History Of Candy
All About the History of Candy
Everyone loves candy, but if you ask people, how many of them actually know the history of candy? Probably not very many people could answer this question.
The history of candy goes all the way back to the earliest of men, the cave man. He created the idea of candy in a simply way that could be realized in his time. The first men used to eat honey and honey combs, and they enjoyed the sweetness, since most of their food consisted of grains and meat. The first confectioner's candies were nuts and fruits that were rolled in honey.
In close to the year 1200 B.C., the Olmec Indians grew the first cocoa plants. Facts are not clear about the way they might have come upon the plants, unless a relative of the cocoa plant lived in the wild at the time. The Mayans sometimes used cocoa for money in their exchanges for food and services, and artifacts were found in the tombs of Maya, from about 250 B.C., that are believed to be the remains of a chocolate drink.
Spanish explorers contributed to the history of candy in the 1500's when they reportedly became the first Europeans to taste the chocolate delicacy of cocoa. And modern man documented his first tasting of a chocolate drink, in 1502. The first instance of European cocoa was found in the year 1544. And in 1556, the British were believed to be the first Europeans to sell cocoa to the common people. The first hot cocoa maker was produced in or around the 17th century.
The history of candy was moved forward when sugar began to be manufactured in the middle ages. But at that time, it was so expensive to buy sugar and its products, that only very rich people could afford sugar-based candy. The price it cost people to produce sugar had fallen, in relation to wages and other costs, by the seventeenth century, and hard candy did become popular then. And by the middle of the 1800's, there were already over four hundred factories that produced candy in the United States.
Dutch cocoa was first produced in the year 1828. The first man to make hard candy from cocoa was J.S. Fry, who made it with the help of his sons, in 1844. The first candy store was set up in 1864, and Swiss chocolate was created in 1876. In 1879, the first milk chocolate was produced, which added a milder chocolate taste for those who thought that the hard cocoa was too rich.
The Hershey Kiss was created in the 20th century, and by 1913, the chocolate bonbon was created. Chocolate covered cherries were introduced in 1929, and in 1936, candy makers began to add vitamins to their candy. Candy sales steadily increased, up to and through 1997. In 2002, Hershey Chocolate was the number one candy maker in the world. The history of candy has woven its way into the pages of the history of man, and what a sweet addition candy has been.