfruits

2010-06-15T16:37:00.000-07:00

Everyone knows Jujyfruits' flavors are determined by the color of the candies and not by their shapes. The same is true of a new product offered by Hershey: Twizzlers. Twizzlers are all shaped the same.

Everyone knows that Twizzlers are licorice ropes and traditionally they came in black or red: licorice or cherry (possibly strawberry?). There's a new Twizzler twist on the shelf: Rainbow. These come in a bag packed with patently artificial, neon-inspired colored ropes of 'licorice.' What's the jujy-connection? Like Jujyfruits, Twizzlers' flavors are defined by their colors. Like Jujyfruits, the flavor is hard to discern if you don't know what to expect beforehand.

An informal sampling took place in the Jujy Dreams laboratory recently and I'll spare you the details of the methodology. The conclusion was that Rainbow Twizzlers taste like chemicals. They feel like congealed chemicals on the palate and their gum-sticking quotient is high, if not quite on par with Jujyfruits. For the record, the flavors are: strawberry, orange, lemonade, watermelon, blue raspberry, and grape. Grape was the most easily recognizable in blind tests but even that required crosschecking the purple color of the candy to confirm the flavor.

This Twizzler taste test wasn't performed with any reference to my Jujy Dreams but one participant quickly noted, "These are like Jujyfruits. I can't tell what they are supposed to be beyond gummy." High praise.

Where do you keep your Jujyfruits?

2010-05-05T16:42:00.000-07:00

I'm traveling by motorcycle from Boston to New Orleans, all back roads. I stop for gas every hundred miles or so. When I stop, I make it a point to look to see if Jujyfruits are for sale at the various gas stations and convenience stores.

I've stopped in Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, several times in Virginia, Tennessee and now Alabama. This is the end of day four.

Jujyfruits were sold in Hartford, Conn. and Harrisburg, Penn. Since then, I haven't been able to find any of America's favorite gummi movie candy. Are Jujyfruits less popular south of the Mason Dixon Line? I find that hard to believe. My theory is that I tend to stop in very rural, out of the way towns where shelf space is at a premium. While there is plenty of room for potato chips and Budweiser beer and chewing tobacco, there may not be enough room for a tasty sweet treat that sticks to your teeth.

There's a whole market to be filled if Farley's and Sathers knows how to exploit it. They have a new CEO. Hopefully Liam Killeen will be able to build on his reputation and get Jujyfruits to the masses in Virginia, Tennessee and Alabama.

Jujyfruit corn

2010-04-21T15:19:00.000-07:00

Even though I know all the Jujyfruit shapes and what they are supposed to represent, even I get confused, especially when the shapes are matched with Jujyfruits’ random color assignment. I often see references to jujyfruit corn when surfing the internet and one of the popular search terms that lead to this site is “jujyfruit corn.”

There is no corn jujyfruit. The asparagus is often confused with corn because it has little nodules on one end that can be confused with kernels, but they are supposed to represent the leaflets that run along aspargus stems. Jujy asparagus ends in a few fronds that are supposed to look like the stalks as they reach the leafy vegetable tips. People mistake this part for corn silk and, I agree, the whole candy does look like corn if you use your imagination to struggle to find something recognizable. It’s tough to sculpt convincing asparagus out of a jelly mold that’s a hair short of an inch long. It’s asparagus.

I pulled out a yellow grape bundle and I thought it was corn until I realized that Jujyfruits don’t come in corn shapes. The grapes look like kernels though they are more rounded than corn kernels would be. They are also elongated, that is, only the top of the candy is rounded. It’s a three dimensional sculptrure of a grape bunch. It only resembles grapes if put on a table top and veiwed straight down.

As usual, I would like to point out that Jujyfruits contain no vegetable flavorings. Green aspagaus tastes like lime. Yellow grapes taste like lemon.

A new jujyfruit flavor?

2010-04-18T12:11:00.000-07:00

I was musing about the possibility of cinnamon jujyfruits the other week and I'd like to explain why. A friend had dropped off three boxes of cinnamon flavored candy to sample and clear my palate of my usual jujy diet.

One box was Good and Fiery, a Good and Fruity variety that is, itself, a Good and Plenty knockoff. I'm big fan of Good and Plenty and I thank Hershey's for not ruining the original recipe. I can't say the same for Good and Fruity. This recipe changed sometime in the late 80s early 90s and I much prefer the original. I've never had Good and Fiery before but it's Good and Fruity with a cinnamon candy inserted into the mix. The candy is strongly flavored but overly sweet for my taste. Hardly fiery but they have a good enough cinnamon bite. I would be happy with just the cinnamon ones, but the others added some variety to what is basically a one-note candy.

One box was Mike and Ike's Hot Tamales. There's not much to say about these. They taste like cinnamon but hardly in a "hot" sense. There's no variation in this box, they all taste the same.

The third box was Chewy Atomic Fireballs. I like the original hard ones, naturally, but these had a robust punch. Trust Ferrera Pan to make the perfect cinnamon candy. The company invented Atomic Fireballs and you can trust them to deliver what they promise.

If Heide would take a lesson from Ferrara Pan, a cinnamon jujyfruit would be worth the R&D. Of course, Jujyfruits are probably making fine profit margins with no advertising as they are. The last flavor change didn't do the candy any credit (green candies from mint to lime) so there's probably little point in changing the red candies from raspberry to cinnamon.

Jujyfruit taste lingers

2010-04-10T14:07:00.000-07:00

A recent informal study of pipe and tobacco smokers conducted over the last month at local Boston tobacconists and cigar bars shows that Jujyfruits are the second most preferred candy among upscale tobacco connoiseurs.

