Sugar Candy Treats     Rice Krispies History.    Celebrities Favorite' Weird Candy Trivia.   Growing Candy.

Home. 7UP, Coke, Pespie and Dr. Pepper. Angel or Devils. All Apple Reicpes Barbecue Sauce Beef Dinners. Breads, Rolls, and Muffins. Cake Recipes. Candy. Casserole Dishes Carry In Dishes Chicken, Poultry Dishes Chili Recipes Chow Mein Cobbler & Crisp Recipes Cookies. Dips and Party Mix Recipes Fish, Shrimps, & other Swimmers Fudge. Gravy - Gravies Helpful Hints Italian Ice Cream Recipes Jams, Jellies, Marmalades Lunch Box Sandwich Spreads Marshmallows Mexican Pancakes, Hotcakes, BuckWheats and Syrups Pickles and Picklers Pies From Scratch. Pizza Pies Popcorn Recipes Porkchops, Piggies, and other Oinkers Potato, Potatoes Pudding Salad Recipes. Sandwich Recipes Sauces, Condiments Sauerkraut Scary Recipes Soups and Chowders Uncategorized Unusual Recipes Vegetable Bin Vintage Recipe Books Old Hershey's Booklet of Recipes Coconut Glamour Booklet Vintage Baking Powder Booklet More Booklets

Twisted Candies - Candy in History and    Candy History Part Deux

Man's sweet tooth has been around since the begining of time.  The first lolipop was discovered by prehistoric man, did you know that?

Bee Collecting Nectar to make Honey

Caveman found that stabbing a beehive resulted in a honey coated stick. (Not to mention a few angry bees.) First things first, he made a swift bee escape, then he stopped and eyed his stick. Shrugging his shoulders, he gave it a lick! That was the start of a sweet revolution. For the next few hundred years, the world was coated with a honey glaze. And we have found artistic depictions in caves, on pyramids, carved into Aztecs ruins, and other old dingy places showing little green men, in flying saucers, sucking on lollipops. Ok, so we don't really know if the above is true, ok, actually, I made most of that up, but what we do know is this.......................

The Egyptians had candy!  Not the kind you would think of today, but they had honey, nuts, and fruit which they mixed together with a flour paste. Then they baked it.

Egyptian confections!

They varied their candy recipes and created new tasty treats using corn and wheat. Some Egyptians, of the time, would also be able to afford imported foods such as, coconuts, cinnamon, peaches, and cherries. Plus, dates, apples, figs, and raisins were abundant in the area.

Read, "The Story of the Missing Cookie Jar" by PenVampyre.  A delightful little Christmas story with mouthwatering warm tasty recipes for the most wonderful time of the year!     Read "Santa and the Magic Key", plus recipes for your holidays.  A story by PenVampyre Easter eggs, bunnies and other stories. Read "Easter and Where NOT to Hide Eggs"  Memories of Easters past and a few vintage recipes. Logan's Halloween Story -The original story won first place in sixth-eighth grade division of Southeastern Middle School, 2005 by Logan Lyon.   Alas, no recipes... Food and Genealogy. A story By Robin L. Wallace.  Our lives, our families, our very history's are defined by the foods we eat. Family Reunion Recipes. "The Fourth of July and Other Disasters" (With Apologies to Jean Shepherd) By Robin L. Wallace A short story by Suellen Fry.  Memories of my father and his version of Kickapoojoyjuice. Memorial Day Recipes - "For me, Memorial Day was the day when we went out where relatives were buried in the tiny, local cemeteries and thoroughly cleaned up each gravesite, carrying away branches that may have fallen in the winter.................." Grandma Irwin's Story of Courage and Swit Tater Biskits Recipe. Homemade Remedies Recipes - Recipes our grandparents used from a poultice, mustard plasters, gargles and paste.

Honey Jar

The best Egyptian candy was saved for the gods and Pharaohs - marshmallows and licorice.  We know this because we found marshmallow and licorice treats in the Pharaohs tombs. The Ancient Egyptians had the ovens and tools to make pies and cakes too! Think of the chewy tasty treats made from all of the above ingredients.

Honey Bear

This was discovered by reading papyri, a sort of ancient Egyptian paper, which dated back to 2000 B.C.  Also, the tombs showed hieroglyphics of the ancient Egyptians making their candies from honey.  Different shapes were molded from the mixtures.  They even left hieroglyphics of recipes!  See our recipe section to try some ancient Egyptian candy treats.

Blonds love candy...and redheads...and brunetts....and boys love girls!

Not long after man discovered honey tasted so good, he found much to his delight, sugar cane. We know sugar cane was cultivated in ancient China, India, Persia, and most of Asia by 500 A.D.

Flies Love Sugar!

The ancient Chinese loved sweet candy treats! The legend says that well over 2000 years ago in the ancient land of China, lived an Emperor who loved the sweet stuff.  The palace chef, who was very smart and very good with his hands, learned how to spin sugar.  He would spin thousands of silvery strands from wheat germ sugar and make his famous "Dragon's Beard" candy right in front of the Emperor's court and guest. This brought great delight to everyone who attended the royal feast.

Sugar Cane

Alexander the Great found sugar cane when he was conqurering the known world.  He thought it tasted so good, he called it the "Sacred Reed" and had it transported home to his Mediterranean countries. People like it so much they started growing sugar cane everywhere.

Alex, baby!

You just can't keep a secret like sugar cane to yourself forever!

Soon the buzz, about sugar, was everywhere!  Sugar tasted so good, the Crusaders brought it back to Europe with them around 1100 A.D.

Caped Crusaders

Ok, so it wasn't exactly the Caped Crusaders...................................it was the Medieval Crusaders.  They looked a bit more like this...

Medieval Crusaders

Around the same time, the Venetians (the real capitalist of the day) started making sugar cane available to anyone who could afford it and thus the first candies.

Venetian Candy Merchants

The next 400 years saw only the very rich enjoying the luxury of sugar candies, while those of us who weren't rock stars, movie stars, royalty, or politicians had to make do with stealing honey from the bees.

Glamorous Movie Star Sugared Lipstick Buy Some Today!

The Lap of Luxury

After the Crusaders and the Venetians, Marco Polo traveled the "Silk Road" to China in the 13th century.  He reported the importation of refined sugar to Venice, in his written records. He delighted in travel and exploration, so much so that it took him 24 years to complete his journey.  Just think, cars weren't invented yet, so for twenty-four years he traveled by riding horses, camels, and elephants.

Traveling the Silk Road by Camel

One thing lead to the other.  In 1642, Columbus sailed the ocean blue and discovered the Americas, for the second time.

The Vikings discovered it much earlier, but had bad press agents. The word never got out.

Columbus sailing the seas!

Columbus started a small sugar cane farm in the Caribbean's.  Sugar cane grew better there, then anywhere else in the world.

Columbus and his crew had  good public relations officers, so he received the history credit.

And everywhere, on every Continent all the people developed a taste for the sweet stuff.

So did the ruling governing bodies of the time.......the elitist........they developed a taste for the sweet stuff too.......the sugar tax money.

WE LOVE VINTAGE RECIPES!

Favorite Candy Places     Site Map     Policies Section