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Some Candies You Won’t Be Making for the Holidays
This time of year, some people fire up the stove to make home made candies. Maybe some walnut fudge? or how about candied orange peels?
We’re accustomed to the typical fruits and nuts that flavor our candy. But over the past century, some intrepid inventors have pushed the boundaries of “candy flavor” to experiment with new and strange candies:
Horseradish Bonbons: A recipe published in 1915 suggested boiling horseradish in sugar syrup, and using this as a base for a chewy candy treat. You can enjoy it as a snack, or as a side dish with your Roast Beef.
Candy from Cottonseed: The Saint Louis Cotton Oil Company found itself with a lot extra cottonseed on its hands in 1915. Why not cottonseed candy? They produced caramels and a chewy taffy-like candy. The project never took off, as the market value of the oil was too high to make the candy a practical proposition. But tasters found it agreeable, and said if they didn’t know what it was, they would have taken it for a good brand of molasses candy.
Alfalfa Candy: In 1915, a man in Montana claimed he could make 75 varieties of candy from alfalfa. This would be, I suppose, the sort of candy you would offer your horse or your hamster.
Lima Bean Taffy: How to get the kiddies to eat more vegetables? Hide them in the candy! A century before Jessica Seinfeld and the Sneaky Chef, Mary Elizabeth Hall came up with a whole cookbook of “alternative” vegetable candies. Vegetable candy seemed a great solution for intemperate candy lovers: it “furnishes the valuable element of sugar so combined with nutritious vegetable bases that, because of the bulk, there is no temptation to overeat!” Or, perhaps, because of the taste… (Candy-Making Revolutionized, 1912)
Alayam: This was an experimental candy made from sweet potatoes. The mid-century story of Alayam is an interesting case of what happens when agricultural policy meets the candy dish. Another “not quite ready for prime time” experiment, you can read more about it in the post about Alayam.
1 comment December 9, 2009
Ye Olde Candy Shoppe
Here’s a peek inside a candy shop some hundred years ago.
Martin Hesche presided behind the counter of this high grade retail establishment on Germantown Avenue in Philadelphia. The shop offered candy, of course. Our photo doesn’t show too much detail, but we can see trays of goodies at the counter, and rows of glass jars behind. Brass polished pans, and glass trays for chocolates, would have displayed the goods.
Candy wasn’t the only thing on offer. Soda was really the main attraction; the soda fountain was the first thing customers would see, a contrivance of marble and mahogany and mirrors designed to dispense soda and flavors with an air of Continental grandeur. The whole contraption was topped by a “bathing beauty” with a stream of water squirting over her. 10 cents would buy you an ice cream soda and a seat at a table. For 5 cents, you could enjoy a plate of ice cream.
What sort of candies were made to sell at Martin Hesche’s shop? I can tell you the names, but I have no idea what most of them might have tasted like: cream filberts, raspberry cuts, rose and lemon jellies, Annie Rooneys, Trilby Cuts, Humbugs, Steamed Coconuts, Boston Drops. Taffies cost 12 cents a pound and for full cream caramels, you’d pay 25 cents the pound. In the summer, there were candied fruits including sickle pears, peaches, crab apples, apricots, pineapple and cherries. And when the weather cooled and the risks of melting passed, Hesche made chocolates. Assorted at 25 cents the pound, or as the holidays approached, packed for you in lovely five pound boxes.
Would you have enjoyed working in such a shop? At the counter, girls worked 10 hour days, six days a week, for a weekly pay of six dollars. Chocolate coaters and dippers made eight dollars, and the more skilled candy maker helpers could make $12. If you were the head candymaker, maybe you’d take home $18 at the end of the week, if it was a first class shop.
Martin Hesche’s shop was luxurious for its day. I’m sure if I were strolling down Germantown Avenue, I’d stop for an ice cream soda. Likely I’d leave with a smile, and probably a five pound box of candy too!
