Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of
Speaker 1: the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all
Speaker 1: of these amazing tales are right there on display, just
Speaker 1: waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
Speaker 1: There's a great debate that happens each October what's the
Speaker 1: best Halloween candy? Plenty of people jump in right off
Speaker 1: the bat with their Reeses or Snickers or kit kats,
Speaker 1: maybe sour Patch kids or gummy bears if you want
Speaker 1: something fruity me I will always remember the popcorn balls
Speaker 1: that my next door neighbor handed out each year. But
Speaker 1: how did we get here? Anyway? Where did this idea
Speaker 1: of walking door to door for candy handouts actually come from? Well,
Speaker 1: Halloween actually originates from Sowen, an ancient Celtic harvest festival
Speaker 1: that was celebrated between October thirty first and November first.
Speaker 1: The Celts believe that the boundary between our world and
Speaker 1: the spirit world was thinnest on those days, and that
Speaker 1: residents of the nether world could cross into this one.
Speaker 1: To you know Wreek some havoc. To bring order to
Speaker 1: that chaos, participants left offerings outside the village for any fairies, spirits,
Speaker 1: or monsters that might make an appearance. Bonfires were lit,
Speaker 1: and later during the Middle Ages, little carved turnips called
Speaker 1: jack o lanterns began cropping up to ward off evil.
Speaker 1: According to some sources, people also disguise themselves in costumes
Speaker 1: made of animal hides in an attempt to scare away
Speaker 1: those unwelcome ghostly visitors, and over time it evolved into
Speaker 1: a practice called souling. This was when the poor folks
Speaker 1: in each community would visit the wealthy households, where they
Speaker 1: would receive little cakes in exchange for a prayer. This
Speaker 1: became a kid only experience where these children dressed up
Speaker 1: in costumes and after knocking on a door, traded a song,
Speaker 1: a poem, or a joke instead of that prayer for
Speaker 1: a snack. Modern day Halloween fully took shape in the
Speaker 1: United States, with many communities organizing group trick or treating
Speaker 1: in the early twentieth century. The trend took a short
Speaker 1: break for World War Two, and in the baby boom
Speaker 1: that followed, many of the Halloween traditions that we know
Speaker 1: and love today became a cemented part of our culture.
Speaker 1: Among the candies that are handed out today is one
Speaker 1: that's far older than you would probably guess. In fact,
Speaker 1: one version can trace its roots all the way back
Speaker 1: to Philadelphia in the eighteen eighties. That was where a
Speaker 1: man named George Renager worked for the Wonderly Candy Company,
Speaker 1: and he had a wild new idea. He proposed that
Speaker 1: they mold buttercream into the shape of harvest vegetables. Shapes
Speaker 1: like chestnuts, turnips, corn, and pea pods all meant to
Speaker 1: appeal to America's agricultural roots, and while all of them
Speaker 1: sounded great, the corn was the easiest shape, so that
Speaker 1: one came first. We're not sure what the original recipe
Speaker 1: was that it was probably some mixture of sticky sugar
Speaker 1: and corn syrup. Renager worked hard to perfect the candy's
Speaker 1: recipe and its shape. His grandson later told the newspaper
Speaker 1: that his granddad threw batches of it out to the
Speaker 1: family chickens and knew that it was the perfect shape.
Speaker 1: Once the chickens started going after it. He figured if
Speaker 1: the chickens were fooled into thinking that it was real corn,
Speaker 1: he had probably nailed it in a nod to that goal.
Speaker 1: When the Golitz Confectionery Company picked up his recipe, they
Speaker 1: marketed it as chicken feed, complete with a big rooster
Speaker 1: on the front of the box, and soon enough they
Speaker 1: were one of the largest producers of butter cream corn
Speaker 1: in the country. And they achieved that in part by
Speaker 1: using color. You see, each section of the candy was
Speaker 1: poured by hand in order to keep the colors separate
Speaker 1: and distinct. This process involved factory workers carrying heavy buckets
Speaker 1: filled with the candy mixture, who then walked backwards along
Speaker 1: a conveyor belt full of trays. And when I say heavy,
Speaker 1: I mean it too. Some of these buckets could weigh
Speaker 1: up to two hundred pounds. Thankfully, this labor intensive corn
Speaker 1: wasn't produced year round. Part of the reason was to
Speaker 1: give the workers a rest, but it was also to
Speaker 1: create a link in the minds of the American people.
Speaker 1: Chicken feed was meant to tap into the joys of
Speaker 1: a bountiful harvest, which later helped connect it to Halloween,
Speaker 1: but not at first. Instead, it was really supposed to
Speaker 1: be a gag, candy, a joke, a novelty. You see
Speaker 1: the name chicken feed was pretty literal. Most Americans saw
Speaker 1: corn as food for livestock and not people. It wasn't
Speaker 1: until after World War One that people started eating the
Speaker 1: vegetable in the same way that we do today, and
Speaker 1: even then it was mostly out of necessity. As a result,
Speaker 1: Golits could barely keep the boxes on the shelves in
Speaker 1: an era before machine automation. It was hard to meet demand.
