I have to confess that one of my all-time favorite confections is Marshmallow Peeps®. On the week after Easter, I find my departmental mailbox overflowing with boxes of Peeps, purchased by penurious but kindly friends who take advantage of the fact that all Easter candy goes on sale for half price the Monday after the holiday. For those of you in countries unlucky enough to lack these sugar-crusted blobs of chicken-shaped marshmallow (that means all nations outside the U.S. and Canada), here’s what they look like:
Peeps are made by the Just Born candy company of Bethelehem, Pennsylvania, who took over the manufacture of the chicken-shaped confections from another company in 1953. They’re are an American tradition, and can be microwaved, made into LOLzy dioramas (see this year’s Washington Post Peeps Diorama Contest, or used in games. I prefer mine slightly stale, so I slit open the cellophane and let them dry for a day or so before consumption. This produces a slight but satisfying “crunch” when you bite into them. A while back the company got the bright idea of producing Peeps® for holidays other than Easter, so now you can get Christmas-tree-shaped Peeps® in December, orange pumpkin-shaped Peeps® at Halloween, and so on.
Here’s a gentleman producing a world record for the speedy consumption of Peeps®.
The eater is Patrick “Deep Dish” Bertoletti, a professional eater specializing in breaking world records.
Like sausages and politics, it’s best not to know how Peeps® are made. The company has official videos of their manufacture, but they cleverly ignore the way the actual marshmallow forms are produced. (Some non-official photos are here.)
And they’re durable. Wikipedia notes this:
Peeps are sometimes jokingly described as “indestructible”. In 1999, scientists at Emory University performed experiments on batches of Peeps to see how easily they could be dissolved, burned or otherwise disintegrated, using such agents as cigarette smoke, boiling water and liquid nitrogen. They claimed that the eyes of the confectionery “wouldn’t dissolve in anything”. Furthermore, Peeps are insoluble in acetone, water, diluted sulfuric acid, and sodium hydroxide. Concentrated sulfuric acid seems to have effects similar to the expected effects of sulfuric acid on sugar.
For more on Peeps® recipes (I like to float one in coffee), ways to torture them, and miscellaneous links, go here. And weigh in if you have guilty food pleasures like Peeps.
As for the “good luck” part, here’s a church sign I found on Facebook:
Peeps are the devil’s snack food. (Just as Taco Bell is the devil’s fast food.) I can’t stop eating them and then feel physically ill afterward.
I saw another photo of that sign on Joe.My.God. As I said there, once again Christians kissing up to Jews in order to give atheists the middle finger. Many (most?) baptist churches think Jews will be in line for hell behind the atheists.
Yeah, growing up in a fundy Baptist church in Texas, we were preached at that Catholics were going to Hell, but Jews were REALLY going to Hell. The preachers just sputtered and turned purple with rage and bulging veins over atheists.
Nobody’s going to hell, unless they did something really deserving, Pray. Masters, like Jesus said, don’t come to condemn but to liberate souls. Find a real Master, not a long gone one, or like the Jews, one that will NEVER come (to save “Israel”). Jesus taught living Master salvation. I quote him below in another post for reference. http://www.amazon.com/Saviors-Beyond-Qumran-Hammadi-Testament/dp/1441545689/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1329602738&sr=1-1
I ate a Peep once.
Afterward, I felt like I needed to wash it down with something less cloyingly sweet, like a Twinkie.
I think this is an elaborate way for Professor Ceiling Cat to say: send Peeps 😉
Even as a child I couldn’t stand these. I’d trade them to my brother for his malted milk eggs. And I’d give him my black jelly beans for his red ones. After all, Easter is about the barter system.
And, Muslims, BOOM!
RE The church sign. Easter is a pre-Christian spring festival, most atheists celebrate it. In the Stony household it means eating chocolate novelties, watching cricket on the telly and using the long weekend to catch up with the gardening.
Peeps are the nasty tasting junk food I have ever tasted. My 8-year-old grandson loves them and besides worrying about his teeth, I wonder if he will glow in the dark after this eating tooth decaying fun food. Cheers.
It seems that my native country has been blessed (cursed?) with Peeps as well: http://www.moodiereport.com/document.php?c_id=1178&doc_id=3167
Yaaay!
Good luck everyone!
Good luck, peeps!
“Like sausages and politics, it’s best not to know how Peeps® are made”…the preparation of women is best left behind closed doors as well. I’m not fond of Peeps, but I could get into making a diorama out of them. I confess to nomming entire bags of Cheetos, but the resultant orange fingers are inconvenient and untidy.
Unfortunately, carrots have the same effect
Re: the BAPTIST church sign: don’t they really mean that “Good Luck” applies to not just atheists but to all non-Christians, as defined by the right righteous Baptists?
There is no one as self-assured of their opinions as conservative Southern Baptist males. (The women are supposed to keep their mouths shut.) I know whereof I speak, having grown up and been “immersed” – psychologically and literally – in that denomination. I feel significant hostility.
Peeps are better slightly stale.
Open the package and leave them alone until they’re a bit dried out. The flavors are much more intense. Like dry-aged beef.
Mmmm…stale Peeps.
One enduring childhood memory of Peeps is playing at my step-grandparents house in the sandbox during easter, and grabbing a peep to eat and finding it a bit more granular than usual. uuuhhh. hurts my teeth to even think about it.