There are still a few descendants of the old candy makers around here and there. One “chocolatier” in my own city is Ms. Kamila Myzel, who has been making chocolates, marzipans, and cookies at Myzel’s Chocolate in Midtown Manhattan. The New York Times ran a feature on her shop on Nov. 10: Sweets From the Heart. She says her hand made chocolate is “regular chocolate, good quality for ordinary people.” We need more Myzel’s these days, places where good quality is considered “regular,” and where the distance from kitchen to shop is just a few feet.
Source: Harry C. Nuss, “Ye Olde Candy Shoppe At the Turn of the Century” Confectioners Journal Dec. 1949 118-121.
1 comment November 11, 2009
Candy Band Aids
Sugar is a somewhat magical substance. In all its many crystalline and syrupy moods it gives us jellies, and taffies, and candy canes, and fudge. These days, we don’t often worry about spoilage, so its easy to forget that sugar is also an excellent preservative. Fruit preserves and candied fruits last a long time; the sugar draws moisture out of the microbes that would make the food spoil.
None of these uses would suggest that we could use sugar in the arsenal against injury and bloodshed. Yet just such a use was discovered among German surgeons during the early days of the first World War:
…it is said that many of the wounded have been cured by dressings of ordinary granulated sugar, the compresses being changed every second or third day.
Actually, it kind of makes sense. Sugar would impede the growth of infectious bacteria, just as it discourages the growth of spoiling bacteria in food. But Confectioners Journal offered a more metaphysical explanation:
Sugar is always vitalizing and it seems logical that it should purify and heal when thus applied externally.
And there was a suggestion for a new candy product:
One of these days our confectioners may be found turning out sugar plasters.
Candy band aids sounds like a great idea. Imagine how much easier it would be to sooth little Suzy’s scratched knee if you could offer one bandage for the knee, and another to suck on!
One final thought: Of course, salt would have the same effect. But in addition to the general non-yummyness of salt band aids, it should be pointed out that packing wounds with salt sounds like it would really hurt!
Source: “Sugar as a Life Saver,” Confectioners Journal April 1917 p 65
Add comment November 6, 2009
Candy Cook Books: Where have they Gone?
I was in the bookstore the other day looking for cookbooks on candy making. I found approximately…zero. I’m not saying there aren’t any at all out there, I’m just saying it doesn’t seem to be a popular topic.
And why would it be? There is amazing candy to be had, whatever your taste or budget. It’s not the kind of thing you do at home. You need special equipment, and a fearless approach to hot sticky liquids. Most of us are still struggling with the Betty Crocker Mix. But once upon a time, home candy making was a very big deal.
In the olden days (before 1865 or so), a confectioner would set up shop in town and sell what she made. The invention of candy making machines in the second half of the nineteenth century meant that by 1890, most North Americans had access to a fantastic array of commercially produced candies. That meant when you headed out to buy some candy, you wouldn’t be likely to know who made it, or even where it might have been made.
This anonymous commercial production of candy made some people quite nervous. What was in that candy? New technologies and processes were creating candies no one had ever seen before. Was it safe? Some candy makers were cutting corners, adding cheaper fillers or substituting fakes for more expensive ingredients like chocolate or nuts. Some of the new ingredients were chemicals, unknown and untested.
There was an explosion of home candy cookbooks from the 1880s to the 1910s. These cookbooks often made explicit appeals to women to protect their children. Good mothers were told never to let their children touch “cheap” candies. They might be “adulterated” with fillers, poisons, who knows what. Instead of buying cheap candy for their children, good mothers should make their children’s candy at home.
The per capita sale of candy increased dramatically from 1900 to 1915. By then, home candy making was falling out of favor. Worries about adulteration seemed less important. Pure Food laws had helped regulate additives and ingredients, and advertising and brand names increased consumer confidence in the goods they bought at the store.
It could never have been the case that home candy significantly displaced manufactured candy. Only a small number of families would have the leisure time necessary for candy making. It is likely as well that after some 25 years of experimentation, home candy cooks realized that candy making was difficult and exacting work, and the variety and quality of candy readily available at attractive prices made home candy less appealing.
