The historians have been trying to figure out the whereabouts and signs of origin for this interesting sweet treat that we call a Lollipop.
Lollipops are made with hard candies and is attached to a stick kind of thing so that it can be licked or bitten. According to history, this kind of candy making was used a lot of times before coming to the modern avatar.
This first appearance of the lollipop comes from few thousand years ago in the archeological findings that confirmed that our ancestors used honey as a preservative to other more easily spoiled food. For easier access to the meal, they stick a piece of wood to the honey, or preserved fruit, nuts or other food and consumed it by licking and biting. As the time went, limited amounts of honey and very low production of sugar almost destroyed this tradition of our ancestors, but all of that changed in the 17th century when sugar became more plentiful. Street vendors all across London quickly found a use for this long discussed candy, and started selling manually made “lolly pop” in large quantities (according to the linguists, lolly meant “tongue” and pop meant “slap”, making a lollipop known as “tongue slap”). One major difference between this old English “lolly pop” and modern versions is that old recipe demanded the candy to be soft, rather than hard candy.
A lot of people seem to believe that the shape of candy cane has a religious meaning. It is believed that the red colored stripes on the candy cane represents the blood of Jesus and white stripes are representatives of the purity of Jesus. The three rather fine stripes are believed to represent the Holy Trinity. While the shape of the letter “j” is considered to represent the name of Jesus. The solid texture symbolizes the rock-solid foundation of a church and the peppermint flavor is believed to stem from the herb called hyssop.
Anyways, the candy cane is now a traditional symbol of the Christmas holiday. Candy canes are available in different shapes, colors and flavors.