Speaker 1: Thanks to modern mechanization, though, their production hit a new
Speaker 1: high in the nineteen fifties, and along the way they
Speaker 1: realized that that old agricultural root of their candy had
Speaker 1: faded into the past. A new name was needed for
Speaker 1: their delicious treat, and it was eventually rebranded for the
Speaker 1: modern world. The bright colors and a catchy new name
Speaker 1: help the candy secure its spot as a staple of Halloween,
Speaker 1: and there it remains to this day. Sure it might
Speaker 1: be one of the most divisive candies in America and
Speaker 1: have a shelf life longer than a Twinkie, but you
Speaker 1: have to admit Halloween just wouldn't be the same without
Speaker 1: candy corn. Here's the story you probably think you know.
Speaker 1: A family suffers an unspeakable tragedy. The oldest son, a handsome,
Speaker 1: charismatic young man of nineteen, is killed in a horrific
Speaker 1: motorcycle accident. His injuries are so severe the emergency responders
Speaker 1: won't even let his parents see the body before he's
Speaker 1: pronounced dead. Over the next three days, they go through
Speaker 1: the harrowing task of laying their son to rest. The
Speaker 1: night after the funeral, they lie awake feeling like they're
Speaker 1: the ones whose lives are over. But the next morning,
Speaker 1: the sun rises and there's still so much to do,
Speaker 1: like filing a claim on their son's life insurance policy,
Speaker 1: which will hopefully cover the burial expenses. Filling out the
Speaker 1: paperwork is painful, but at least it should be straightforward,
Speaker 1: or so they think. So the claim winds up on
Speaker 1: the desk of an insurance inspector who spends his morning
Speaker 1: reading over the details. The nineteen year old motorcyclist's name
Speaker 1: was Angelo Hayes, from a small village in southern France.
Speaker 1: His accident occurred on September first of nineteen thirty seven,
Speaker 1: and it's unclear if he was speeding or driving recklessly,
Speaker 1: but he wound up crashing headfirst into a brick wall
Speaker 1: medical experts pronounced him dead, and he was buried three
Speaker 1: days later. It all seems pretty cut and dried, except
Speaker 1: for one troubling detail. Angelo's father took out the life
Speaker 1: insurance policy worth two hundred thousand francs right for the
Speaker 1: young man's death. If your foul play alarms are blaring,
Speaker 1: you're not alone. The insurance inspector finds this very suspicious,
Speaker 1: to the point that he questions whether Angelo's death was
Speaker 1: an accident at all. There's only one way to find
Speaker 1: out for certain. The inspector gets approval to exhume the
Speaker 1: body and heads out to the cemetery. By this point,
Speaker 1: five days have passed since the crash, and Angelo has
Speaker 1: been in the ground for three. But when the coffin
Speaker 1: is dug up and open, there is no stink of
Speaker 1: rotting flesh. Angelo's in there, though, and his injury seem
Speaker 1: to confirm the official story. His skull is cracked and
Speaker 1: his face is so damaged he's barely recognizable. Still, the
Speaker 1: inspector can feel that there's something wrong here, so he
Speaker 1: keeps searching, and then he finds it, not evidence of murder,
Speaker 1: but something even more alarming. A heartbeat. Angelo Hayes is alive.
Speaker 1: He's unconscious and his breathing is incredibly shallow, but he's
Speaker 1: got a pulse. The inspector can't believe it, and he
Speaker 1: immediately calls for help. Angelo is lifted from the grave
Speaker 1: and rushed to the hospital, where medical experts try to
Speaker 1: piece together what happened. It doesn't take long to work
Speaker 1: out a leading theory. It seems that the motorcycle crash
Speaker 1: that fractured Angelo's skull put him into a coma. This
Speaker 1: caused many of his bodily functions to shut down, making
Speaker 1: him appear dead. Remember this was nineteen thirty seven, not
Speaker 1: twenty twenty. His heartbeat was so faint that even the
Speaker 1: doctors missed it. This also explains how he's lasted so long.
Speaker 1: Underground coffins typically hold enough oxygen for five to six hours,
Speaker 1: but Angelo's breathing was so low that that small amount
Speaker 1: of air lasted him for two whole days. Although he
Speaker 1: probably wouldn't have made it much longer. If the insurance
Speaker 1: inspect hadn't come along right when he did, Angelo really
Speaker 1: would have been dead. It feels like a miracle, and
Speaker 1: with medical care, Angelo soon wakes up. He goes through
Speaker 1: the extensive procedures to treat his injuries and even makes
Speaker 1: a full recovery, needless to say, and some of those
Speaker 1: parents are overjoyed to have their son back, and Angelo
Speaker 1: is grateful to be alive and winds up profiting from
Speaker 1: the experience. His story spreads to the point that he
Speaker 1: becomes a minor celebrity in France. Meanwhile, the insurance inspector
Speaker 1: gets to go home a hero. He rescued a young man,
Speaker 1: reunited a family, and saved his company from paying out
Speaker 1: death benefits worth two hundred thousand francs. It just goes
Speaker 1: to show you that you don't always know where someone's
Speaker 1: story is heading, and sometimes everyone wins. I hope you've
Speaker 1: enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe
Speaker 1: for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the
Speaker 1: show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was
Speaker 1: created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership with how Stuff Works.
Speaker 1: I make another award winning show called Lore, which is
Speaker 1: a podcast, book series, and television show, and you can
Speaker 1: learn all about it over at the World of Lore
Speaker 1: dot com. And until next time, stay curious. H