Long live Peeps

(Not really. They're nasty.)

This is a religion/politics Substack, and today is Good Friday, so it’s time to talk about Peeps, those sugary balls of crud that for reasons beyond me are popular for Easter — but not Halloween or Christmas this year, because of the pandemic.

(That’s a true fact. The company that makes the nasty things, Pennsylvania-based Just Born Quality Confections, announced last year that sending workers home at the beginning of the pandemic put them behind schedule, which meant no Peep ghosts or Peep Christmas trees. Not to worry: The company suffered nary a hiccup producing other confections such as Hot Tamales and Mike & Ikes.)

But Easter is the season of miracles, and Peeps have (and no, I’m not sorry about this joke) risen, again.

Peeps were born at another Pennsylvania-based company, Rodda, where workers took a painstaking 27 hours to hand-form each chick (the only shape available). Though the actual date of the first Peep is not known, they’ve been around at least since the 1920s. Lost, as well, is how the candies came to be called Peeps.

Just Born bought Rodda in 1953, and shortened the manufacturing time to six minutes by using a machine called the Depositor.

The candy inspires as much love as it does disgust. There are surveys that measure how people eat their Peeps (65% bite off the head first), as well as surveys as to whether the consumer prefers a fresh Peep or a stale Peep (it is news to me there is such a thing as a fresh Peep). There’s a recipe for Peeps-infused vodka. I have, in the past, created wickedly-awesome dioramas (one year was Washington crossing the Delaware and I wish I still had the photos). There’s an entire series of YouTube videos that show what happens when a Peep is baked in a microwave. (Reader? They blow up.)

WalletHub estimates that 1.5 billion Peeps will be eaten this year. I shall be cadging as much candy as I can from the grandkids’ Easter baskets, but I shall eat not one single Peep and not you, nor the powers of hell, can make me.

Happy Easter. Long live Peeps, stale or otherwise.