More cigar and pipe smokers prefer Jujyfruits over Altoids, Mentos, Life Savers, or sugarless gum products. The Number Two slot might be surprising to people who think of Jujyfruits being old fashioned candy. Pipe and cigar smoking are old fashioned ways of enjoying tobacco so it might be expected that people who enjoy tobacco in anachronistic ways may likewise enjoy thier candy in a form that isn’t exactly up to date.

In fact, 40% of the random sample interviewed where men under the age of 45. It is physically and mentally impossible for them to associate Jujyfruits with nickel matinees, which is how the jujyfruit became popular: as a movie treat.

The most oft cited reason for prefering Jujyfruits over hard mints was that Jujyfruits stick between smokers‘ teeth and thus have a long lasting breath tinting effect until the candies fnally dissolve.

Cinnamon Jujyfruit

2010-04-03T13:54:00.000-07:00

Remember, green jujyfruits used to be spearmint flavored not lime. Some purists bemoan the fact that this change was made, but then owner Hershey polled consumers and it was decided spearmint had to go. It wasn’t very popular.

I don’t remember spearmint jujyfruits though I’m old enough that I must have eaten them at some time. I don’t think the lime is much of an improvement. If there’s lemon, why lime? It’s not like the food scientists at Jujy-HQ have poured a lot of research in perfecting their flavors. Aside from licorice (black) every things tastes sweet and vaguely fruity but it’s hard to tell exactly what fruit. That’s why I think spearmint was a good choice: like licorice, it wasn’t citrus.

I’ve been sampling some cinnamon flavored candies recently. Jujyfruits don’t come in cinnamon. The red is cherry, I believe, but it may be raspberry. If you read the earlier taste test posts, you know I always get it confused even if it’s a blind taste test and I can’t see the color for a hint. Imagine a cinnamon Jujyfruit. I’m in.

Would a new flavor be a hit with the public?

I love Jujyfruits

2010-03-25T16:25:00.000-07:00

I admit I don't have a sweet tooth yet, for whatever reason, I have chosen Jujyfruits as an inspiration. While I don't have a sweet tooth, I have tasted candy. I wouldn't normally buy it but I've developed my preferences. I live with someone who loves chocolate but I would be content if I never had another bite of chocolate again. I prefer harder, more sugar and talc based candies: Sweet Tarts, Shock Tarts, Gobstoppers, even Good 'n' Plenty. I'm not a big fan of gummy candy and even though Jujyfruits predate Gummi Bears by a half century, they both fall in the same class of candy. As for the gummy sharks, the gummy worms, the yogurt based gummy candy and the gummy raspberries et. al., you can keep them. Jujyfruits were first.

Though gummy candy isn't my favorite, it is slowly turning out that I love Jujyfruits. I am not paid by Farley's and Sathers to say this and, in fact, I have some misgivings about how the company conducts it business and markets its candy. If I am not a friend of the owners of the Jujyfruit brand, I am a lover of the Jujyfruit recipe.

Jujyfruits grow on your tastes. We have a box in our house that contains mixed candies. Sometimes we'll want a little sweet after a meal or at tea time so we'll bring out the box and indulge our appetite. For the past few months, the box has been stocked with jujyfruits left over from my investigations among other things which don't involve me but run the gamut of the candy spectrum. We noticed last night that the jujyfruits are the things we pick out of the mix and when the box was given a shakeout census, jujyfruits are the least common items on the top layer of the box and the most common at the bottom...as if they settle if neglected too long. Or, perhaps our jujy-hunger has grown the longer they've been available.

Another sociological Jujy thought experiment. Before I begin this soul searching though, I would like to state for the record that I love Jujyfruits. Red, Yellow, Orange, Black, and even Green.

Jujyfruit underground

2010-03-13T13:14:00.000-08:00

I just tallied up the contents of a recently purchased 6 ounce box of Jujyfruits. That’s 170 grams for our metric readers. One serving size, as determined by the nutritional information on the box, is 16 pieces, and one box contains “about four servings.”

How many Jujyfruits did my sample contain for a retail price of $1.69 US? Not exactly 60.

Four full servings of Jujyfruits would be 64 candies. The box I purchased contained 60 genuine Jujyfruits and then two odd items of interest. One of them was a scrap of red jujy of unidentifiable origin. It may have been a bit of red pineapple or a bit of red asparagus, it had that kind of indentations on one side. It was impossible to tell whether it had originally been shorn off a vegetable or fruit source. It was obviously the wayward remains of some industrial accident that had fallen into the box by lack of quality control and, if the box had contained 64 candies per 170 grams, I would have considered it a bonus. All factors considered, I consider it a gyp and this is despite the fact that I have all due respect for the venerable and reputable Jujyfruit brand of fine confectionary products.

The other oddball piece of candy in my trial Jujyfruit box was a miniature pineapple that obviously didn’t belong for three reasons: 1) This pineapple was half the size of anything else in the box; 2) Its shape was instantly recognizable. Maybe I’ve spent too much time looking for resemblances between jujy shapes and real things, but this little candy had a shape that said Hawaiian pineapple. 3) The color was also different. More golden than chemical orange or yellow. Rather, it was a translucent mix of the two, more like champagne than supermarket food coloring.

I ended up with 60 candies, four short of four full servings but I scrap from a reject and I got something that didn’t belong but tantalized me. Are there other Jujyfruits out there. Is there experimentation going on that we don’t know about? Based on the evidence in this box, destruction of bad product is routinely being conducted and not everything is being destroyed. Some things escape outside.

I haven’t tasted the miniature pineapple with the champagne pallor yet. I am saving it in a special, air tight jar until I come across another anomaly.

2010-03-07T13:58:00.000-08:00

Stout stuff, these Jujyfruits. These are a conservative candy, at least as far as the packaging is concerned. Jujyfruits travel from factory to consumer in a straightforward manner. They come in a box. No cellophane is involved, no wax paper, no plastic. Only cardboard, plain white on the inside and printed with trademarked art and nutritional information on the outside.

