the.com/gumdrop
a candy that survived a century by being aggressively chewy and unapologetically fake-fruit.
means a small, dome-shaped candy made from gelatin or pectin, coated in sugar and flavored with fruit or spice, prized more for its bounce than its botany.
from A plain compound of "gum" and "drop," American in flavor and 19th-century in vintage. "Gum" here points to the gummy, gelatin-or-gum-arabic chewiness — the same "gum" that gives us chewing gum — from Latin "gummi," itself borrowed from Greek and ultimately from an Egyptian word for the sticky resin of the acacia tree. "Drop" is the candy sense: a sweet small enough to have been dropped, one dollop at a time, onto a tray to set. Put the gluey base and the bite-sized blob together and you get exactly what the name promises.
- gel source
- Set with starch or pectin, not gelatin originally.
- holiday hostage
- Gumdrops decorate gingerbread houses then get eaten last.
- name origin
- Likely from gum arabic, an old thickening tree resin.
- flavor lie
- Colors rarely match their actual fruit taste.
haribo gummy bears — german candy company founded 1922, world's largest gummy manufacturer
albanese gummy bears — wisconsin candy maker since 1920, known for fruit-flavored gummies
trolli gummy candies — german company founded 1948, produces gummi bears and fruit-shaped gummies