Sweets: A History of Temptation - Hardcover

Richardson, Tim

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0593049543 ISBN 13: 9780593049549

Publisher: Bantam Press, 2002

Synopsis

We are all, secretly or openly, obsessed with sweet things. From the very earliest human societies - there is evidence that Neolithic people made sweets - to modern day, there is nothing more likely to get your juices flowing than a sweet. Tim Richardson's research has taken in the whole world and all of history. So we read that the Aztecs mixed chocolate with blood in sweet libations to their gods, Saladin entertained Richard the Lionheart with exotic sherbets and sugared jellies in 1191, Victorian sweet magnates built the towns of Bournville and Hersheyville as special housing for those who make sweets, and in the 21st century we discover that the production of sweets is an extremely high-tech industry shrouded in the kind of secrecy which would make Willy Wonka blush.

About this title

About the Author

Tim Richardson is a sweet-obsessive whose grandfather ran a sweet shop and whose father was a dentist. Formerly editor of New Eden, the upmarket gardening magazine, Tim now travels the world writing articles for Wallpaper* and sampling exotic confectionery.

From the Back Cover

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 drag es, lozenges and pastilles, sherbets and subtleties. Like a box of chocolates, it's something you can just dip into - or scoff all at once.

Edition details

• Publisher: Bantam Press
• Publication date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0593049543
• ISBN 13: 9780593049549
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 432