Peeps

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Image:Pink peeps.jpg

Peeps are small marshmallow candies, sold in the U.S.A., which are shaped into baby chickens, rabbits, and other animals. Peeps are primarily used to fill Easter baskets. They are made from marshmallow, sugar, gelatin, and carnauba.

Peeps are usually eaten in one of five ways:

  • plain, out of the box
  • dried (sometimes for years) and hardened.
  • microwaved (which makes the marshmallows softball-sized)
  • frozen
  • roasted over a flame, like a regular marshmallow.

Peeps are made by Just Born, a candy manufacturer based in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Just Born claims Peeps were introduced in 1953, but most aficionados say that Peeps were originally manufactured by Rodda Candy Company starting in the 1920s. When Just Born acquired Rodda Candy Company in 1953, they automated the process and mass-marketed them. Peeps were first advertised on television in February of 1999.

Many lovers of Peeps refer to the period between February 15 and the Sunday after Easter as "Peep Season". In recent years, Just Born has expanded its line to include bats, cats and ghosts for Halloween; hearts for Valentine's Day; trees, gingerbread men, and snowmen for Christmas; and red, white, and blue chicks and stars for the 4th of July.

Rumors of Peeps' purported indestructibility have evolved into a veritable myth that has come to define the product's place in the lore of pop-culture ephemera. In an effort to establish this legend as fact or fiction, scientists at Emory University performed experiments on batches of Peeps to see whether they could be dissolved. They concluded that the candy is indeed difficult to destroy, CNN reported.

The messy and largely self-entertaining game, "Peep Jousting" is played with a microwave. One takes two Peeps, and licks the right-hand side of each until sticky. A toothpick is thereby adhered to each Peep, pointing forward like a jousting lance. The Peeps are then set in a microwave, squared off against one another, and heated up. As they expand, the toothpick lances thrust toward each opponent, and the winner is the one that does not pop and deflate. Ties (both fatal and harmless) are common. Both usually are eaten after the competition, however, regardless who the victor was, calling into question the nature of "winning" in such a circumstance.

Note: "Peeps" is also fairly recent (mid-1990s onward) slang for "friends" (derived from the word "people"), as in "what's up, my peeps?" Unlike the otherwise similar "bros", the usage of "peeps" is rarely, if ever, singular, but has broadened slightly to encompass more general senses of "people" or "persons", as in "there sure are a whole bunch of peeps in this joint."

Peeps have also been used by jewelery designer Jennifer Kellogg, though now her creations are only Peep-like and use other materials.

Cartoonist Jhonen Vasquez has written, "I love drawing and writing. I also love squeezing marshmallow Peeps in the store." Now you can buy peeps bunnies and chicks stuffed animals in a purple or favorite yellow color.

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Peeps in popular culture

An episode of Malcolm in the Middle featured older brother Francis, who was living at a military boarding school, undertaking a challenge to eat 100 Peep-like candies in one sitting (they were referred to as "Quacks"). This was a parody of the scene in Cool Hand Luke in which the protagonist prisoner bets that he can eat 50 eggs.

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External links

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