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Candy has been such an important aspect of society for so long that people cannot imagine a time without all those delectable little sweet treats. But surely candy hasn’t always existed, right? Who can we thank for coming up with such a terrific idea? Or, depending on your perspective, who should we thank for a devastating idea that has resulted in millions of people with sugar-induced health problems?
First, we have to put a definition to the word “candy.” I think it’s obvious that human ancestors—way back before they could even stand upright—discovered honey, and they ate the stuff like candy. After all, many animals do that today. But scooping up handfuls of honey and slopping the stuff into your mouth while swatting angry bees does not really qualify as eating candy. I think candy needs to be intentionally made from two or more ingredients, including sugar, into a small, portable form that can be carried around and eaten when convenient. Let’s use that as our definition of candy.
It's safe to say that honey was the main ingredient of the first types of candy. Why? Because honey was available long before the concept of sugarcane refinement.
But we cannot know who the first humans were to create portable, compact sweets using honey because it happened so long ago. However, Neolithic and Bronze Age (roughly 12,000 to 3,200 years ago) sites across Europe, the Near East, and Egypt show that people used honey as a sweetener and preservative, and they created honeyed cakes and fruit preserved in honey. So, at some point in time before12,000 years ago—probably long before—people figured out how to mix fruits, berries, and seeds with honey and let small portions of this stuff dry enough to be portable. I would consider a small mass of dehydrated honey with nuts, dates, figs, or raisins embedded in it to be candy, wouldn’t you?
There is also evidence that ancient humans created date “cakes” and fruit jellies by concentrating fruit with honey or boiling down fruit juices, essentially making something portable like modern-day Fruit-Rollups. Again, I would consider this candy.
Eventually, about 3,000 to 2,000 years ago, refined sugar from sugarcane first became prominent in India and Southeast Asia. And, as you know, refined sugar allowed candy production to explode and become a world-wide phenomenon. For better or for worse.
Anyway, we simply cannot know who that first person was to make honey-based, portable candy. I wonder if they could even imagine it would lead to malted milk balls, circus peanuts, cotton candy, lollipops, Nerds, Snickers, and my favorite: Reese's Peanut Butter Cups.
Photo Credit:
Ancient human eating dried honey snack - Midjourney