Today, candy brands compete almost entirely on taste, texture, and flavor intensity. From extreme sour coatings to single-origin dark chocolate, modern candy is engineered to deliver an immediate sensory reward. In the mid-to-late 20th century, however, a huge segment of the candy industry operated on a completely different business model: the interactive novelty candy. For … Read more
In the summer of 1941, as the United States prepared for entry into World War II, a new candy hit American assembly lines. It didn’t look like the heavy chocolate bars of the era, and it wasn’t sold in traditional grocery stores. Packed into narrow cardboard tubes, the entire initial run was bought by the … Read more
Search for the origin of Salisbury Steak, and you will run into a web of confident misconceptions. You may read that it was invented purely as a Civil War treatment for dysentery, served as a bland, unseasoned lump of meat. It’s also claimed that it was created as an “offshoot” of the German Hamburg steak, … Read more
Every few years, the internet goes wild over a “time capsule” discovery inside a suburban shopping mall. A viral video will show a maintenance worker or explorer popping open a door to reveal a fully intact 1980s or 1990s fast-food restaurant, recomplete with retro wood-grain booths, pastel menu boards, and old soda fountains, sitting completely … Read more
We’ve all asked. Why is it that when you take off the lid of your morning take-out trying to get a sip of coffee, your met with a blast of steam that lets you know you’ll be waiting at least 15 minutes before the stuff is even remotely drinkable? Commercial drive-thru coffee isn’t just warm, … Read more
When we sit down in a bar or a trendy burger and encounter a word like bespoke on the menu, things seem amiss. Is there a fashion show happening? You may even be quizzed by a mixologist who asks you three questions about your childhood before mixing you a “bespoke cocktail.” Or have to pay … Read more