When I started looking at when they first appeared in the shops I thought it would be a fairly straight forward matter of checking a date and a manufacturer. How wrong can you be?
According to the historians of such things Jelly Babies were first being manufactured by Thomas Fryer and his sweet company, based in Nelson, Lancashire. In around 1864 one of Fryer’s employees was an Austrian immigrant named Steinbeck, who is reported to have created the Jelly Baby. When Steinbeck was asked to create a new mould for jelly bears, the end product looked more like babies. The sweets were originally named ‘unclaimed babies’, so-called after babies left on church steps.
I was still recovering from that piece of Victorian humour when I found that by 1918 their popularity had waned before being taken over by Bassett's in Sheffield as "Peace Babies", to mark the end of World War I. Production was suspended during World War II due to wartime shortages. The product was relaunched as ‘Jelly Babies’ in 1953. They now allocate individual name, shape, colour and flavour to different babies (see below).
Three interesting facts:
In October 1963, fans of The Beatles in the United Kingdom pelted the band with jelly babies (or, in the United States, the much harder jelly beans) after it was reported that George Harrison liked eating them.
In Doctor Who jelly babies were frequently featured as a plot device in which the Doctor would attempt to ease an awkward moment or prevent potential conflict with an unfamiliar being by offering, "Would you like a jelly baby?”
In the Terry Pratchett’s Discworld, the country of Djelibeybi, a pun on "jelly baby", is the Discworld's analogue of Ancient Egypt.
Interesting indeed but now comes the crucial question. Do you suck it, nibble round the edges or go straight for the head and bite it off ruthlessly? In a very small sample I was shocked when told, by very nice people, that the head must roll.
Solely in the spirit of academic research it was felt necessary to investigate the taste, texture and visual appeal of this confection. There is no need to thank me, sometimes the job is more important than personal discomfort.
So, let’s see - in this sample 130g packet bought at my local newsagent the bag contained 4 Blackcurrant, 2 Lemon, 3 Orange, 5 Lime, 2 Raspberry and 1 Strawberry.
I was just about to start the randomized testing procedure when I remembered that my friend had told me that they also contain gelatine which is a complete no-no to me as I’m vegetarian.
I was just about to start the randomized testing procedure when I remembered that my friend had told me that they also contain gelatine which is a complete no-no to me as I’m vegetarian.
So that was waste of time and money and I can’t find a poem purely about Jelly Babies so I’m going to try some haiku of my own and I do find writing haiku difficult. So, in order of colour:
tennis on the tv
it must be summer
I prefer applescliff path past
fields of yellow
the sound of sneezing
I go to the country
to pick raspberries
is this right?
the third man
hiding in shadows
or son’s well
tangled bushes
couples pick blackberries
sudden rain
bumper crowd
at Bloomfield Road
Keep Right On
Thanks for reading, Terry Q.
6 comments:
Of course Bloomfield needed to be in there for Steve :) learnt something new as always. I think I’d prefer to eat the heads first instead of letting them roll - fun romp - enjoyed the poems :)
A very interesting history of the humble Jelly Babies. I'm one of those people who can enjoy just one Malteser. I could have a bar of chocolate on my desk and have just one piece a day, back when I worked in an office. These days Cadbury's Darkmilk is my one weakness.
‘Unclaimed Babies’? Crumbs!
I see they wisely avoided blue babies.
I remember lots of my district nursing diabetic patients carrying 4 jelly babies in their pocket in case of hypos
I can't eat just one Malteser or one chocolate button (what is the point?) but I could never eat even one Jelly Baby, disgusting in concept and execution (and that's not a pun about biting off their heads). They're fashioned from the juice of animal hooves and no calling them Bubbles or Boofuls or Bumper is going to make a bad idea any better. I did, however, like your colour-coded haiku very much Terry.
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