Perhaps, the reader surmised, the word descended from Jim Crow...
Several night’s ago, Michelle, being the coolest person ever saved for me an article in last Sunday’s issue of the Philadelphia Inquirer. Being as dumb as I am, I left the article there, but a little bit of research through the Philadelphia Inquirer archives led me to it once again, and I’ve decided to share it with all of you:
Which came first, the jimmy or the sprinkle?
Evidence suggests the jimmy.A far more important question for local readers is: Which will endure? Sadly, the sprinkle. The jimmy - at least as a piece of slang, an expression of local flavor - is doomed. "If it's not a dead term, it's a dying term," said Peter Georgas, vice president of Can-Pan Candy, the Toronto-based company that sells a million pounds of sprinkles every month. "I will rarely, rarely get on the phone with somebody who asks me for a jimmy," he said. "And if someone does ask me for a jimmy, he's an older man." The fact is that jimmies and sprinkles are the same thing, which is almost nothing, a wisp of sugar, oil, emulsifier (don't ask!) and coloring. But by any name, the world consumes about 50 million pounds a year, according to an industry expert - about 1.3 trillion sprinkles or jimmies, give or take a few hundred million. Mostly, they're sprinkled on ice cream. But if laid end to end, they would stretch 2.3 million miles, enough to circle the Earth nearly 100 times. This region - from Philadelphia to the Jersey Shore - historically has been jimmies territory. Jimmies - not sprinkles - have been on the menu for 53 years at the Custard Stand on Ridge Avenue in Philadelphia. "I don't bother people who call them sprinkles," said Vince Joyce, 21, a jimmies loyalist and employee for seven years. "But if you call them shots or dots or ants or black beads, I say something: 'You mean jimmies, right?' " Right across Ridge Avenue, at rival Dairyland, jimmies have been on the menu since the establishment opened 30 years ago. The present owner, Michael Kiedaish, 32, grew up with jimmies and says he will never change: "When someone tells you that something's a jimmy, it's a jimmy." But hints of extinction are everywhere, even in his own store. "The college people... they're all sprinkles," said Laurie Taylor, 23, who has worked the counter at Dairyland for eight years. "And the yogurt people are sprinkles. And kids all say rainbow sprinkles because it sounds more fun. "I grew up saying jimmies," she confessed, "but from working here so long, I've started calling them sprinkles." Sprinkles are encroaching everywhere. Old reliables like Kohr Brothers on the boardwalk in Ocean City are holding firm with jimmies, but upstarts like Ben & Jerry's on Rittenhouse Square? Sprinkles. At Daddy-O's Dairy Barn in Mount Laurel, owner Rob Cotton grew up in Northeast Philadelphia calling them jimmies, but on his menu he lists them as... sprinkles! "The distributors all call them sprinkles, so that's what I put on the menu board," he said. "This is the No. 1 question: Is there a difference? And where does the name come from? I must hear that three or four times a week."
Here is some history:
Back in the 1930s, the Just Born candy company of Bethlehem produced a topping called chocolate grains. The man who ran the machine that made these chocolate grains was named Jimmy Bartholomew. "Thus, his product became known as jimmies," said Ross Born, the chief executive officer. His grandfather and company founder, Sam Born, told him this story. Just Born registered jimmies as its trademark, and continued producing jimmies until the mid-1960s - which is why the name was so popular here. The trademark expired and soon after, Just Born stopped making jimmies. This account, however, has been disputed. The Boston Globe investigated the origin of jimmies last winter after a reader inquired about a rumor that the term originally was racist - the idea being that some people refer only to chocolate ones as jimmies, and rainbow ones as sprinkles. Perhaps, the reader surmised, the word descended from Jim Crow. The Globe found no evidence of this, but did cite a commentary in 1986 on National Public Radio by the late Boston poet John Ciardi, who claimed: "From the time I was able to run to the local ice cream store clutching my first nickel, which must have been around 1922, no ice cream cone was worth having unless it was liberally sprinkled with jimmies." Ciardi, the Globe said, "dismissed Just Born as claim-jumpers looking to trademark someone else's sweet inspiration." His jimmies had come first. The truth may never be known. But what is undeniable, according to industry experts, is that jimmies gradually gave way to sprinkles, a more vivid and appealing name. For example, a world leader in sprinkles is QA Products outside Chicago. It started making sprinkles 10 years ago - under the brand name Sprinkle King. When Vince Joyce of the Custard Stand on Ridge Avenue gives his customers jimmies, he gets them from a Sprinkle King box. For the record, a chocolate sprinkle includes cocoa and offers a faint chocolate taste. But all rainbow colors taste exactly the same, which is to say, have virtually no taste. This was confirmed by Kasey Dougherty and Kathleen DeMichele of the Dairy Queen in Ocean City. On a rainy day last summer, they conducted a taste test - blindfolded. Neither could tell pink from yellow from green. "Nobody gets rainbow sprinkles for the flavor," Dougherty said. "They get them for the colors, and the crunch."
