Day 19 – The History of Sugar Plums
“My son, eat thou honey, because it is good; and the honeycomb, which is sweet to thy taste:” Proverbs 24:13
Sugar plums are connected to Christmas in different ways.
First, they were a very popular candy or sweet from the 17th to the 19th centuries. They are mentioned in the poem ‘A Visit from St Nicholas’ (‘Twas the Night Before Christmas’) which says, “The children were nestled all snug in their beds; While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads…” There is also The Sugar Plum Fairy in The Nutcracker Ballet.
Although they are called sugar plums, they do not contain any plums!
In the 1500s and 1600s the term ‘plum’ could refer to any kind of dried fruit, like raisins and currants, as well as plums.
The country of France had sweets like sugar plums were known as dragées. In Italy, almond based candies like this were known as Confetti di Sulmona. You can still find these sweets today in France and Italy.
Sugar plums were a kind of ‘comfit’; a kind of sweet candy which was made from a small nut seed and spices which was coated in many layers of sugar and edible gum like gum arabic.
To make them you start with the center item, like an almond, pine nut or aniseed and they are rolled in multiple thin layers of the sugar syrup and gum mixtures. Towards the end of the process colors can be added to the sugar syrup.
In the 1700s, sugar plums were often sold in paper cones. As sugar became cheaper, in the 1800s, sugar plums became a popular sweet which most people could afford. Before this only rich people could afford to buy them.
In the Victorian period some medications were sold as ‘sugar plums’ as the unpleasant medicine was coated in sugar, to help children take them.