How can Jujyfruits forego special packaging to maintain their freshness? That’s easy. The same recipe that allowed them to be sold in every US climate during the Great Depression still stands today. From the tip of Key West to the Arctic Circle, Jujyfruits withstand extremes of temperature and humidity without losing. Some people say it’s the mineral oil shell that keeps Jujyfruits fresh in any climate. Others say it is the innate jujy goodness, the spirit of the candy, that keeps Jujyfruits edible past their expiration date regardless of the weather.

The Devil may be in the details, but we tend to think a guardian angel protects Jujyfruits form becoming stale or causing food poisoning. It is a combination of factors that ensure Jujyfruits are just as good today as when they first fell off the conveyor belt. Some people argue it is a well designed recipe. Others’ side with divine providence. At this blog, we take the middle road and posit that it is a combination of the two. Fortune and engineering are wedded to guarantee that the perfect jujyfruit will pass your lips every time you taste one. That’s not a Farley’s and Sathers corporate guarantee but it sure as heck should be. I doubt the ghost of Henry Heide would complain.

Jujyfruit flavors

2010-02-27T14:10:00.000-08:00

None of the Jujyfruit flavors are vegetable flavors: Raspberry, Orange, Lemon, Lime, Licorice.

Licorice is the only thing that could be considered vegetable, or at least herbal. Licorice flavor comes from the pollen of the fennel plant, a kind of licorice flavored celery. Anise is an herbal plant that produces seeds that are ground to provide culinary licorice oomph. You cannot find licorice flavor in fruits themselves, only by grinding up and distilling parts of things that grow directly from the ground.

We will not discuss green jujyfruits which were once spearmint flavored and also qualified for the non-fruit category. Since the infamous Hershey decision of 1999, green jujyfruits are lime flavored.

There is no aspargus flavored jujyfruit. Nor is there a pea flavored one. There isn’t a grape, a banana, a pineapple, or tomato flavored jujyfruit either. Are the shapes totally random? As random as the colors (and flavors) are distributed through a box?

Is anything random in a jujy universe? Was Henry Hiede and occultist? Does Farley’s and Sathers Candy Company, Inc. know something most of us don’t? There are more than one mysteries in Jujyfruits. Once an intrepid explorer thinks he or she has unravelled the matrix, another niggling detail gets spotlit and theories are dragged back to the drawing board.

Why 7 shapes? Why five flavors? Why those shapes? Why those original flavors? Now that spearmint has been replaced by lime, is the world out of joint? Has a seal against Apocalypse been broken?

Deja jujy

2010-02-23T15:38:00.000-08:00

I live in Boston. Boston's mass transit system is called the T and the subway lines are labeled by color: Green, Red, Orange, Blue. The colors do not match the colors of Jujyfruits, since there are no blue jujyfruits.

I was on the Orange line and I wasn't really thinking about Jujyfruits at the time, which is kind of odd because Jujyfruits have a way of haunting my thoughts.

I was sitting next to a woman who was rummaging through her purse somewhere between the Ruggles and the Back Bay stations. The Orange Line can be loud as a bear so we must have been paused at the Mass Ave station midway between the two; the train was quiet enough for me to hear something drop out of her purse and onto the floor. My eyes followed the sound and lo and behold! She had dropped a green, banana jujyfruit. I wasn't wearing my glasses so I couldn't clearly read the word "Hiede" that was embossed on the top, but I could see that the jujyfruit was face up. Face up is good luck.

Even when I'm not looking, Jujyfruits haunt my thoughts.

Why the Jujyfruit shapes?

2010-02-20T12:47:00.000-08:00

What made Henry Heide choose the shapes for Jujyfruits? It is a mystery lost to the tides of time. Only speculation can inform us of his occult reasons, or perhaps the reason was as simple as those were the molds available at the time.

Note: Jujyfruits are fruits, crafted out of an equally mysterious “juju gum” about which modern food processors have no knowledge. Some Jujyfruits, however, are vegetables, except in the case of the tomato which is legally one and popularly the other. Complicating matters, among the uninitiated, the jujy tomato is considered a flower.

We can break down the Jujyfruit shapes into three categories. First are the obvious fruits by description: grape bundle, raspberry, banana, pineapple. Second are the obvious vegetable class: asparagus bunch and pea pod. Third is the vegetable/fruit hybrid depending on whether the legal or popular definition is accepted: tomato.

Of course, some people mistake the pineapple for a fish and the asparagus for corn on the cob. The tomato has already been mentioned; it looks nothing like a tomato. The banana is more trademark advertisement than even Chiquita has ever employed. At least no one will ever mistake a Chiquita banana for anything else. A jujyfruit banana just looks like a crescent with the founder’s name embossed on it.

Microwaving Jujyfruit

2010-02-16T08:56:00.000-08:00

What happens when you microwave jujyfruits? Remarkably little in the short term.

I started an experiment with an orange peapod. It was a totally random selection. I placed the jujyfruit on a double layer of candy box cardboard in the center of the microwave and applied radiation on high in thirty second increments to see what would happen.

For the first minute, nothing happened. The jujyfruit was hot to the touch but it wasn't any softer or harder. After a minute the cardboard started to singe in one spot and the air coming out of the microwave oven smelled of burning paper, but not of hot orange jujyfruit.

At the two minute mark, I pressed down on the hot jujyfruit and it let out a popping sound. Close inspection revealed cracks in the interior structural integrity but the outer skin was undisturbed. Another thirty seconds under high microwave bombardment left no further changes.

