Five facts about sweets you probably didn't know

To redress the lack of bloggage and bloggery for a while, I thought I'd write briefly about something utterly trivial and silly. (Not that I find sweets particularly trivial or silly: they are incredibly important, of course.) I know some of you will know one or some or all of these facts, but I'm sure you'll forgive me the brazenly offensive blog title, just this once.

1. J. M. Barrie gave Quality Street chocolates their name
The author of Peter Pan wrote rather a few plays, and one of them has been somewhat confined to the rubbish-bin of history. Or has it? The name endures. The playwright's 1901 play Quality Street was the inspiration for the brand of chocolates launched by Mackintosh's in 1936 - or at least the name was. The older readers of this blog (by which I actually mean anyone over eighteen) may even remember, as I do, the 'Major' and 'Miss' characters who appeared on the tins of Quality Street until 2000. These figures were based on characters from Barrie's play. Contrary to popular belief, Barrie never 'invented' the name Wendy: the name existed before Peter Pan, both as a surname and as a girls' name (a diminutive or 'pet' form of Gwendolyn). Barrie's 'Wendy' was coined as a clipping of the expression 'fwendy-wendy'. (That's enough to make you vomit up your Quality Streets by itself.)

2. Smarties don't contain crushed beetles. Or insects of any kind.
Until recently, the red Smarties were dyed red by using a food colouring called E120 (better known as cochineal). Cochineal is made from crushing bugs (which are, in entomological terms, insects which are capable of sucking things) rather than beetles. However, to make Smarties both kosher and suitable for vegetarians, red Smarties are now dyed using vegetable dyes rather than 'animal' ones. (Some sites claim that is was violet Smarties which were dyed using cochineal - this blogger has been unable to settle the matter either way as yet.) So now you know.... Don't you feel like a smartarse Smartie-pants?

3. Snickers bars were originally called Snickers, not Marathon.
While it is true that Snickers were formerly known as Marathon bars (or monkey shit, depending on whether you like peanuts or not) when they were originally marketed in the United Kingdom, the chocolate bar was first known as Snickers when it was launched in the United States. Bill Bryson tells us, in his (highly recommended) history of the 'American' language, Made in America, that Snickers bars, when launched by the Mars company in 1930, were named after a horse....

4. Skittles used to be made from the same stuff gramophone records were made of.
That is, shellac. We're back to bugs, again (this sucks, I know). The lac bug, found in India and Thailand, is the source of shellac, an edible resin which was used to make old '78s', gramophone records from the pre-rock 'n' roll days. This was also the stuff used to make the hard outer shells of Skittles, but we're informed that shellac is no longer used. Skittles are now, therefore, suitable for vegetarians.

5. Jelly Babies were known as 'Peace Babies' until the 1950s.
When they were originally launched in 1918, Jelly Babies went under the name Peace Babies, to mark the end of the First World War. (So this was the original and sweetest of all the post-war 'baby booms'.) Ironically, the sweets were not made during World War II because of wartime shortages.

So, now you know five facts about sweets that you (probably) didn't know before. Now, go in search of such sweeties and enjoy. I'm off to eat some Gummy Bears.