Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About The nugget. (Sisters, Or.) 1994-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 21, 2018)
Wednesday, November 21, 2018 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon Journey through Thyme Jodi Schneider Columnist The history of traditional holiday treats ‘Tis the season for holi- day sweets, treats and indul- gences. Seasonal goodies are everywhere, they have found their way on to grocery store shelves, taken center stage in bakery display cases, and are filling our homes with heav- enly aromas. How did some of these tra- ditional festive flavored holi- day treats come to be? Here are the origins behind a few of our favorite holiday foods that have been around for decades — even centuries! Candy canes seem to be everywhere during the holiday season, appearing in holiday home décor to the flavoring in your morning mocha to the crunchy crumbles on pep- permint bark. But where did candy canes come from? The Christmas candy cane originated in Germany about 250 years ago. They started as straight white sugar sticks. One story says that a choir- master, in 1670, was wor- ried about the children sitting quietly all through the long Christmas nativity service. So, he gave them something to eat to keep them quiet. He wanted to remind the children of Christmas, so he made the candies into a “J” shape like a shepherd’s crook, to remind them of the shepherds that vis- ited the baby Jesus at the first Christmas. Sometime around 1900 the red stripes were added, and they were flavored with peppermint or winter- green. Around 1920, Bob McCormack, from Georgia, started making canes for his friends and family. They became more and more pop- ular, and he started his own business called Bob’s Candies. McCormack’s brother-in-law, Gregory Harding Keller, who was a Catholic priest, invented the “Keller Machine” that turned straight candy sticks into curved candy canes auto- matically. In 2005, Bob’s Candies was bought by Farley 25 Favor ite Old-fashion ed Ginger bread 1/2 cup white sugar 1/2 cup butter 1 egg 1 cup molasses 2-1/2 cups all-purpose flour 1-1/2 teaspoons baking soda 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon 1 teaspoon ground ginger 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves 1/2 teaspoon salt 1 cup hot water Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and fl our a nine-inch square pan. In a large bowl, cream together the sugar and butter. Beat in the egg and mix in the molasses. In a bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, and cloves. Blend into the creamed mixture. Stir in the hot water. Pour into the prepared pan. Bake 1 hour in the preheated oven, until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean. Allow to cool in pan before serving. and Sathers, but they still make candy canes. This time of the year, cooks around the country take to their kitchens to bake cookies. Whether you prefer gingerbread men, crispy sugar cookies or crunchy biscotti, chances are you’ll enjoy some fresh-baked Christmas cook- ies this holiday season. Like many Christmas traditions the origin of this delicious custom lies ages ago. Ancient cooks prepared sweet baked goods to mark certain occasions. Many of these recipes and ingredients (cinnamon, ginger, black pep- per, almonds, dried fruits etc.) were introduced to Europe in the Middle Ages. Christmas cookies, as we know them today, trace their roots to these medieval European recipes. Dutch and German settlers introduced cookies, cookie- cutters and festive holiday decorations to America in the 17th century. No treat symbolizes the holidays quite like ginger- bread, from edible houses to candy-studded gingerbread men to spiced loaves of cake- like bread, gingerbread comes in many forms. In medieval England, the term gingerbread simply meant “preserved gin- ger” and wasn’t applied to the desserts we are familiar with until the 15th century. The term is now broadly used to describe any type of sweet treat that combines ginger with honey, sugar or molasses. During the Middle Ages it was favored as a spice for its ability to disguise the taste of preserved meats. Henry VIII is said to have used a ginger concoction in hopes of build- ing a resistance to the plague. Even today we use ginger as an effective remedy for nausea and other stomach See TREATS on page 37
