Rest In Peeps

January 31, 2023 5:23 AM

Ira "Bob" Born, former president of Just Born candy company and the inventor of the Peep, has passed away at the age of 98
posted by firechicago (40 comments total)

🐤🐇.
posted by adekllny at 5:33 AM on January 31, 2023 [3 favorites]

.

I have had probably the whole gamut of emotions that one can have toward Peeps, from the delight of childhood when Peeps were exclusively a rare Easter candy, to dawning disinterest at the pure sweetness of them, to overwhelmed saturation as they expanded out of the Easter candy slot and into Christmas, Valentine's Day, Veteran's Day, &c., to utter disgust as a parent having to clean up after a child who got sick after eating too many Peeps. I've felt all things Peep, and while I could go without eating another one for the rest of my life, they are undeniably An Icon.

Rest In Peace, Mr. Born.

Also, this confused me: He last visited the Just Born factory on Feb. 15, 2019, when the city of Bethlehem proclaimed the first day of the Easter season as “Bob Born Day.”

Is Bob Born Day the first day of Lent, which is sad, or is Bob Born Day also Easter Sunday, which is ... um, someone else's day already?
posted by gauche at 5:43 AM on January 31, 2023 [7 favorites]

I’m a little disappointed that he isn’t being given a viking-style funeral, cast off across the water on a giant peep, which is subsequently set aflame via arrows.
posted by heyitsgogi at 5:47 AM on January 31, 2023 [17 favorites]

I love peeps. I have to manage my intake of them. Did you know they're best frozen? Put them in the freezer and then you can break them off one at a time and, if you're quick, crunch them in your teeth. Something glorious about marshmallow shattering in your mouth and then going all gooey as it warms.
posted by seanmpuckett at 5:49 AM on January 31, 2023 [11 favorites]

I hope they use his corpse in one of those Peep dioramas
posted by Kitteh at 5:58 AM on January 31, 2023 [1 favorite]

Sadly, Peeps are not vegetarian :(

(gauche, I refuse to acknowledge the existence of those imposter Peeps, personally. I can see the usefulness of non-yellow Peeps for certain diorama applications, but the only true Peep is a yellow birb Peep.)
posted by eviemath at 6:23 AM on January 31, 2023 [3 favorites]

I’m a little disappointed that he isn’t being given a viking-style funeral, cast off across the water on a giant peep, which is subsequently set aflame via arrows.

First they have to store his remains on a windowsill for six days so they reach the perfect level of staleness.
posted by Strange Interlude at 6:26 AM on January 31, 2023 [10 favorites]

Also, this confused me: He last visited the Just Born factory on Feb. 15, 2019, when the city of Bethlehem proclaimed the first day of the Easter season as “Bob Born Day.”

Is Bob Born Day the first day of Lent, which is sad, or is Bob Born Day also Easter Sunday, which is ... um, someone else's day already?

I think in the context of the candy industry, the first day of the Easter season is the day after Valentine's Day.
posted by Daily Alice at 6:28 AM on January 31, 2023 [13 favorites]

I have no fond childhood memories of Peeps: they might still have been a regional New England-area thing when I was small. Encountering them first as an almost-adult, I have only negative experiences with them to relate, regard the invention of them as a lesser atrocity, and forbear to mourn the passing of the person responsible.
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 6:46 AM on January 31, 2023

the first day of the Easter season is the day after Valentine's Day.

That's Half-Off Chocolate Day, which also comes around on Easter Monday and All Saint's Day.

As that hallowed celebration is anathema to the candy industry, you are undoubtedly correct that they will have expanded their definitions so as to exclude it.
posted by gauche at 6:47 AM on January 31, 2023 [3 favorites]

And he developed Hot Tamales which I loved as a child!

.
posted by brainwane at 6:52 AM on January 31, 2023 [4 favorites]

BTW given where and when he attended college he may have been classmates with Lee Iacocca.
posted by brainwane at 6:53 AM on January 31, 2023 [1 favorite]

Last year I attended Peepsfest Peepsfest in Bethlehem, PA. Set against the backdrop of Bethlehem’s magnificent preserved steel mills, this New Year’s event featured live music, the Peepmobile and a spotlit giant Peep lowered from a crane. Very festive stuff.
posted by kinnakeet at 6:54 AM on January 31, 2023 [5 favorites]

I’m a little disappointed that he isn’t being given a viking-style funeral, cast off across the water on a giant peep, which is subsequently set aflame via arrows.

I hear he asked to be microwaved.
posted by PlusDistance at 7:01 AM on January 31, 2023 [8 favorites]

Because I used to like Peeps as a child, my mother would give me a couple of packages every Easter. For years. Decades. But I stopped liking them long before. They were too sweet.

But I never told my mother that. Because I knew it gave her pleasure. It was a connection to a simpler time.

So I took them with thanks. And in a few days I would toss them, with sadness.

.
posted by Splunge at 7:14 AM on January 31, 2023 [2 favorites]

He empeepled the world.
posted by Hypatia at 7:18 AM on January 31, 2023 [1 favorite]

Just Born makes around 2 billion Peeps each year, or enough to circle the globe two-and-a-half times.

