One hundred sixteen years after George Smith’s Grand Avenue workers started flattening warmed hard candy into circles on a stick, Connecticut’s governor has officially recognized his contribution to American culinary culture.
The governor, Ned Lamont, Thursday signed Public Act. No. 24 – 121, which designates the Smith-invented lollipop as the state’s official candy as of this coming Oct. 1. (The act also designated the Siberian Husky as the state dog and assigned a working group the task of considering whether to revisit the designation of the state insect.)
Smith ran the Bradley Smith Co. on New Haven’s Grand Avenue. In 1908 he got an idea: Adapt the Reynolds Taffy, a “chocolate caramel on a stick” made in West Haven, to hard candy, according to this write-up from a Connecticut history website:
“Employees at the Bradley Smith Company first produced Lolly Pops by cutting off a chunk of warm hard candy and jabbing, or pegging, in a stick by hand. In the process of inserting the stick the candy was formed and slightly flattened out by the palm. This changed when Max Buchmuller, a foreman for the company, invented and patented a machine to insert the sticks. The machine featured a continuous chain of split molds, which when filled and closed shaped the Lolly Pop, and an automated plunger, which pushed the sticks into the candy.”
At first the machines spat out 125 “Lolly Pops” (a name inspired by a racehorse) per minute. That capacity grew to 750 as the company shipped its penny-priced treats “across the country and around the world, shipping them everywhere from England to China.”
Thursday’s signing marked the third celebration in three weeks of round and flat foods alleged to have been invented in New Haven. Two weeks ago a planeload of New Haveners joined U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro on the steps of Congress to declare New Haven America’s pizza capital. Last week officials converged on Louis’ Lunch to celebrate its signature sandwich on National Hamburger Day.
The lollygagging is just beginning: National Lollipop Day is just around the corner, on July 20. (And heads up: National Frisbee“Disc Golf” Day doesn’t arrive until Aug. 3.)