Time for a little research of my own… A simple Yahoo search for “sprinkles” returned approximately 103,000 web sites. The same simple Yahoo search for “jimmies” returned only 19,300 web sites. Officials at Petrucci’s ice cream, when asked, “Do you call them sprinkles or jimmies?” responded, “Sprinkles.” In the midst of my searching, I came upon a message board of people debating the very same topic. Here are some selected responses:
Rachel Perlow: I think that shape makes a jimmy a jimmy. I don't like to distinguish from color bc I think that isn't fair to the jimmy. I consider myself a jimmy afficionado since I can tell you what flavor and color of jimmy I have on my tongue. Thank you.
Maggie Hughes: It's 1930, the Bronx, New York. James Bartholomew is lucky enough to have a job at Samuel Born's candy company, Just Born, Inc. Bartholomew operates a machine that cranks out Born's newest product, tiny hot-dog shaped sprinkly things. But what to call them? Sam Born ponders that question for maybe a millisecond. They he decides that because Jimmy Bartholomew makes the, he'll call them Jimmies. That's still a trademarked name, but Just Born no longer makes the product. I guess if Bartholomew had shown up late for his job interview, maybe we would now be eating chocolate Wallies or Herbies or Eddies.
In my opinion, Rachel Perlow is a moron, but the point Maggie Hughes raises about Wallies or Herbies or Eddies has changed my whole outlook on this situation. And hopefully yours too.
(This is me talking now) To sum up, I have found that the difference between sprinkles and jimmies has nothing to do with color, refuting the possibility that the word descends from Jim Crow. Whether or not size and shape is a factor may never be known. Those that use the term “jimmies” are usually die-hard loyalists that won’t give up their way of life to changing times in the new millennium (what with the stackable houses, see-through die, translucent money, and shiny game boards) In my opinion, the difference in words is purely regional and the debate will rage forever
If you would like to learn more about this topic, please contact me - I have various other snippets of information readily available. I went searching for fun facts about sprinkles to share with all of you, but I couldn’t find any. I did find, however, a web site advertising edible body toppings, if that’s the kinda thing you’re into. Also, if you’re interested, the next piece of research that will appear here will be a collaborative effort by Michelle and I to get to the bottom of a Ben Camp cooking show mystery. And now, le word of the day:
fur·lough (fehr-loaw) n. Permission to be absent from duty, esp. in the armed services
Which came first, the jimmy or the sprinkle?
Evidence suggests the jimmy.A far more important question for local readers is: Which will endure? Sadly, the sprinkle. The jimmy - at least as a piece of slang, an expression of local flavor - is doomed. "If it's not a dead term, it's a dying term," said Peter Georgas, vice president of Can-Pan Candy, the Toronto-based company that sells a million pounds of sprinkles every month. "I will rarely, rarely get on the phone with somebody who asks me for a jimmy," he said. "And if someone does ask me for a jimmy, he's an older man." The fact is that jimmies and sprinkles are the same thing, which is almost nothing, a wisp of sugar, oil, emulsifier (don't ask!) and coloring. But by any name, the world consumes about 50 million pounds a year, according to an industry expert - about 1.3 trillion sprinkles or jimmies, give or take a few hundred million. Mostly, they're sprinkled on ice cream. But if laid end to end, they would stretch 2.3 million miles, enough to circle the Earth nearly 100 times. This region - from Philadelphia to the Jersey Shore - historically has been jimmies territory. Jimmies - not sprinkles - have been on the menu for 53 years at the Custard Stand on Ridge Avenue in Philadelphia. "I don't bother people who call them sprinkles," said Vince Joyce, 21, a jimmies loyalist and employee for seven years. "But if you call them shots or dots or ants or black beads, I say something: 'You mean jimmies, right?' " Right across Ridge Avenue, at rival Dairyland, jimmies have been on the menu since the establishment opened 30 years ago. The present owner, Michael Kiedaish, 32, grew up with jimmies and says he will never change: "When someone tells you that something's a jimmy, it's a jimmy." But hints of extinction are everywhere, even in his own store. "The college people... they're all sprinkles," said Laurie Taylor, 23, who has worked the counter at Dairyland for eight years. "And the yogurt people are sprinkles. And kids all say rainbow sprinkles because it sounds more fun. "I grew up saying jimmies," she confessed, "but from working here so long, I've started calling them sprinkles." Sprinkles are encroaching everywhere. Old reliables like Kohr Brothers on the boardwalk in Ocean City are holding firm with jimmies, but upstarts like Ben & Jerry's on Rittenhouse Square? Sprinkles. At Daddy-O's Dairy Barn in Mount Laurel, owner Rob Cotton grew up in Northeast Philadelphia calling them jimmies, but on his menu he lists them as... sprinkles! "The distributors all call them sprinkles, so that's what I put on the menu board," he said. "This is the No. 1 question: Is there a difference? And where does the name come from? I must hear that three or four times a week."