Peeps better than Cadbury eggs??! Dr. Coyne, I knew you were a heretic (that’s why I enjoy reading you so much), but really, this is too much. If I didn’t know that you had no free will in making that decision, I’d say this would be grounds for persecution.
Good luck!
http://www.topsecretrecipes.com/Cadbury-Creme-Egg-Recipe.html
Recipe: Make your own Cadbury Creme Eggs (it’ll only be there for a day or two).
Don’t listen to the host. Peeps are only good for teh μwave:
http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?desktop_uri=/watch?v=-Cj3hGpCHYQ
BTW, watch South Park’s Special Passover episode “Jewpacabra”.
Whoops:
http://www.youtube.com/#/watch?desktop_uri=/watch?v=-Cj3hGpCHYQ
}#*%!!
That is funny.
Easter candy:
Solid chocolate – good, very good
Everything else – what you eat after the chocolate is gone.
There is even a Peeps store at the Mall of America. Haven’t been to it myself, but reports are that it is devoted to Peeps exclusively! Sounds like a pilgramige site.
Given that you are a Peeps and Sgt Pepper fan, you should enjoy Sgt. Peeper.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/ABPub/2012/04/06/2017923441.jpg
I don’t think you’re supposed to eat Peeps. They’re just decorative, like an easter basket. After the holiday is over, you can pack them away for use next year … and for many years into the future.
Right. Peeps are the fruitcakes of Easter.
Many years ago I was grossly ill after eating Peeps.
To this day I feel nauseous just hearing the name, queasy at a photograph and I’m sure I’d heave at the smell.
I feel the same way about bourbon, too, for the same reason.
Bourbon and Peeps. Just. Say. No.
I was totally with you until you got to the bourbon part.
Wait, you’re not saying you washed Peeps down with Bourbon I hope. That might be sickening.
Not my finest decision.
Nobody to blame but yourself …
Actually, on the bright side, I kicked two potentially bad habits all at once!
(Warning: I teach chemistry, so the geek quotient in this comment may be dangerous for some):
I despise peeps as food. The only useful function they serve is to be microwaved (already mentioned, as a demonstration of Charles’ Law), or (as I do the day after the Easter weekend) placed in a glass bell jar under increasing vacuum; the gargantuan increase in volume is a graphic demonstration of Boyle’s Law. How convenient that the presentation of gas laws falls in the curriculum right at the pagan fertility festival. Coincidence? I wonder…
A coincidence that on Zombie Day we eat a candy that you consume by first biting off the head? I think not. Destroy their heads, it’s the only way!
If you happen to like chocolate bunnies… don’t watch this video.
How to Kill a Chocolate Bunny:
Disappointing. I expected the microwave nuking…. 🙂
Torturing chicken-shaped candy? Alektorophobes!
RE the sign: The “Good luck” belongs with the other groups as well. Only LIVING Masters can save. Read John 9:4 with the correct Codex Sinaiticus “sent Us”, not the received “sent me”. Jesus was making the point that EVERYONE, including himself, is limited to “working” while alive (“day”), for death comes (“night”) when “*NO ONE* can work”. To drive that home he then says “AS LONG AS I AM IN THE WORLD I am the Light of the world.” “For it is the will of my Father that every one who *SEES the Son* and believes .. {will be saved].” -John 6:40. The “Son” is the Holy Spirit in a Master — like John the Baptist, Jesus, James, a host of others (Melchizedek, Moses, Elijah, Charan Singh). Paul screwed it all up with his Romans 10:9 “Confess and believe” lie. http://www.amazon.com/Saviors-Beyond-Qumran-Hammadi-Testament/dp/1441545689/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1329602738&sr=1-1
Well, that made little sense. Please try again.
Achrachno (Spiderman?),
What part of “living Master” do you not understand? Living – or Master? Living means here in flesh, like Hi how are ya, can I ask ya a question? Master means one who incarnates as God made flesh and can take a human soul back to where both he and said soul – all of us, in fact – originated. Jesus taught it – you don’t get it? 🙂
Go here for some reading material:
https://ssl.perfora.net/s112005287.oneandoneshop.com/sess/utn;jsessionid=154f4eaf2199db4/shopdata/0110_RSSB+Books/0002_English+Language+Books/product_overview.shopscript
There are at-cost titles, 45 at last count, by or about Masters. These are mostly composed in English, so translation is not an issue, like it is with the Bible.
What’s the deal with cranks, religious or not alike, and their penchant for gratuitous capitalization? I bet this would make a fascinating research topic for psychology. Any taker?
Heintje,
Is that comment directed at my post above? Listen, I am not a crank, and I don’t appreciate being called that, first off. Now: There is no ITALIC function on this message board, at least I am not aware of one. How else to emphasize? I sometimes use *asterisks* — is that preferable?
If there are cranks about, it may be that you are a crank. You seem awfully “cranky”. Good grief. I’ll just bet you are a Christian.
Well, as Baptists wishing Jews a Happy Passover is progress.
I love the crunch too. The’ve got to be stale!!
That church sign just rubs me the wrong way.
It smacks of condescension and smug-assery. They can all go to their own personal hell.
Talking of strange foodstuffs.
You might be interested in this. Homeland Security are. They assiduously work to prevent tens of thousands of them for ever entering your country.
http://www.thoughts.com/stevehayes13/the-reassurance-of-security