It wa at two minutes forty seconds that the jujyfruit erupted on one side. Eruption is a bit strong a word, but a slow ooze of molten orange center breached the skin and this break grew as hot jujy bubbled out in a leeward direction. There was no point in continuing past the three minute mark. Once half of the jujyfruit's peapod shape remained intact while the other side was a mass of bubbling, primoridal, molten candy. Once cooled, the molten candy was hard and browned in spots. It no longer possessed the characteristic 'spring' of a jujyfruit.

Something about the head robbed half this orange peapod of it's jyjyfruit identity.

Jujyfruit retail vs. wholesale

2010-02-07T15:10:00.000-08:00

I did a little research to determine what kind of profit I could make if I had a Jujyfruit cart in downtown Boston. It turns out that, though Jujyfruits are a unique product, they are more commodity until someone can determine how to add extra value to the candy fresh from the factory.

The prices referenced below are averages.

One pound of Jujyfruits, about 168 candies of various shapes and colors in random assortment, costs $3.90. This amounts to 2.3 cents a jujyfruit.

Seven pounds eight ounces of Jujyfruits, about 1260 candies, costs $16.50. This amounts to 1.3 cents a piece.

Thirty pounds of Jujyfruit amount to approximately 5040 individually unwrapped, free floating jujyfruits that can either be sold singly, penny candy-style, or by the pound at the retail level. The wholesale price is $58.60. That comes to an average of 1.1 cent per jujyfruit, not much less than the seven pound rate.

Jujyfruit retail is usually a sideline. Jujyfruits are movie food so they are sold at concession stands just after the box office where people purchase tubs of popcorn and large bucket cups of soda. When Jujyfruits are sold at other retail outlets, it is usually convenience stores where they are positioned to impulse purchased either spotted by children or tempting adults who want a bit of sweet, indefinable fruit flavor on their way home or to work.

There aren’t any merchants who specialize solely in Jujyfruits that I know of. The business plan might work at a carnival or a boardwalk or someplace with high foot traffic topped off with heads full of sweet teeth. A random city block won’t do.

One of the wholesalers I surveyed for this article suggested that the profit margin on 30 pounds of Jujyfruit would be $28.00. That’s not a lot of take home pay after you subtract overhead costs. I think this explains why we don’t see any Jujyfruit pushcarts and why we don’t see any emporiums dedicated solely to Jujyfruits, Jujubes, or other Juju berry based products.

Another Jujyfruit recipe

2010-01-31T13:21:00.000-08:00

The Jujy Paradox is that though they are shaped like vegetables as well as fruit, no individual Jujyfruit is anything other than sweet. Being what they are, they are sweet like candy.

Consider the first two ingredients: corn syrup and sugar. It’s these that give 40 grams of Jujyfruits their 120 calorie punch. 40 grams is the average weight of 16 randomly selected Jujyfruits. Banana and grape Jujyfruits weigh in on the slightly lighter side. Aspargus, the pea pod, and pineapple appear to top the scale, with tomato and raspberry falling in the middle.

Ingredients numbers five and six are white mineral oil and carnauba wax. These make Jujyfruits resistant to dissolving in water. It is this characteristic that comes into play for this recipe.

Mrs. Alfred Sumwater of Haymarket, VA, writes in that she uses Jujyfruits to sweeten and flavor her tea. “I’m not a tea connoisseur, by any means,” Mrs. Sumwater reports. “With our budget and what’s available at the local supermarket, we get by with generic tea bags or sometimes Red Rose. I’m not complaining but drinking the same thing day after day gets boring somedays. I use Jujyfruits to add variety to my teacup.

“I use two Jujyfruits per cup of tea. I put them in the cup before I add the teabag and water. I steep the tea for about a minute, dunking the bag for the duration until I remove it. If I poke the Jujyfruits on the bottom of the cup with my spoon, their consistency hasn’t altered much at this point. My tea tastes very faintly of sugar and fruit flavor. By the end of the cup, the last sip is more fruity than tea flavored, almost like a bottled ice tea from the gas station (but not as cold). That last sip can be a real pucker-upper.”

Mrs. Sumwater goes on to say that the Jujyfruits never really dissolve and she doesn’t normally eat them but either reuses the remainder for her next cup of tea or discards them. “I can’t be eating Jujyfruit every time I have a cup of tea,” she says, “I’m on a diet.”

Black Jujyfruit

2010-01-25T14:07:00.000-08:00

The lady of the house has a cold and she's been sampling a wide array of cough drops. While we were on the T (what we call the subway in Boston), she had a tickle in her throat and reached into her purse for relief. The selections were: CVS brand Honey Menthol, Luden's Original Menthol, and Luden's Honey Licorice.

She picked the Honey Licorice. "These are the best," she said. "They taste like candy."

"Most people consider Luden's cough drops more candy than medicine," I replied.

"It doesn't matter to me," she said. "They work and I can tell what they're supposed to taste like. They're licorice."

"That's the same thing you said about black Jujyfruit," I observed. "If I remember correctly, licorice was the only flavor we agreed on."

"Maybe that what makes the black Jujyfruits my favorite," was her answer.

Figuring Jujyfruit asparagus

2010-01-17T14:54:00.000-08:00

Jujyfruits come in five colors: black, red, yellow, orange, green. Of these five, aparagus only comes in green. Some could argue that asparagus also comes in yellow, but any yellow asparagus comes at the tips of the white variety.

Americans may be confused that there is such a thing as white asparagus but this is the only variety available in some countries. You can’t buy any other kind in Germany, for instance.

White asparagus is really the same as green. It does look different and it does taste a bit different, but they are the same plant; they are just grown differently.

Green asparagus grows in light soil and it takes about 18 months for the spears to reach the length usually found in grocery stores. To get white asparagus, the shoots are still grown in light soil, but the plants spend more time underground. Once the shoots start to show their heads, they are covered by a few more inches of soil. When the heads show up again, the process is repeated until the buried asparagus reaches a length suitable for market.

