What happened to the national obsession of caramel?

It seems like from 1900-1932 there sure were a lot of caramel cards produced. American Caramel, National Caramel, Philadelphia Caramel, U.S. Caramel, etc.

Americans seemed to have consumed caramel at an alarming pace. But today I can't really think of any caramel candy at the supermarket checkout lines.

So what happened to caramel's popularity with the American candy eater?

Caramels were the big seller because there was no worry of the product melting. It wasn't until Hershey figured out how to keep chocolate from melting at room temp that sales took off.

Also, 1916-32 the Volstead Act and Prohibition had a huge effect on the number of confectionaries in towns. Sugar was needed to make the white mule, coffin varnish, bathtub gin... every town had a few confectionaries to justify to revenuers the importation of massive quantities of sugar.

hmm, what the heck is caramel anyway? i thought i knew the answer, but from reading these posts i'm not too sure.

I think it's sugar and butter melted together.

I've only seen it used melted as an ice cream topping.

BigGuy219 wrote:I've only seen it used melted as an ice cream topping.

i've had it in this form. is there still any in candy form like with the cards?

Mmmmmmmmmm...caramel...

http://www.caramelcandyco.com/index.html

I ate a ton of these Kraft caramels when I was a kid...

http://www.candywarehouse.com/occasions/halloween-candy/halloween-candy-bulk/products/kraft-caramel-squares-candy-5lb-bag/

cccc wrote:

BigGuy219 wrote:I've only seen it used melted as an ice cream topping.

i've had it in this form. is there still any in candy form like with the cards?

There's a cheap Halloween candy called Mary Jane's that have nuts in the them but are mostly caramel. Of course there are Snickers and Milky Way, those have caramel in them.

I like to cook and one of my favorite desserts is Tarte Tatin. It is very easy - you just heat a stick of butter in a pan with a cup of sugar till it caramelizes. Then you put on the peeled apple slices, cook for ten minutes, flipping the apples slices halfway through. Put the crust on and take the whole pan and stick it in the oven at 350 for a half hour.

Once you take it out, wait 20 min and flip the whole thing onto a plate. Voila! You have Tarte Tatin.

Mona makes homemade caramel for Christmas every year. She makes a batch of chocolate and a batch of vanilla. Awesome stuff. She wraps them and everything. They are very soft and shewy. I think the only ingredients are butter, sugar and cream.

Homemade caramels or those made by small candy shops are the best. I think the caramels sold with cards were more like slo pokes--for those of us old enough to remember them, and of course minus the stick. They don't make the original Holloway's (who also made Milk Duds) any more, but apparently you can still buy slo pokes; in fact, they now have a candy bar version instead of the all-day sucker. Homemade caramels are soft and give your jaw a workout; slo-pokes were hard as hell--you had to work on them awhile just to get them soft enough to bite off a piece and were probably not great for your teeth. They had Black Cows too--basically the same thing but covered with a coat of chocolate. Sugar Daddy's were similar to slo-pokes.

Those Slo-Pokes, I think their slogan was "Slo-Poke Last All Day".
I remember them pulling a filling or 2 out of my mouth.

this turned into a fun little thread. i like snickers, and the chewy caramel part. next time at the supermarket i'm gonna try to find some type of candy that's mostly caramel.

Mmmmn...sugar daddies!!! All aforementioned confections double as incredibly effective crown/filling removers!

I lost two molars in less than five minutes to one slo-poke. I was about 9 or 10, and occasionally would buy one with baseball cards at the Ben Franklin three blocks from home. Took the sucker out of my mouth before the bike trip home and was startled when it had a tooth attached. Changed to the other side of my mouth and the bastard took the other one almost immediately. I freaked out--was sure I would be toothless before I got home so I tossed the mother@#@#@ slo-poke.

Ha ha...thats hilarious...u probably never touched another slo-poke!!!!