Editing Confectionery (section)

==History==
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[[File:Chum chums.jpg|thumb|left|Some [[Sweets from the Indian subcontinent|Indian confectionery desserts]] from hundreds of varieties. In certain parts of India, these are called ''mithai'' or sweets. Sugar and desserts have a long history in India: by about 500 BCE, people in India had developed the technology to produce sugar crystals. In the local language, these crystals were called ''khanda'' (खण्ड), which is the source of the word ''candy''.<ref>{{cite book|title=Sugar: A Bitterweet History|publisher=Penguin|year=2010|author=Elizabeth Abbot|isbn=978-1-590-20297-5|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/sugarbittersweet0000abbo}}</ref>]]
Before sugar was readily available in the ancient western world, confectionery was based on [[honey]].<ref>{{cite book |title = Confectionery Products Handbook (Chocolate, Toffees, Chewing Gum & Sugar Free Confectionery)|publisher=Asia Pacific Business Press |date=2013|isbn=9788178331539 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=a989AQAAQBAJ |location=India |author=NPCS |page=1}}</ref> Honey was used in [[Ancient China]], [[Ancient India]], [[Ancient Egypt]], [[Ancient Greece]] and [[Ancient Rome]] to coat fruits and flowers to preserve them or to create sweetmeats.<ref name="History of Food">{{cite book|last=Toussaint-Samat|first=Maguelonne|title=A History of Food|year=2009|publisher=Wiley-Blackwell|location=New Jersey|isbn = 9781444305142}}</ref> Between the 6th and 4th centuries BCE, the [[Persian people|Persians]], followed by the [[Greeks]], made contact with the Indian subcontinent and its "reeds that produce honey without bees". They adopted and then spread sugar and [[sugarcane]] agriculture.<ref name="agrisugar1">{{cite web|title=Agribusiness Handbook: Sugar beet white sugar|publisher=Food and Agriculture Organization, United Nations|year=2009|url=http://www.eastagri.org/publications/pub_docs/4_Sugar_web.pdf|access-date=3 February 2018|archive-date=5 September 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150905234431/http://www.eastagri.org/publications/pub_docs/4_Sugar_web.pdf|url-status=dead}}</ref> Sugarcane is indigenous to tropical [[Indian subcontinent]] and [[Southeast Asia]].<ref>J.A. Hill (1902), The Anglo-American Encyclopedia, Volume 7, page 725</ref><ref>Thomas E. Furia (1973), CRC Handbook of Food Additives, Second Edition, Volume 1, {{ISBN|978-0849305429}}, page 7 (Chapter 1, by Thomas D. Luckey)</ref><ref>Mary Ellen Snodgrass (2004), Encyclopedia of Kitchen History, {{ISBN|978-1579583804}}, Routledge, pages 145–146</ref>

In the early history of sugar usage in Europe, it was initially the apothecary who had the most important role in the production of sugar-based preparations. Medieval European physicians learned the medicinal uses of the material from the Arabs and Byzantine Greeks. One Middle Eastern remedy for rheums and fevers were little, twisted sticks of [[#Types|pulled sugar]] called in Arabic {{Transliteration|ar|al fänäd}} or ''{{Transliteration|ar|al pänäd}}''. These became known in England as alphenics, or more commonly as penidia, penids, pennet or pan sugar. They were the precursors of [[barley sugar]] and modern [[Throat lozenge|cough drops]]. In 1390, the Earl of Derby paid "two shillings for two pounds of penydes.{{Citation needed|date=January 2024}}"

[[File:La-Pone-Jordan-Almonds.jpg|thumb|[[Dragée|Jordan almonds]]. Sugar-coated nuts or spices for non-medicinal purposes marked the beginning of confectionery in late medieval England.]]As the non-medicinal applications of sugar developed, the comfitmaker, or confectioner gradually came into being as a separate trade. In the late medieval period the words confyt, comfect or cumfitt were generic terms for all kinds of sweetmeats made from fruits, roots, or flowers preserved with sugar. By the 16th century, a cumfit was more specifically a seed, nut or small piece of spice enclosed in a round or ovoid mass of sugar. The production of [[comfits]] was a core skill of the [[Confectionery in the English Renaissance|early confectioner]], who was known more commonly in 16th and 17th century England as a comfitmaker. Reflecting their original medicinal purpose, however, comfits were also produced by apothecaries and directions on how to make them appear in dispensatories as well as cookery texts. An early medieval Latin name for an apothecary was {{Lang|la|confectionarius}}, and it was in this sort of sugar work that the activities of the two trades overlapped and that the word "confectionery" originated.<ref name="The Art of Confectionery"/>

In the [[Ottoman cuisine|cuisine of the Late Ottoman Empire]] diverse cosmopolitan cultural influences were reflected in published recipes such as European-style molded jellies flavored with cordials. In Europe, Ottoman confections (especially "lumps of delight" ([[Turkish delight]]) became very fashionable among European and British high society.<ref>{{Cite book| last1=Roufs| first1=Timothy G.| last2=Roufs| first2=Kathleen Smyth| title=Sweet treats around the world: an encyclopedia of food and culture| date=2014 |page=343}}</ref> An important study of Ottoman confectionery called ''[[Conditorei des Orients]]'' was published by the royal confectioner Friedrich Unger in 1838.<ref>{{cite book |title=The Oxford Companion to Sugar and Sweets |date=April 2015 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-931362-4 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XPNgBwAAQBAJ}}</ref>

The first confectionery in [[Manchester, England]] was opened by [[Elizabeth Raffald]] who had worked six years in [[domestic service]] as a housekeeper.<ref>Snodgrass, M. E. ''Encyclopedia of Kitchen History'', Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers (2004)</ref>