Here is some history:
Back in the 1930s, the Just Born candy company of Bethlehem produced a topping called chocolate grains. The man who ran the machine that made these chocolate grains was named Jimmy Bartholomew. "Thus, his product became known as jimmies," said Ross Born, the chief executive officer. His grandfather and company founder, Sam Born, told him this story. Just Born registered jimmies as its trademark, and continued producing jimmies until the mid-1960s - which is why the name was so popular here. The trademark expired and soon after, Just Born stopped making jimmies. This account, however, has been disputed. The Boston Globe investigated the origin of jimmies last winter after a reader inquired about a rumor that the term originally was racist - the idea being that some people refer only to chocolate ones as jimmies, and rainbow ones as sprinkles. Perhaps, the reader surmised, the word descended from Jim Crow. The Globe found no evidence of this, but did cite a commentary in 1986 on National Public Radio by the late Boston poet John Ciardi, who claimed: "From the time I was able to run to the local ice cream store clutching my first nickel, which must have been around 1922, no ice cream cone was worth having unless it was liberally sprinkled with jimmies." Ciardi, the Globe said, "dismissed Just Born as claim-jumpers looking to trademark someone else's sweet inspiration." His jimmies had come first. The truth may never be known. But what is undeniable, according to industry experts, is that jimmies gradually gave way to sprinkles, a more vivid and appealing name. For example, a world leader in sprinkles is QA Products outside Chicago. It started making sprinkles 10 years ago - under the brand name Sprinkle King. When Vince Joyce of the Custard Stand on Ridge Avenue gives his customers jimmies, he gets them from a Sprinkle King box. For the record, a chocolate sprinkle includes cocoa and offers a faint chocolate taste. But all rainbow colors taste exactly the same, which is to say, have virtually no taste. This was confirmed by Kasey Dougherty and Kathleen DeMichele of the Dairy Queen in Ocean City. On a rainy day last summer, they conducted a taste test - blindfolded. Neither could tell pink from yellow from green. "Nobody gets rainbow sprinkles for the flavor," Dougherty said. "They get them for the colors, and the crunch."
Time for a little research of my own… A simple Yahoo search for “sprinkles” returned approximately 103,000 web sites. The same simple Yahoo search for “jimmies” returned only 19,300 web sites. Officials at Petrucci’s ice cream, when asked, “Do you call them sprinkles or jimmies?” responded, “Sprinkles.” In the midst of my searching, I came upon a message board of people debating the very same topic. Here are some selected responses:
Rachel Perlow: I think that shape makes a jimmy a jimmy. I don't like to distinguish from color bc I think that isn't fair to the jimmy. I consider myself a jimmy afficionado since I can tell you what flavor and color of jimmy I have on my tongue. Thank you.
Maggie Hughes: It's 1930, the Bronx, New York. James Bartholomew is lucky enough to have a job at Samuel Born's candy company, Just Born, Inc. Bartholomew operates a machine that cranks out Born's newest product, tiny hot-dog shaped sprinkly things. But what to call them? Sam Born ponders that question for maybe a millisecond. They he decides that because Jimmy Bartholomew makes the, he'll call them Jimmies. That's still a trademarked name, but Just Born no longer makes the product. I guess if Bartholomew had shown up late for his job interview, maybe we would now be eating chocolate Wallies or Herbies or Eddies.
In my opinion, Rachel Perlow is a moron, but the point Maggie Hughes raises about Wallies or Herbies or Eddies has changed my whole outlook on this situation. And hopefully yours too.
(This is me talking now) To sum up, I have found that the difference between sprinkles and jimmies has nothing to do with color, refuting the possibility that the word descends from Jim Crow. Whether or not size and shape is a factor may never be known. Those that use the term “jimmies” are usually die-hard loyalists that won’t give up their way of life to changing times in the new millennium (what with the stackable houses, see-through die, translucent money, and shiny game boards) In my opinion, the difference in words is purely regional and the debate will rage forever
If you would like to learn more about this topic, please contact me - I have various other snippets of information readily available. I went searching for fun facts about sprinkles to share with all of you, but I couldn’t find any. I did find, however, a web site advertising edible body toppings, if that’s the kinda thing you’re into. Also, if you’re interested, the next piece of research that will appear here will be a collaborative effort by Michelle and I to get to the bottom of a Ben Camp cooking show mystery. And now, le word of the day:
fur·lough (fehr-loaw) n. Permission to be absent from duty, esp. in the armed services