Some people say the taste of white asparagus is more mild than the green. I don’t find green asparagus particularly harsh to begin with and I have to admit I don’t find much difference in flavor. Asparagus can be found in only two colors, not five.

Some people claim the color affects the flavor, no one makes that argument for Jujyfruit asparagus. With real asparagus, the shape is what determines flavor. With Jujyfruit, the opposite is true: color determines flavor.

Bibliography: History of Food by Maguelonne Toussaint-Samat; Blackwell Publishing, Malden MA 02148; 2005.

Jujyfruit asparagus

2010-01-14T00:49:00.000-08:00

Jujyfruit asparagus comes in five colors: green, red, yellow, black, and orange. Natural asparagus comes in two colors; one of them is green and the other is white.

I have been reading some balderdash on the internet that asparagus Jujyfruit tastes like asparagus. As covered before, the shapes of the fruits (vegetables?) don’t influence the flavor. Jujyfruit flavors are determined by color only.

I was interested to see if there is such a thing as black asparagus. There isn’t. I did come up with some interesting information in the book History of Food by Maguelonne Toussaint-Samat.

The first written references to asparagus are Greek though it must have been eaten long before then. The plant grows wild around the Mediterranean and, if left to bolt, it grows into a fern-like plant that is used by florists for filler. The first pictorial reference to asparagus is Egyptian, in which people are shown offering the vegetable to their gods.

In the Roman world, asparagus was popular, both wild and cultivated. The area around Ravenna was known for its cultivated asparagus as was an island in the Gulf of Pozzuoli. Like most things, the wild asparagus was probably delicious but since anyone could gather it from the side of the road, it was considered poor people’s food. Cultivated asparagus could command more respect based on the husbandry involved and the fact it came from so-and-so and cost so much to import. In Sardinia, they still eat wild asparagus exclusively.

This may seem strange to an American, but I can attest that Italians (or Sardinians as the case may be) aren’t adverse to eating wild plants. In season, all the broccoli eaten around Naples is wild. It is somewhat more bitter than American supermarket broccoli, but it is delicious. But I digress...

After the fall of Rome there is no mention of asparagus again until 1300. This is a long period of silence but we can assume that the plant was still eaten since, again, it was readily available growing in the underbrush.

The word asparagus comes from the Persian word asparag. In Greek, this became aspharagos and most European languages now call the vegetable something derived from that. In Spanish: esparrago. In French: asperge. In German: Spargel. In Italian sparagio. In English: asparagus obviously, but it was also known by the related word that is now obsolete, sperage.

Jujyfruits are called the same thing in every language.

Jujyfruit shirt

2010-01-09T15:19:00.000-08:00

Farley's and Sathers, the company that distributes Jujyfruits, is in the collectible memorabilia business. The coupon above was clipped from a box I bought last month. As you can see, it offers tee shirts for sale for the very reasonable price of $15.00 apiece. That includes shipping and handling.

Note that on the bottom of the coupon, you are encouraged to visit the company website for additional tee shirt offers. If you are in the market for a Jujyfruit tee shirt, I recommend you visit the website to make your purchase and do it in a hurry. As I write this only 26 shirts are left in stock, ranging in size from Adult Small (8 shirts) to Adult Large (13 shirts). XL and 2XL are sold out.

Here is another reason to visit the website: If you order your shirt online, it will only cost you $7.32. Though shipping is done by UPS, via its ground rate (expect delivery in 3- 7 business days), it is free. If you shop directly via the internet, you can get your shirt for less than half the price delivered right to your door. If you intend to wear the shirt, the savings may not mean as much as it would if you are buying this for an investment. If you are a collector, this discount is something to consider.

In twenty years, God and markets willing, this shirt could be worth $1500.00. Imagine how pleased you'll be with yourself in twenty years saying that you made a 2000% return instead of just 1000%. Of course if you intend to wear the shirt and show your Jujy pride right now, the shirt won't be worth much unless you are famous and get shot while wearing it.

A bonus math problem: A website has 26 Jujyfruit tee shirts in stock between the sizes of S and L. If there are 8 S shirts and 13 L shirts, how many M shirts are for sale?

Jujyfruit recipe

2010-01-03T13:36:00.000-08:00

Admittedly, this recipe isn't gourmet fare. It is good for children, as long as they eat their vegetables at another meal in the same day. Adults pack it as an office lunch treat that is both marginally nutritious and deliciously sweet. Special attention must be taken for the non-Jujy ingredients to counterbalance the ethereal flavors of the candies themselves.

The peanut butter and Jujyfruit sandwich has been long in its evolution. Whether we have now reached the perfect pairing of ingredients is unknown. When this sandwich first appeared in the 1930s, different bread and peanut butter varieties were available on grocers' shelves. It was more a meal made of scarce ingredients than one calibrated to please one's palate. With more choices on the market in the baked goods and peanut butter markets, people think that perfection has been reached at last.

The Jujyfruits have stayed the same from the beginning, except for the controversial mint to lime switch of 1999.

Whole wheat pita bread works best, the kind that 8 inches in diameter; a single serving size. White bread and baguettes don't work as well. They have too much air. This is a sandwich that demands compactness while concentrating the flavors. Jujyfruits, though their individual flavors may be hard to pinpoint, pack a lot of tongue whallop. They need to be counterbalanced by something with some heft and appreciable mouth feel. This is why this sandwich doesn't work as a wrap. It needs actual bread, just not leavened bread. It also needs a horizontal plane on which its flavors can play.

