Sweets

The forms of sweets available in the Middle Ages were very limited. The two basic flavoring ingredients most associated with sweets, chocolate and vanilla, come from New World plants.

Candy

• The "modern" first candy, fruit dipped into melted sugar, was developed in the 1400s.

Honey

• Prior to the establishment of the trade routes with china, honey was the only sweetener in Medieval Europe.

Sugar

• By 600 AD the practice of breaking up the sugar cane and boiling it to produce sugar crystals was widespread in China.
• Six hundred years later, when Marco Polo visited China, he saw flourishing sugar mills.
• The medieval world was quick to recognize the difference sugar made to food, and a flourishing trade built up.

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