Peep worshipping cult develops on internet

A new form of cult is emerging on the American landscape – one far more disturbing than any belligerent militia holed-up in the mountains of Montana or a compound of New Age religious zealots. A growing group of people in this country are seriously and violently obsessed with marshmallow Peeps.

The little squishy baby birds in iridescent colors that appear in supermarkets weeks before Easter have inspired intense interest in enough people to earn more than one internet site – there are entire homepages dedicated to these things.

Instructions for the best eating procedure: the palate should be clean and the Peeps left for at least a week for maximum staleness.

Recipes for Peep cupcakes, Peep casserole, Cheerios à la Peep (part of a nutritional balanced breakfast), Les Pèps Chinois and even Peep Primavera appear. One ardent Peep lover composed lyrics about the candy to the Monkees' tune "I'm a believer:" "Oh, I'm a Peepleaver. I couldn't eat 'em if I tried." Clever, huh?

Experiments have tested their endurance – how much heat a Peep can be exposed to before melting, the effects of weightlessness on Peeps, the results of alcohol and cigarettes on Peep health. Perhaps the best image is that of a drag queen decked out in an Easter grass skirt embroidered with Peeps and holding a matching handbag – not an outfit to wear on a particularly sunny day, especially in light of the reports from Peep scientists.

Two kinds of people exist in this world – those who eat Peeps and those who don't. As a member of the latter school of thought, this internet excitement is more than just a little strange. The prospect of biting into a fluorescent incarnation of a baby bird does not sound like a culinary treat. Purple, pink and blue versions are even more disturbing than the classic yellow. Peeps are even the same size as real chicks, and anything that stares at you with two beady little eyes as you eat is quite traumatizing.

But still, reasonably sane people all over the country love them. Just Born sells 600,000 Peeps a year, and that's only between early March and the middle of April. Friends of mine who watch every ounce they eat dive for this candy as soon as it appears at the Wa. Even vegetarians seem to have no problem chomping down on the little birds' heads.

But Peeps are not the only Easter delicacy that appear strange once you delve beneath the sugarcoated surface. Think about the Cadbury eggs – their rich, gooey center inside a chocolate shell is a disturbingly realistic yoke and white of a real chicken ovum.

Little girls and boys savor a candy version of an actual chicken embryo. And even weirder is the classic Cadbury spokesperson who surfaces on television every April. It's the mutated figure of a fluffy white bunny rabbit that clucks like a chicken.

Easter has always been linked with celebrations of the rites of spring. Combined with good old American commercialization, a huge industry of candy birds and eggs and bunnies has developed.

But why do the Christian holiday and the coming of spring initiate this most carnivorous hunger? And why are the objects to which we supplant this carnal desire infant rabbits and developing fetuses? Is there some kind of twisted satisfaction we gain from consuming a small, defenseless animal?

So when the Easter bunny comes this year, he brings far more than a basket of candy. He may come hopping along with an opportunity to quench an inherent need for destruction in the wake of a celebration of rebirth, all in a small marshmallow chick.