The second ingredient is peanut butter. Go with chunky or 'super' chunky, if you can get it. While Jif and Peter Pan work all right, I prefer the 'natural' kinds that require a stir every time you open the jar to mix the oil back into the settled butter. Connoisseurs recommend not mixing the oil too much, feeling the pairing of peanut oil with mineral oil, the fifth ingredient listed on a Jujyfruit box, is optimal for maximum enjoyment.

Spread 2 tablespoons on half a pita. It needn't be uniform; once the pita is folded over things will equal out. On top of the the peanut butter, evenly distribute once ounce of Jujyfruits. Random shape and color distribution is recommended to make each sandwich, indeed every bite, a surprise. Fold over the pita and press. Eat and enjoy.

One sandwich provides 340 calories, 14 grams of protein, 7 grams of fiber (26% USDA), and a healthy compliment of B vitamins. It doesn't take much to acquire a taste for this meal, as contrary as it may sound. It really is delicious and at 340 calories, it can almost be considered diet food. It's certainly better for you than eating a whole box of Jujyfruits on their own for lunch. It just makes good, tasty sense.

Jujyfruit answers

2010-01-01T16:59:00.000-08:00

Here is a parlor game played with Jujyfruit. The candy can offer advice.

This ritual can be done alone or in company. It isn't a drinking game or cocktail party ice-breaker. While I can't verify how much magic is really at play, there are people who swear by Jujyfruits' prognosticative value. Some people prefer to perform this inquiry into Fate in solitude. Others prefer to have witnesses to verify the Jujyfruits' advice, and that the advice was accurate.

Open a box of Jujyfruit just enough so that you can shake only one candy out of the opening. Concentrate on the box while holding it upright while shaking it. Look at the box, focus your attention on it, shake it as long as you like and as hard as you like, just remember to keep it upright so that you don't spill. Some people like to give a couple of quick jerks, but other people rattle the Jujyfruits around for a few minutes, lulled into a trance by the rat-a-tap-tap of the candies against the cardboard.

Once the mood hits and you feel you have shaken the box enough, ask your question. The best questions are of the yes-or-no variety. The best results come from asking the Jujyfruits about a particular, personal course of action: "Should I marry Bob?" "Should I invest in XYZ stock?" "Should I replace my water heater?" "Will I become a famous hairdresser?" These sorts of things. No fancy language is required, no "Oh great Jujy lend me your wisdom!" Just blurt out your question when you feel ready.

Once the question is asked, decant one fruit and one fruit only onto a horizontal surface. Jujyfruits provide their answers through a color key:

Black: Consider your options wisely.
Red: Definitely yes.
Yellow: The odds are improbable.
Green: Pursue another course.
Orange: The path is difficult.

If two candies happen to fall out in answer to your question, it means that there are too many conflicting forces to provide an accurate prediction. Most people wait two days at least before they ask again. To many people this isn't a parlor trick, but a time-tested (since 1920) way to guide their decisions. To others, it is just a novelty act and a way to pass the time. I tend to side with the former. There are too many mysterious forces in the world to discount the wisdom and generally sage advice of the Jujyfruit.

Old Jujyfruit molds?

2009-12-29T13:05:00.000-08:00

I'm holding a peapod Jujyfruit in my hand. It's a green one and I am trying to figure its shape. I tried to take a picture of all the available colors of peapods: green, yellow, black, red, orange; but every snapshot came out looking like a line of indistinguishable blobs. I was using a flash on the camera and then I tried without the flash. Now I am looking in the ambient light, the sun is at about 4:00 on a Boston afternoon, not dark at all, and I am squinting to figure out what I am looking at.

It's even worse with the yellow and the black.

The peapod is shaped like a curved oblong, tapered at the edges. On top are four raised dots. I can read them like Braille more easily than I can make them out with my eyes. Lining five peapods up in their alternate colors, I see they don't all have uniform shapes. Some have extended edges, some are fatter, some are thinner, some of the 'peas' are round as globes, while others barely break the air. Some, a very few, are well sculpted, the jewels depicted on antique boxes. The majority are harder to describe, like a child's drawing of a Jujyfruit, which itself is like a child's drawing of a peapod.

It takes a leap of abstract imagination to arrive at the idea of a peapod when examining a Jujyfruit in the best conditions. After surveying a box, I've come to the conclusion that the company is still using the original molds, and the molds, in use since 1920, are wearing out. This would explain the lack of uniformity.

I'm not saying that Jujyfruits don't undergo quality control. The flavor is still the same and it is consistent across the spectrum of choices. The fact that the flavors aren't exactly recognizable for what they are supposed to represent probably helps, but they still have that all-American, wholesome goodness that goes well with movies and popcorn. Part of the Jujyfruit appeal though are the vegetable shapes.

Jujyfruit shapes

2009-12-21T15:36:00.000-08:00

I don't want to belabor the topic of Jujyfruits, but one of the points of this blog is consider a candy, ruminate over it, see it from all sides, digest it for a few weeks, and then move on to the next confection. I want to exhaust all of a candy's implications in my own mind before moving on. Cogito ergo sum, after all and if I am going to think about anything, it should be something that is a multi-billion dollar, global industry in which I am not particularly interested. I am confronted with the products everyday, in fact, and candy does bring joy to people at all stages of life.

I've eaten my share of candy and, as a younger person, I relished it. I lost my sweet tooth along the way for some reason. That doesn't mean I don't see its appeal. I did buy a box of Jujyfruits, after all, and thus the idea for this blog started. If you're thinking, "Enough with the Jujy already!" I don't blame you. They are starting to haunt me, however. The more time passes, the more Jujyfruits keep popping up in my thoughts. Cogito jujy ergo sum.

I was enjoying a walk at lunch hour, thinking about nothing, when I started thinking about Jujyfruits' vegetable shapes. They are some of the most unique in candy-dom. Why would someone want to make fruit-flavored candy in the shape of asparagus or a pea pod? Why would someone think candy shaped like a tomato would be appealing?

