By Linda (Angeleyes)

What a great day.  I remember as a child digging through my Easter basket every year to find every last one of those morsels of sugary goodness.  These days I go straight for the bag.  And me?  I’m not a jelly bean chewer.  I’m a “let the sugar melt off on my tongue a while then chew” kind of a girl.

No one seems to know the exact origins of the jelly bean but most experts believe that the jelly center is a descendent of a Mid-Eastern confection known as Turkish Delight a citrus, honey and rose water jell.  Jelly beans as we know them date back to at least the 1860’s. During the Civil War, Boston confectioner William Schrafft wanted to help support the war effort (and his bottom line) so he suggested sending this treat to Union troops.   However it wasn’t until July 5, 1905 that the mentioning of jelly beans was published in the Chicago Daily News. The advertisement publicized bulk jelly beans sold by volume for nine cents per pound. Jelly beans quickly earned a place among the many glass jars of “penny candy” in general stores where they were sold by weight and taken home in paper bags. It wasn’t until the 1930s, however, that jelly beans became a part of Easter traditions. Because of their egg-like shape, jelly beans became associated with the Easter Bunny, who is believed to deliver eggs as a symbol both spiritual rebirth based on religious beliefs and the upcoming season of spring.

Since 1976 and the introduction of Jelly Belly Jelly Beans, there have been two types of jellybeans, gourmet and traditional. The difference you ask?  Both take between 6-10 days to make but gourmet jelly beans tend to be softer and smaller than traditional jelly beans and are flavored in both the shell and the middle while traditional beans typically contain flavor only in the shell.

Fun Facts:

For Easter alone, in the United States, there are 16 billion jelly beans manufactured. This could fill a nine story office building that was 60 feet wide.

Jelly Belly beans were the first jelly beans in outer space.  President Reagan sent them on the 1983 flight of the space shuttle Challenger.

On October 15, 1999, the world’s largest jar of jelly beans was unveiled. It weighed 6,050 pounds.

The Jelly Bean Fun Book by Karen Capucilli

The Giant Jellybean Jar by Marcie Aboff

Eleven Jellybeans for Breakfast by Ellen Wikberg

The Jelly-Bean by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Tags: Book Suggestions, Members

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 22nd, 2012 at 12:52 am and is filed under Holidays and Special Dates, Musings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.