Food: M&M’S
Milk chocolate M&M'S (nee plain) were created in 1941, but because of their slow-melting nature, were only sold to the military. The world became a better place when peanut M&M'S came along in 1954. Uploaded by just-for-jack.com.
I couldn’t decide whether to make this post about plain or peanut M&M’S. I love them both. I vacillated. Plain. Peanut. So, what the heck. They’re both great.
Uploaded by candyflorist.com.
Named for the company’s founders (Mars and Murrie), M&M’S are made by Mars, and have been around since 1941. Back then, however, you couldn’t purchase them across the counter – because they resisted melting, they were sold only to the U.S. military. Peanut M&M’S made their debut a little later, in 1954, and were only available in tan at first. Speaking of color, there’s been a lot of mythology surrounding this candy’s colors, and they’ve changed over the years.
M&M’S can now be personalized with your own message. And they’re available in a bunch of different flavors, like peanut butter and pretzel. Yeah, yeah. Whatever. They can make them in caviar and truffles, but they won’t improve the originals. And if you’re beyond a certain age, you probably will never forget their former advertising slogan: “M&MS milk chocolate melts in your mouth, not in your hands!”
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gtM_mmvDww]
Joel Brenner explains in his book, “The Emperors of Chocolate,” that Mars got the idea of M&Ms in SPain during the Spanish Civil War, where he found the soldiers eating hard-shelled chocolate pieces. Mars worked on the coating to make it more melt resistant, but could not obtain enough chocolate to market the new candy sufficiently.
So Mars went to Hershey to beg chocolate and promised that he’d make Hershey’s stepson the national manager for the candy. To seal the deal, Mars offered to name the candy after Hershey’s stepson, whose name was Murry. Hence M&M – Mars & Murry.
Little known fact, also in the book: Mars, Inc. has one of the best intelligence-gathering operations in the world, all for market, supply, economic and transportation reasons. Mars actually alerted the US Government to the buildup of Iraqi forces in southern Iraq before Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990.
BTW, M&Ms are my favorite candy and my wife’s too (peanut, that is).