I candy canes or bwhite and red sticks with a peppermint flavour, they are one of the most famous symbols of Christmas. According to the National Confectioners Association in America they are produced between Thanksgiving and Christmas over 1.7 billionwith peak sales in the second week of December. According to tradition, they were designed by a music master in Germany in 1600, to entertain child choristers during a show. They then arrived in America at the end of the 19th century where, in the first decades of the 20th century, their mass industrial production began which made them famous throughout the world.
The invention of candy canes
In the Renaissance, the techniques of processing blown sugar – which until the Middle Ages was a very luxury good – made it possible to spread sweets and sweets, which quickly caught on especially in the countries of northern and central Europe. However, these sweets did not yet have the typical curved shape of candy cane.
Legend has it that i Christmas sticks were born in Cologne, in Germanyin 1670, where a group of young choristers were practicing in the Cathedral and their music teacher, to keep them quiet, began to turn simple people into themselves candy canes and then donate them to children. His gesture was criticized as uneducational, but he declared himself that the sticks had the shape of the stick of the shepherds who paid homage to the newborn Jesus, which is why they could safely be eaten in church. Thus was born the association with the Christmas holidays.
At the time, candy canes were simply white in color: it seems that the red color was added later by a zealous pastry chef who, finding the sweets too simple, decided to give them a touch of liveliness.
Some hypotheses that want to see a link between the sticks and the Christian tradition connect the “J” shape to the initials of the name “Jesus”, others the red color to the blood of the martyrs shed during the persecutions, but these are unverified hypotheses.
The arrival of candy canes in America and their success
Looks like candy canes have arrived in America In the 1847, where August Imgard, an immigrant to Ohio of German and Swedish descent, first decorated a Christmas tree using paper ornaments, golden nuts containing greeting messages, and candy canes to eat.
Other sources say that the Imgards did not attach sticks to the branches, but sweets made with cane sugar. however it happened, we know with certainty that a few decades later, in the 1920s, candy canes were already very popular in the United States.
The first company to produce them on an industrial scale was Bobs Candiesowned by Bob McCormack. The sticks had a problem: they often broke during bending, probably due to a mechanical system that was too invasive. Their workmanship was perfected thanks to the contribution of McCormack’s brother-in-law, Gregory Keller, who designed a machine that could fold them perfectly. It is therefore possible that the canes were introduced by August Imgard, but that Bobs Candies modified the white candy canes, taking inspiration from other white and red candy already produced by the company itself.
Whether it was Bob Candies who introduced the red color is not certain, what is certain is that it was the American company who chose the typical flavor of peppermint. The majority of sweets, since ancient times, had this aroma, because they were produced by pharmacists as a remedy for sore throats, mixing sugar and bitter herbs together. Mint was then added to the mixture to dilute the unpleasant flavour. So, when Bob McCormack, already an expert in the confectionery industry, found himself choosing the flavor of his sticks, he opted for mint.
