Mystery Lovers' Kitchen: Milton Hershey

Tuesday, October 22, 2013

What are the Top 10 Halloween Candies in the USA? Find out in Cleo Coyle's Trick or Treat Poll and tell us YOUR favorites...

Cleo Coyle, author of
The Coffeehouse Mysteries
and Haunted Bookshop
Mysteries

Gourmet chocolate is a wonderful thing. But Halloween is not a holiday for "boutique bittersweet" and "single-origin" cocoa beans. Halloween belongs to Hershey's—as you will see when you take my Trick or Treat Poll at the end of this post.

My poll is based on this year's sales figures for the Top Ten most popular candies in America. According to the National Confectioners Association, over 70% of the candy sold in the US this Halloween will be chocolate candy, so it's no surprise to see several Hershey brands on this year's Top Ten list.

I must admit, I have a soft spot for Hershey's milk chocolate bar and the place where it was first made...

Have you ever visited Hershey, PA, "the sweetest place on Earth"? It’s a beautiful little town in Eastern Pennsylvania. Even the streetlights are shaped like chocolate kisses. When I was a kid, that town actually smelled like chocolate, and the man who built it was THIS GUY... Milton S. Hershey.

* At the age of 15, Hershey (a Mennonite farmer's son who spoke "Pennsylvania Dutch" and had little more than a fourth grade education), began an apprenticeship with a candy maker.

* At 19, Hershey struck out on his own and started his own candy business in Philadelphia. But after six years, it failed.

* Undaunted, he relocated to Denver, Colorado, where he learned how to make caramels using fresh milk.

* Milton Hershey tried and failed again to launch a candy business. Finally, he went back to Pennsylvania, opened the “Lancaster Caramel Company” and became a great success. Before long it was employing 1,400 people and shipping all over the country.

* It wasn’t until Hershey reached the age of 36 that chocolate became his passion. In 1893, he traveled to Chicago for the World Expo where he stood mesmerized in front of machinery from Germany that made chocolate. He bought the machinery, shipped it back to Lancaster, and began coating his caramels with chocolate.

It’s here in the story that kids
across the country

owe Hershey a debt of gratitude.

* In the 19th Century, the process of making edible milk chocolate was a secret closely guarded by the Swiss. Drinking chocolate was more common than eating it; and the best-tasting chocolate (imported from Europe) was far from affordable for working families. But Hershey had a vision, and through trial and error, he came up with his own formula of milk, sugar and cocoa that allowed him to mass produce and distribute a melt-in-your-mouth milk chocolate candy bar.

Thanks to Milton Hershey, chocolate was no longer a luxury for the rich. His five-cent "Hershey Bar" was an edible chocolate that anyone could afford.

The company insisted on maintaining that five cent price from 1900 through 1969. (Click here to see historic wrapper designs.)

Given the Hershey's candy long history and its creator's commitment to remaining affordable for families, I must say it's nice to see it still placing high on a 21st Century list of America’s Top 10 Halloween Candies.

You can read more about this list (and the sales in units and dollars) by clicking here.

In the meantime, I invite you to...

Now I invite you to take my
"Trick or Treat Poll" below and

leave a comment on this blog post.

(I would love to know your poll answer!)

Congrats to the Winner of this

adorable Reese’s Latte Cup:

Wendy West!

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Cleo Coyle's Trick or Treat Poll: These are America's Top 10 favorite candies (according to sales in 2013). Choose 3 of them for your trick-or-treat bag...

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NOTE: If you do not see the poll above,

then click here to jump to a place
where you should be able to take it.

Culinary Inspiration!