Of course, it doesn't hurt that the Jujy tomato doesn't look anything like a real tomato. Given a list of what the Jujyfruit shapes are supposed to represent, raspberry, pineapple, banana, grape bunch, asparagus bundle, pea pod, and tomato, tomato is chosen when there's nothing else left. It really looks like a swollen flower. Why do they insist on calling it a tomato? Nobody recognizes it as such. Maybe it's a way to separate the Jujy cognoscenti from the kids who just eat Jujyfruits because they're sweet.

These shapes, and their persistence, is a curious phenomenon. The fact that they don't signify anything at all, is even more so. When you are eating Jujyfruits, the color determines the flavor, even if you can't exactly tell what that flavor is supposed to be.

Ah, Jujyfruits! You are a puzzle wrapped in an enigma!

Jujyfruit nutrition

2009-12-19T14:20:00.000-08:00

If you were on a desert island, you might be happy for some sugar. If you were a real castaway though, you would be more interested in catching fish, digging up tubers and tapping coconuts. Jujyfruits, though some of them are supposed to be shaped like vegetables, don't offer up a lot of vitamins or minerals. They are calorie-packed, however. 59 grams of Jujyfruits, one 2.1 ounce box, will provide you with 180 calories.

Jujyfruits are a fat free food, as I am sure they publicized when people were worried about how much fat was in their diet. It's not health food though. It's candy. A treat and a sweet. Nothing you would want to live off of unless you had no choice. I expect that in that situation, candy every meal would get very boring and palate-dulling.

Jujyfruits have no total fat according to the nutrition facts on the back of the box (0%). They also don't contain any trans fat, glory be. 58 grams of Jujyfruit do contain 30 mg of sodium, if you are monitoring your salt intake. Total carbohydrates total 16% of the average daily value; that's 47grams. Sugars make up 33 grams of that, again no surprise. How much protein? Zero grams. They don't even bother to mention that there is no fiber in Jujyfruits, despite their vegetable shapes.

Don't get me wrong, I love Jujyfruits. The more I contemplate them, the more they warm my heart. I still don't know what to make of them though, and I have been thinking about them, off and on, for two weeks at least. Maybe it's time to buy a fresh box and revisit the flavor again.

The Ju-Ju behind Jujyfruits

2009-12-17T15:43:00.000-08:00

Jujyfruits, like their cousins jujubes get their name from the mucilaginous fruit of the ziziphus ziziphus plant native to Asia. Translated from taxonomic Latin, this plant is called the jujube tree. Apparently these candies were named after the "natural gum" that was their original main ingredient; juju-gum, as it were, distilled from the fruits that are called jujubes.

I suspect juju-gum became harder to come by as time went on, especially during the interruption in trade during WWII. Some industrial substitute had to be concocted since movies were still popular and, one would imagine, the troops relished a taste from home. The taste of candy is an innocent-enough seeming vice and Jujyfruits, being one of the most popular movie lobby candies since their introduction, must have carried their own warm associations that soothed battle-rattled nerves at the PX. The taste of Jujyfruits accompanied memories of comedies and romances and musicals enjoyed in civilian life. One can again imagine that sitting down with a box of Jujyfruits could put a GI in the frame of mind that he was, after all, enjoying a show and that the horrors of war would disappear once that show was over.

So when the "natural gum" that was the main ingredient of the original recipe was replaced, what took it's place? In today's candy, the first ingredient is corn syrup, which was probably introduced around the Nixon era. Secondly comes sugar, which should come as no surprise, it's safe to assume sugar was there from the start.. Sugar is a main ingredient in everything nowadays and not just candy. Thirdly though is where Jujyfruits start to get their mass: modified and unmodified corn starch.

I don't know what modifications corn starch needs to go through to enter a batch of candy and I don't know why it needs to be mixed with unmodified corn starch. Why not save the time and not modify any of it? Isn't corn starch itself the result of some kind of modification? By definition the starch can't be whole grain. The starch, no matter in what proprietary blend, must add heft to the sugar base of the candy.

If Jujyfruits have heft, they also have a toothsomeness that is impossible to deny. They aren't just gummy. You can't even say they are sticky unless they're melted or wet. That "skin" is provided by numbers five and six on the ingredients list (number four is flavoring). White mineral oil and carnauba wax are what give Jujyfruits that certain texture of being both soft and hard at once. That resistance to blunt force and the candy's tenacity to stay lodged around the gingiva in shapes that refuse to dissolve are just the qualities a small quantity of wax and congealed oil provide.

I've naturally never tasted the 1920 version of Jujyfruits, but I doubt the natural juju-gum of the original had the tenacity and mouth feel that the current, industrial mix of cornstarch, mineral oil and wax. I don't know for sure, of course, but I suspect the Jujyfruit of today is not the same as yesteryear's. These three ingredients combined make up more than the sum of their parts. While not indestructible, they are resilient. This confectionary miracle may be why decade after decade, despite unattractive packaging and no marketing I've ever seen, Jujyfruits retain their market share and still appear at movie theater concession stands to this day.

All of this is speculation, but I haven't come up with a better explanation beyond the fact that they are pretty good.

Waking up from the Jujy Dream

2009-12-12T14:01:00.000-08:00

Jujyfruits have been around longer than I have (see the first chapter of this review). I can't remember a time when they weren't around. They were never very important, never central to any coming of age event or epiphany. Jujyfruits then, probably much like now, are something you get a movie or when nothing looks better on the drug store candy rack. Jujyfruit boxes are also regular features at train stations newsstands in big cities and in hospital gift shops. These two purchase points are presumably frequented by older people and by younger ones looking toward a taste of nostalgia.

