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Question:

What sorts of candy and sweets did people eat in the 1830s?

Answer:

If you had been a kid in the 1630s, you would have thought sweets were a very rare treat. Sugar was very scarce and expensive back then. But in the 1830s things were different. Sugar cane was being grown in the West Indies and Louisiana in huge quantities, and it was a lot less expensive. It was sold in all the stores -- in the Asa Knight store at the Village you can see cone-shaped loaves of sugar wrapped in blue paper. As an 1830s kid or adult you would have had many occasions -- in lots of families at least once a week -- to enjoy cakes, pies, pastries, and preserves (jams and jellies). New England families made so many pies at Thanksgiving that there was probably good snacking for weeks afterward. Adults and kids also drank tea with lots of sugar. Molasses and maple sugar were sweeteners used by families that didn't want to pay the price for white sugar.

Candy, or "confectionery,"as it was sometimes called back then, was also an option for a kid with a few cents in his or her hand and a chance to walk into the store. Candy was not made at home, but by "confectioners" in larger places like Boston and Hartford. Storekeepers often had a special confectionery drawer, along with a few glass candy jars on the shelf. Kids -- and grown-ups too -- could buy peppermint drops, "horehound" drops, crystallized ginger, and lemon- and orange-flavored candy in rocks and sticks. Early 19th-century candy cost more, compared to peoples' incomes, than it does today, so it was still a fairly rare treat, but there were plenty of sweets around in the 1830s -- enough to have made a kid from the 1630s jealous.

Was this a good idea? Not entirely. As your dentist has probably told you already, sweet stuff can be dangerous to your teeth -- it promotes tooth decay. As people in the 18th and 19th centuries ate more and more sugar in cakes, pies, puddings, and candy (it kept getting cheaper and almost no one could resist), they had more and more trouble with their teeth. That's one reason professional dentistry got its start in America in the early 19th century. Asa Knight should probably have handed out one of his fancy ivory-handled toothbrushes every time he sold a loaf of sugar or a peppermint!