Posted
on December 26, 2014
Today
is the day when some might be taking candy canes OFF the tree and
eating them. And some might be eating the candy canes they got in
their stockings.
Legend
tells us that a candy maker in Indiana thought up the candy cane in
1847. He knew that the story of Jesus's birth tells of shepherd and
their flocks of sheep coming to worship the baby Jesus, and he
thought a cane-shaped candy would remind people of the shepherd's
crook. Turned upside down, the candy made a J-for-Jesus shape. The
candy maker decided to use red and white because those colors are
associated with Christmas, but also because they could be thought of
as symbolizing the blood of Jesus and his purity. Last but not least,
the hook shape would allow people to hang the candies on decorations.
But
– did you notice? – I used the word legend for a reason!
There is no evidence for this nameless candy maker in Indiana and no
evidence for red-and-white striped candy canes as early as 1847.
There is another legend about a choirmaster at Cologne, Germany, who
came up with the idea for candy canes way back in 1670. Again, I used
the word legend because there is no evidence to back this story,
either – and there are significant historical problems with the
story, according to Snopes.com (a good resource to check when
you're wondering if something you read in an email or on the internet is true).
It's
really hard to know just who invented what we think of as a candy
cane. A recipe for a peppermint-flavored candy stick with red stripes
appears back in 1844—but it was a straight stick. The best evidence
for cane-shaped candies is that someone decided to take a typical
straight white candy stick and put a bend in it – maybe to
represent a shepherd's crook, or maybe so that it could be hung on a
tree, who knows? – in the second half of the 1800s. (White candy
canes appear on Christmas cards before 1900.) Eventually, someone
else decided to add festive red stripes to the white candy cane.
(Striped canes started to appear on Christmas cards in the early
1900s. Here is an example:)
One
of the early producers of candy canes was Bob McCormack. He had his
workers bending the candy sticks by hand as they came off the
assembly line, before they cooled and hardened. Not only was this
time-consuming and labor-intensive, there was a lot of breakage.
Apparently one out of every five candy sticks broke as a worker tried
to bend it. McCormack's brother-in-law, a Catholic priest named
Gregory Keller, came up with a better way to bend the candy sticks:
he invented and patented a machine that would shape the candy sticks
into canes when they were just the right temperature. That was in
1957.
Actually,
although almost all candy canes produced today are mass-produced by
machine, there are some candy makers that still make candy canes by
hand every Christmas. Of course, they cannot make nearly as many –
so handmade canes are rarer and more expensive!
Candy
canes aren't always striped, and they aren't always red-and-white.
These days many wild colors of candy canes are available.
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