Sweets: A History Of Temptation - Softcover

Richardson, Tim

Softcover

ISBN 10: 055381446X ISBN 13: 9780553814460

Publisher: Bantam, 2004

Synopsis

It is a truth universally acknowledged that everyone loves sweets. However keen we might be on fine cheese, vintage wine or acorn-fed Iberian ham, much of the time we'd be happier with a Curly-Wurly. But why do we like sweets so much? Why is there such an enormous variety of types, a whole uncharted gastronomy in itself? And where do they all come from?
Many of the sweets we recognize today have a lineage going back hundreds of years. Sugar was first transported around the world with the exotic herbs and spices used by medieval apothecaries. By association, the confectioner's art was at first medical in nature and many sweets (such as aniseed balls, which were a medieval cure for indigestion) were originally consumed for reasons of health.
Other sweets came in-to being in the worlds of ritual and magic. Chocolate, for example, was mixed with chilli and used as a libation by the Aztecs. It subsequently appeared in other rather more palatable drinks around the world, but not in the solid form we now recognize until about 150 years ago. But the special significance of a gift of chocolate remains . . .
Whatever their manifold origins, sweets are still a feature of every human society around the world. Tim Richardson's book tells the extraordinary story of comfits and dragées, lozenges and pastilles, sherbets and subtleties. Like a box of chocolates, it's something you can just dip into - or scoff all at once.

About this title

About the Author

Tim Richardson is the world's first international confectionary historian. He also writes about gardens, landscape and theatre, and contributes to the Daily Telegraph, Country Life, House and Garden and Wallpaper*. He lives in north London.

From the Back Cover

'I like sweets. I like them a lot. And that is why I set about writing this book, the first-ever world history of sweets. I wanted to find out more about my favourite things - and yes, I did want to eat a whole lot of sweets in the process. The world was my gobstopper...'

It is a truth universally acknowledged that everyone loves sweets. What can match the sinful pleasure of extending one's hand into a box of chocolates and withdrawing it to investigate which brightly wrapped gem you have picked? From comfits, drag es and lozenges to pastilles, sherbets and subtleties, from the Saracens and Aztecs to Victorian sweet magnates and the twenty-first century's hi-tech manufacturers, Tim Richardson, the world's first confectionery historian, has written a fascinating and hugely entertaining (not to say mouthwatering) history of mankind's love affair with all things sweet.

Edition details

• Publisher: Bantam
• Publication date: 2004
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 055381446X
• ISBN 13: 9780553814460
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 416