The Sweet Makers At Christmas was, as you might guess, a Christmas special of The Sweet Makers, a programme which I never caught before, but Christmas is a time for lots of sweet stuff, and as we find out in this documentary, that has been the case for centuries. Food historian Dr. Annie Gray and social historian Emma Dabiri take four modern confectioners, Cynthia Stroud, Diana Short, Andy Baxendale and Paul Young, through Georgian, Victorian and 1920s Christmas confectionary traditions, where they had to dress in period costume and use only ingredients and tools from the time to re-create sweet treats.
If you think Christmas starts too early now, for the Georgians it went from the 6th of December all the way to Twelfth Night, which was a big celebration day itself. Twelfth Cakes were popular, and could be made to resemble ornaments from the time.
“Sugar plums” are mainly known today from the poem A Visit From St. Nicholas (possibly better known these days as “Twas The Night Before Christmas”) and from Tchaikovsky’s ‘Dance Of The Sugar Plum Fairy’. But for what they actually were, they weren’t, as I thought, and the confectioners in the programme thought, a plum covered in sugar. Though Dr. Annie Gray said she liked that as an idea, as it would be a sparkling plum. “Plum” in this context was just a generic term for small, dried fruit. So they were a bit like panthers then, as that is more of a generic term for a big cat, but when people think “panther” they tend to think of black panthers. There’s a riddle for you, “Why was a plum like a panther?”.
Anyway, “sugar plums” were in fact sugar almonds, and they date back to at least Tudor times.
Green was a fashionable colour in Georgian times, and that went to the food as well. But there was no food colouring, so they had to use natural ingredients, such as spinach!
The Georgians also had wine chocolate at Christmas, which was port mixed with melted chocolate and sugar. They had a game called Snapdragon, where currants were put in brandy, the brandy was set on fire, and everyone had to pick a currant from the flames!
If you’ve ever wondered where the term Boxing Day comes from, like me and the confectioners you might have thought it was to do with opening boxes of presents, but that’s not the case. The name came from when during the Christmas period poorly paid workers and apprentices asked for charity donation from rich tradesmen, to be put in a money boxes. These boxes were then opened on December 26th, and by “opened” they were literally smashed open into pieces!
The Victorian era is still invoked today as a time of classical Christmas. The Victorians didn’t invent all of the traditions, but they certainly popularised them. These included Christmas stockings, and Santa Claus. Snow as well, as there was often snow during December at this time and that was reflected in Christmas cards. Then of course there is A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, which there have been many different adaptations of.
Christmas trees are probably the most famous of the traditions popularised by the Victorians, they were introduced to Britain from Germany by Prince Albert. The Christmas tree decorations then though were candles, dried oranges and biscuits.
In terms of confectionary, colour dyes and piping bags had been invented, and the price of sugar dropped 50%, which meant that children who had only pennies could buy cheap sweets. This meant there were a lot of mass-produced cheap jelly sweets.
Sugar mice were popular, and you can still get those today. I used to love sugar mice at Christmas as a kid! But some Victorian sweets didn’t last to the present day, such as jelly pigs.
While I realise that when talking about the different fates of sugar mice vs. jelly pigs that Mickey Mouse is probably a better comparison, it reminds me of Peter Pig from the Disney Silly Symphony The Wise Little Hen. That cartoon was also the first appearance of Donald Duck, who went on to be a huge star, but poor Peter Pig is now forgotten.
Talking of forgotten pig based stuff, for richer people in the Victorian era, like Queen Victoria herself, they were served with a stuffed boar’s head for Christmas dinner! That was a tradition going back to medieval times. If you were rich but not royalty, you could have a cake shaped like a boar’s head! I can’t see that being popular today. Us lot in the present day definitely prefer pigs in blankets in our Christmas dinner.
There was charity funding at Christmas in Victorian times too, so that orphanages could have toys, sweets and Christmas trees.
By the 1920s, there were more tools and electricity, and Christmas confectionary was a huge industry. Many modern Christmas chocolates first began in the 1920s and ’30s.
Terry’s Chocolate Orange was invented in the 1930s, but it’s predecessor was in 1926, and it was a chocolate apple! Who said you can’t compare apples to oranges? What we now know as walnut whips began in the 1920s too.
It seems chocolate versions of older Christmas traditions were all the range in the 1920s.
Chocolate coins and chocolate Yule Logs began here as well. I’m not sure why “sugar plums” fell out of favour, or when they did, but it could be that they were replaced by chocolates containing nuts.
Rowntrees and Cadburys launched Christmas selection boxes.
Mackintosh launched Quality Streets in 1936, with a beautifully painted box and chocolates wrapped in colourful paper. Packaging was Lord Mackintosh’s top priority for Quality Streets. Literally, it the first item on top of a list he made!
I liked Cynthia Stroud’s comment that Christmas Day is the one time you can have chocolate at the beginning of the day. Another highlight was Andy Baxendale drumming on chocolate slabs with the toffee hammers, and crushing walnuts with just his hands!
The confectioners tried to make their own chocolate fruit, a chocolate pineapple, but it didn’t come out well. Perhaps a pineapple is a too elaborately shaped as fruit goes? Apples and oranges are smooth and vaguely round, so they’ll be easier to make.
The Sweet Makers At Christmas was sweet, if you excuse the pun. It was a very interesting look at where some of our Christmas traditions come from.
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