Are they Jimmys or sprinkles?

Question

I grew up in California and we called those things we put on our ice cream sprinkles. But, now I live in NJ and they call them Jimmys. Which is it and what is the origin of Jimmys?

Answer 1

I say sprinkles and I'm in Canada :)

Answer 2

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. He was told this story by his grandfather and company founder, Sam Born. 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.

Answer 3

I'm from Seattle, WESTCOAST baby lol, we called them Sprinkles too, I've never heard of jimmy's, Now live in Texas and they call them sprinkles here too

Answer 4

Sprinkles, where I make the donuts. Michigan. I've heard them called jimmies, but not often.

Answer 5

I call them sprinkles.

If someone asked me if I wanted Jimmys on my ice-cream I would call them a pervert and walk away...doesn't sound appetizing.

Answer 6

In australia we frequently call them sprinkles. yet they'd additionally be stated as tens of thousands and thousands. the variety that are only little tiny squares of sugar coated in colour are frequently the tens of thousands and thousands ones. And the different style of sprinkles that are the little extra delicate ones that arent in line with a chew of sugar are additionally wide-unfold as caketops.

Answer 7

We say sprinkles in north carolina

Answer 8

I live in SoCal, and we call them sprinkles

Answer 9

i say sprinkles.

Answer 10

we call them sprinkles here..... east coast- usa