Every time I see some quantity of stuff described as "circling the world X times" or "from here to the moon and back", I assume I've missed the episode of The Worlds' Most Dangerous Jobs where boats full of hard-bitten, grizzled sailors are stringing impossibly long lines of carefully tethered corn dogs across the Pacific ocean and low-earth-orbit astronauts are putting the final Peeps on a precarious stack of sugary confection stretching miles up into the night sky.
posted by mhoye at 7:36 AM on January 31, 2023 [9 favorites]

Thank you, Candyman.
posted by Capt. Renault at 7:42 AM on January 31, 2023

Steelstacks MetaFilter meetup to pay tribute?
posted by MonkeyToes at 8:00 AM on January 31, 2023

I have a decades old pack of Peeps that are, presumably, appropriately stale now.

I will share the package with friends today, in tribute of this man.

Yum?
posted by lothar at 8:01 AM on January 31, 2023 [2 favorites]

RIP, the guy that makes a candy you buy and then throw away. The colors of the candy is the fun part, not the eating part.
posted by The_Vegetables at 8:17 AM on January 31, 2023

And he developed Hot Tamales

Talk about burying the lede!
posted by chavenet at 8:38 AM on January 31, 2023 [1 favorite]

When I think of Peeps, I think of Cris Shapan's faked-up magazine ad with Orson Welles: "When the desire for mallow-based confection prevails, I must insist upon Peeps."
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 9:16 AM on January 31, 2023 [9 favorites]

Quite a legacy. Peeps are the best
posted by Sassenach at 9:26 AM on January 31, 2023

“Candy doesn’t have to have a point. That’s why it’s candy.” -Charlie Bucket, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, 2005

RIP, Ira.
posted by corey flood at 9:30 AM on January 31, 2023 [1 favorite]

.
posted by JoeXIII007 at 9:32 AM on January 31, 2023

🐤
posted by hydra77 at 10:08 AM on January 31, 2023

Did you know they're best frozen?

I always preferred stale which mean puncturing the plastic wrap and waiting, often several months, for them to properly dehydrate. Ideally they’re stored on top of the fridge or on the top shelf of a kitchen cabinet. The results were along the lines of chewy marshmallows.
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 10:21 AM on January 31, 2023 [1 favorite]

In my house, Peeps are not eaten. They are microwaved. My *Mom* is the most enthusiastic microwaver of Peeps.

.
posted by dfm500 at 10:39 AM on January 31, 2023 [2 favorites]

I cannot stand Peeps. The look, the taste, the texture. My family knows this, which means pretty much every Easter I find Peeps in places like my sock drawer. I remember one year when my youngest daughter was around 4, we were at the drug store and my older daughter informed her that, "Dad doesn't like these candies, you should hand these to him as a joke." I don't know how to put into words the absolute glee and excitement that overcame my 4 year old daughter. She was so excited and happy and laughing in that way that seems limited to the innocence of young children. I will never forget that.

Thank you Mr. Born, safe travels.
posted by BigHeartedGuy at 12:03 PM on January 31, 2023 [10 favorites]

To whom I owe my name. RIP (where P=peeps)
posted by St. Peepsburg at 12:47 PM on January 31, 2023 [3 favorites]

Are they going to microwave the corpse? As it swells to gigantic proportions deliver the eulogy, finishing as the once bloated corpse slowly shrinks, losing the glory it had for one brief shining moment before being consigned to the metaphorical trashbin of death.

Godspeed, Mr. Born
posted by Sphinx at 1:05 PM on January 31, 2023

I adore Peeps. I'm sad I've never managed to find Peeps Milk (it was a thing!) but a friend of mine did and shared the horror so I could live vicariously.

🐤
posted by jzb at 1:08 PM on January 31, 2023

I've only ever eaten one Peep. It was like eating a mouthful of shaving foam covered in grit that dissolved to leave a horrible coating on my teeth, tongue and mouth. It was vile.

I'm glad their creator lived long enough to see Peeps find world-wide fame thanks to the internet.
posted by essexjan at 1:09 PM on January 31, 2023 [1 favorite]

🐤
posted by sammyo at 2:29 PM on January 31, 2023

There was a lady in my parish who decorated her Easter hat with Peeps every year. It’s about the best use I can think of, other than the familiar microwave jousting.

She died a few years back. Maybe she’ll get to catch up with her favorite accessory designer now.
posted by armeowda at 2:44 PM on January 31, 2023 [2 favorites]

Sadly, Peeps are not vegetarian :(

Oh my God they eat meat?
posted by an octopus IRL at 3:19 PM on January 31, 2023 [13 favorites]

I once had a job where my coworkers and I got bored easily, and also had access to a convenience store. This led us to have long discussions about "Ike and Mike" and whether it was an ethnic joke from the turn-of-the-last-century. Finally I wrote to Just Born and asked. I forgot all about it until a big box appeared at work addressed to me, and when we opened it, there were every type of Hot tamale, Ike and Mike, and experimental fruit combo (kiwi and lemon?), and... Peeps. There was a kindly letter explaining that "Ike and Mike" was a hit Broadway show from the 1920s (so, yes, I guess, an ancient ethnic joke). We had a blast eating the candies, except for... Peeps. I will still grab a box of Ike and Mikes and have a fond thought for Just Born, but I will never eat another Peep.
posted by acrasis at 4:57 PM on January 31, 2023 [7 favorites]

.
posted by kitten kaboodle at 5:26 PM on January 31, 2023

Last year I discovered that roasting peeps like marshmallows over the campfire results in the most delicious thing ever: melted marshmallow covered in caramelized sugar.

I strongly recommend it to those who have a pack languishing (unless you’re waiting for them to dehydrate).
posted by sciencegeek at 2:45 AM on February 1, 2023