Hey, peeps!

I got an email from G this morning, with links to assorted (relatively) serious attempts to do research on the habits and physical characteristics of marshmallow peeps.

This one is the classic, of course: http://www.peepresearch.org/

Then there is the proof of what happens when librarians get sugar-high around this time of year: http://www.millikin.edu/staley/peeps/

And for the do-it-yourselfers in the crowd: http://www.evilmadscientist.com/article.php/peeps

All of which begs the question. Who the heck came up with the idea of peeps, anyway? I mean, I love the things, but really. Would it have occurred to me to make little marshmallow blobs that look vaguely like chicks, cover them in scary neon sugar, and market them to the masses? Not hardly. So, being the proud possessor of bonafide whiz-bang research skills, I wandered over to the Just Born site, which is almost as alarmingly colored as the peeps themselves, in search of the answers. According to their company history, Just Born acquired the Rodda Candy Company in 1953. And it was Rodda Co. that made marshmallow chicks first. No one, however, including those intrepid reporters over at Slate, has been able to figure out why the folks at Rodda started making peeps in the first place.

Yet another thing to contemplate while in one of those long and unproductive meetings.

(And, in vaguely related news, today's winner of the "there's a contradiction in there somewhere" award is Just Born's newest product, Hot Tamales Ice.)