Alli Adams
Editor’s Note: All opinion section content reflects the views of the individual author only and does not represent a stance taken by The Collegian or its editorial board.
It’s finally October, the best month of the year for the glaring, obvious reason that it’s Halloween season. Halloween, without a doubt, is the best holiday of the year. The movies are fun, even for those of us who aren’t horror movie fans. The decorations are also more fun and creative than the ones you see during Christmas — and you get to wear a fun little costume.
But I think the most popular reason people like Halloween is for the candy.
You can buy a cheap bag of candy at any store in October, and it will last you for a year. Every conceivable type of candy is on the shelves right now: fruity, chocolate, gummy and hard candy. You name it, the drug store has it.
However, there is one type of candy that’s synonymous with Halloween yet receives the most criticism: candy corn. And I am here to tell you that the hate for candy corn is undeserved. Many will put candy corn at the bottom of their Halloween candy tier list; it does not deserve that spot. What candy corn deserves is far more love than we give it.
Candy corn is one of the most iconic candies of the Halloween season and one of the few seasonal candies to exist. I’m not talking about a limited-edition flavor or a candy design that you can get year-round. You can’t buy candy corn in March; it simply will not be on the shelves, so you have to make the most of it while it’s here.
Candy corn also has one of the most iconic color palettes of any candy. It inspires so many things during October: other desserts, nails, outfits and decorations. Without candy corn, you lose an integral part of the Halloween color scheme.
It also just tastes good. It’s sugar. Triangular, colored sugar. It’s hard to make that taste bad. Not to mention the texture of candy corn. It has that soft, waxy texture, and it feels like eating a crayon — in the best way possible — or soft mints without the crunch. Candy corn has a delightful texture with a rich taste, and I refuse to believe anyone who says they’re gross.
Candy corn is also a fun treat outside of its taste. There are numerous ways to enjoy candy corn. There’s always the reliable move of just throwing three to five pieces in your mouth at once. I love this strategy; it is very effective. There is also the more enjoyable, slower process of biting off each color at a time. Of course, the colors have no individual taste, but eating them individually is still fun.
And the final, most time-consuming strategy of them all: stacking the candy corn so it looks like corn on the cob. Are you kidding? It’s so fun that it does that. I do not have the patience to stack the little pieces of candy on top of one another, so I would never do this, but it’s still cool to see.
In a similar vein, people have stuck pieces of candy corn into a log of edible cookie dough. I am so down for that, as it doesn’t require me to balance each candy piece on top of the others.
Candy corn also reduces your plastic waste because it’s not individually wrapped in a bag. Other Halloween candy, like those bags of fun-sized candies, has each piece individually wrapped. When you want to eat one of these candies, you have to go through the extra effort to unwrap it before you can eat it. Before you know it, you have a massive pile of candy wrappers in front of you. This problem does not occur with candy corn; you can eat it faster and with less waste than with other candies.
Candy corn is important to the Halloween season. It tastes good, it is fun to eat and has, without a doubt, the most recognizable color scheme of the holiday. It deserves far more love than people give. Now that Halloween candy is on the shelf, make sure to give that bag of candy corn some attention.
Reach Audrey Weishaar at letters@collegian.com or on social media @rmcollegian.