EASTER TREATS Power to the Peeps
Fans love to eat them -- and torture them.
By PAUL ASAYZ
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
Some eat them. Some play with them. Some create pseudo-porn Web sites dedicated to them.
People love their Marshmallow Peeps.
But it can be a creepy kind of love. Peeps -- the Day-Glo-colored marshmallow confections made by the Pennsylvania-based candy company Just Born -- are more than an Eastertime treat.
They're a cultural phenomenon. The Just Born's Peeps fan club has 40,000 members, and the Internet has hundreds of sites that salute, honor and, in some cases, mutilate these charismatic confections.
Peeps are all about buzz -- sugar buzz, that is.
They're the only candies that someday might move from the supermarket shelves to the supermarket tabloids.
"Peeps at Play! Shocking exclusive pictures from Aruba!" Readers would, ahem, eat that stuff up.
Consider some of the comments on David Ottogalli's artsy Peep Web site PeepsShow (www.peepsshow.com):
"Besides munching many of the little critters we love to play with them, and am sad to admit, torture them," writes Mary. "For the amusement of kids and adults we nuke them to watch them grow huge and then deflate. The hardened corpses make great decorations."
"I love the sweet grittiness of their exterior combined with the gooey sweetness of their marshmallow inside," Yvette gushes.
"This is what true love is all about."
Candy corn, though tasty, just doesn't attract this kind of adulation.
Year-round
Although fans label Feb. 15 through Easter (April 16) as "Peeps Season," Just Born churns out Peeps year-round -- as many as 4.2 million a day. There's no rush to make them all at once: Peeps have a two-year shelf life.
Ellie Deardorff has been Just Born's official Peeps spokeswoman since 1998. She says there's been a definite upsurge in Peep fanaticism in the past decade.
She insists that many fanatical Peeps fans just love the way these suckers taste -- though many fanatics seem more interested in playing with Peeps than eating them.
But Deardorff also believes Peeps exude a certain modest charm.
"Most of the news out there is pretty serious and pretty grim," she said. "When you look at a Peep, you can't help but smile."
Or, in some cases, cackle maniacally.
One of the best known Peep sites, www.peepresearch.org, scientifically details how Peeps react to various stimuli: water, acid, office staplers.
In one test, Peep researchers gauged a Peep's reaction to bright lights and enclosed spaces.
They conducted the experiment, naturally, in a microwave oven, and determined that Peeps balloon like frightened blowfish.
"This response likely evolved in order to intimidate potential predators through the awesome size and prowess achieved in a frightened peep," the researchers opined.
Seedy underside
Another site (www.auricular.com/AIM/features/peeps/peeps.html) chronicles the seedy underside of Peep life.
And many aficionados participate in a form of jousting: Two Peeps are skewered with toothpicks, placed in a microwave facing each other, and apparently battle each other as they swell.
"We do not condone microwaving them," Deardorff said.
Scalding Peeps can be downright dangerous to eat.
The peeps, she added, don't seem to mind.