"EUREKA! I Found The Answer!!!"

Of Life's many conundrums, one we've all heard on multiple occasions is...

"Which came first:
the chicken or the egg?"

And then, it hit me just the other day. Be it the grocery store, Target, WalMart, you name it, as soon as you enter you are slathered in colorful seasonal candies for sale, and Easter is as big as any of 'em, holiday-wise. The more colorful the better, too. Easter is all about dying eggs at home and getting that Easter basket full of sweet goodies that we really don't need to be eating, truth be told.

And so it was in that cornucopia of sugary offerings that I found the 'enlightenment' to answer the age old saying above....bear with me, please...

When you think of traditional Easter candies, what comes to your mind? I'm a softie for the malted milk eggs, myself, but I digress. Of the several stand-out finalists to that question, let me spill the (jelly) beans:

Chocolate eggs and Marshmallow Peeps.

Most of us can handle the chocolate egg part. Not nearly as many can stomach the sticky baby chicken "Peeps" which come in yellow, pink, purple and who knows what other colors and shapes...and now species. I've heard you can do neat things to them in the microwave, but there I go digressing again...
(Google it for some fun...)

So from that point of analysis, which came first: the chocolate egg or the marshmallow chicken? Enquiring minds wanted to know...

Let us begin with the unusual "Peep", unique to the world of American confections. Though hard to truly nail down a true birth date, it looks like "Peeps" as we know them made their commercial appearance in 1953, though there were earlier test markets back in the 40's. To further complicate the issue, it is said that the "Peeps" pusher Just Born (no kidding, that's his name) used a formulation that Rodda Candy Company used back in the 1920s for the same type of marshmallow chick...but that was cool, since he bought the company the same year he launched the "Peeps" family ...I suppose it's fair to say marshmallow chicks, themselves, were around in the early 1920s, though just not known as "Peeps."

And now, to the chocolate egg. No doubt when you think of the filled egg you immediately think of Cadbury Creme Eggs, which made their debut back in 1923...so already there isn't a clear winner, given the 'fudge' factor involved with sticky chicks...however, if you widen your definition to just a chocolate egg, you can find records of the French and Germans making them back in the early 1800s...

As Paul Harvey would now say, "And now....you know.........the rest of the story...Good day."

There you have it. The egg came first. Now you can sleep better at night...unless you're dreaming of 8-foot tall purple 'Peeps' that come into your house and lay on your freshly washed sheets...

Hoppy Easter! Stay warm, y'all!!!