The days of home candy making seem long past. I have friends who enjoy baking, friends who garden, friends who sew handbags. I don’t know anyone who makes candy at home. But these days, we think a lot about how to simplify, how to get back to basics, how to “do it yourself.” Perhaps lollipops and taffy from our own kitchens will be next!
Source: on home candy cookbooks, see Wendy A. Woloson, Refined Tastes: Sugar, Confectionery, and Consumers in Nineteenth Century America (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002)
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1 comment November 4, 2009
Daily Candy in Childhood Prevents Violence in Adulthood
A study published yesterday in U.S. News and World Report shows that the daily consumption of candy in childhood is strongly correlated with the failure to become a violent criminal as an adult.
British researchers followed 17,415 children born in a single week in 1970. 7338 reported eating candy on a daily basis in childhood. Of these, only 24 went on to become violent criminals. Candy eating appears to protect 99.7 percent of children from a future life of crime and misery.
Surprised? It’s no wonder. If you caught the story in the news, you probably heard the headline: “Daily Candy in Childhood Linked to Violence in Adulthood.”
The story reports that 35 of the 17,415 children followed in the study report becoming criminals by age 34, and that 69 percent of these, as opposed to 42 percent of the non-criminals, were daily candy eaters. Based on these numbers, the study author Simon Moore, a senior lecturer in the Violence and Society Research Group at Cardiff University, concludes: “There appears to be a link between childhood diet and adult violence.”
So what’s wrong with this picture?
The way the numbers are presented magnifies a tiny effect. Saying that 69 percent of the adult criminals were childhood candy eaters certainly catches our attention. But this is the same thing as saying that 99.7 percent of candy eaters did not become criminals. Thousands of children who ate candy every day and didn’t go on to lives of violence. If candy eating causes violence, we would expect a much more dramatic result.
Even the lead researcher rejects the link between diet and violence, at least from any nutritional point of view: “We think that it is more to do with the way that sweets are given to children rather than the sweets themselves,” Moore said. “Using sweets to quiet noisy children might just reinforce problems for later in life.” This is behavioral, not nutritional.
Melinda Johnson, a spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association, gives many other good reasons to be skeptical of the “candy causes violence” thesis:
- Correlation is not causation. Two things might increase together, but both be caused by some other third thing.
- Daily candy may be a sign of other lifestyle factors that could increase violent behavior. For example, children in violent homes might be more likely to consume candy as an “ease the pain” tool, but the violence itself is the relevant factor.
- Daily candy might be a sign of poor nutrition overall. That is, it might not be the presence of candy, but the absence of nutritious foods, that leads to developmental or behavioral problems later in life.
So what is this all about? Why would someone even think to try to correlate candy and violence? The question is significant; when you go looking for something, you are much more likely to find it. And in the case of this study, what is effectively a non-finding is being broadcast as news.
Since the nineteenth century, candy has been blamed for a host of moral, social and health evils. Bronson Alcott, Louisa May’s father, decried candy’s “demoralizing effect” and suggested candy eating would lead to sexual dissipation; the Women’s Christian Temperance Union cautioned that candy eating in childhood was likely to lead to alcoholism in adulthood; progressive reformers at the turn of the century worried that uncontrolled candy eating would lead inexorably to stealing, gambling, and smoking.
Today’s headlines continue in this venerable tradition of candy-bashing. Candy is an easy target. We all “know” its bad, somehow, even if we can’t figure out exactly why.
There is something that adults don’t like about the spectacle of children eating candy. The latest headlines confirm deeply held suspicions that children’s tastes and pleasures are essentially corrupt. The claim that “candy causes violence” is just another (fallacious) reason to deprive children of a pleasure that, in moderation and with a dose of tooth-brushing and good food, is generally viewed by most scientific experts as being pretty harmless.
I say, give the kids their apples and their broccoli and their grilled chicken breasts, definitely. But give the kids their candy, too.
More: Susan at the National Confectioners Association official blog Candy Dish responds to the study with a reminder that how kids grow up is about parenting, not candy.
Image: Kids are for illustration purposes only. No actual kids were harmed in the posting of this blog.
Add comment October 3, 2009