There is nothing particularly antiquated about Jujyfruits, just as there isn't anything particularly modern. True, the come in a cardboard box. So do cigarettes, and those tend to sell well. Altoids come in a metal box if there is anything more anachronistic than a cardboard box, it's a metal one. No candy company has attempted the woven basket or clay jar yet that I know of. Wax paper and string would be fine, but Jujyfruit packaging is more unconscious and hands-off the past. If it were instinctive and active, we would be looking at something more appealing than a box that seems illustrated with a magic marker.

What sets Jujyfruits apart, aside from thier box, the shapes, the lackluster flavorings and the history? Here are the ingredients: Corn syrup, sugar, modified and unmodified cornstarch, natural and artificial flavors, white mineral oil, carnauba wax, caramel color, artificial colors Red 40, Yellow 8, Blue 1, Yellow 5. I think I've read similar recipes somewhere before.

Jujyfruit taste test

2009-12-08T14:35:00.000-08:00

There wasn't much scientific about the blind jujyfruit taste test we conducted recently. This wasn't any Coke vs. Pepsi. There weren't any stakes involved on the outcome. There was nothing to compare and contrast against. One person covered their eyes and opened thier mouth while an impartial observer fed them one piece of Jujyfruit at a time. A respectable period was allowed between bites to allow for palate-clearing and the remaining samples remained unseen by the taster to prevent any 'ruling-out' factor.

Remember color determines Jujyfruit flavor, not shape. The seven shapes can come in any of the five colors, so feeling the shape with tongue and lips didn't offer any hints as to what flavor may be in the subject's mouth. Just to recap, the seven jujy shapes are: asparagus, tomato, grape bunch, banana, raspberry, pineapple and pea pod. Only one of these is actually represented in the line's 'taste palate.'

Here are the results of our experiment. To protect our tasters' idenities, we will refer to them as A and B. The shapes in question were not recorded since they don't objectively reflect flavor. Color alone was registered alongside the tasters' impressions.

Red Jujyfruit: A: Cherry. B: If raspberry is a flavor it's that. If it's not it, this could be pineapple.
Black Jujyfruit: A: Licorice. B: Licorice.
Yellow Jujyfruit: A: Definitely lemon. B: (very quickly) Lemon!
Green Jujyfruit: A: Lime? B: Orange.
Orange Jujyfruit: A: I don't know. B: Something synthetic. Maybe lime.

Accroding to official Jujyfruit promotional materials, we provide the following color/flavor key:
Red/Raspberry. Black/Licorice. Yellow/Lemon. Green/Lime. Orange/Orange.
Note: Green used to be spearmint before it was changed in 1999 by then corporate parent Hershey.

Jujyfruits

2009-12-05T06:48:00.000-08:00

The design of this box is either the highpoint of an incompetent’s career or the low point for an accomplished graphic designer. Considering that this is probably a third tier brand of candy nowadays, it is imaginable that a lot of thought wasn’t given to the impression the package would make. It has been around for a long time so the argument can be made that if it isn’t broken, it shouldn’t be fixed.

Originally introduced in 1920, Jujyfruits had a very attractive box at one time. The box was a mosaic of accurately rendered candy shapes that were jewel-like in how they were lovingly painted. The current yellow box probably appeared in the 1960s when a love of ugliness in graphic design became the fashion. The box went yellow but a few of the original candy paintings were scattered around the brand name. My guess is that the current design was finalized early to mid-70s when the crude, cartoonish renderings were probably meant to appeal to children.

Jujyfruit is movie candy. Its popularity came from being marketed in theaters. An ancillary purchase point was in five and dimes and drug stores if you didn’t happen to be at a show but had a hankering for Jujyfruit.

It’s an odd candy in that it is named fruit but some of the candies are shaped like vegetables. Odder still, many of the shapes only barely resemble what they are supposedly modeled on. I recently emptied a box and asked someone unfamiliar with jujy lore to identify what the candies represented. She said: fish, flower, berry, my mother’s name, I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know. The correct answers are: pineapple, tomato, raspberry, pea pod, asparagus, banana, grape bundle.

The “banana” is particularly tricky. Though it has a curved shape it is stamped with the word “HEIDE,” so “my mother’s name” is partly correct if your mother’s name is Heide.

Colors and flavors are assigned at random. They do not correspond to shape. All shapes appear in one of the five colors/flavors. Red is raspberry, black is licorice, orange is self-explanatory, yellow is lemon and green is lime. Green used to be spearmint, but in 1999 after a customer survey, spearmint was determined to be the least favorite flavor so green was changed to lime.

I have to admit, I can’t tell a lot of difference between one flavor from another. Aside from sweetness, each color has a hint of other flavor but that may be subliminally suggested by the color. Before I looked it up, I assumed red was cherry and I have been living under that assumption for four decades.

Introduction

2009-12-03T12:56:00.000-08:00

A candy-themed blog named Jujy Dreams should see its first light considering Jujyfruit. That was the plan but for whatever reason, I cannot copy and paste my investigations and ruminations on this esteemed, antique candy today. Blame it on blogger, blame it on my Toshiba laptop that has its keys falling off it like a candy fiend's teeth. Is this Fate editorializing or a sign to desist out the gate? I can't say, but I am determined.

If the copy and pasting issues persist, I will retype everything from scratch, the way the purportedly best candies are made. If nothing else, I am a kind of craftsman, if a slapdash one at times. Expect weekly updates at a minimum. I don't know how much you will discover about the confectionery world by reading my reports, but I hope to be quirkily informative in my biased, eccentric way. As I say in the header, I don't have a sweet tooth. I do, however, have a sweet spot in my heart for candy. What overgrown child hasn't.

Welcome aboard.