For most people, sweets are a favorite treat that can not only please their taste, but also cheer up and add energy. These sweets of various types have been prepared for several centuries, and the name of sweets (the list of which is presented in the article) has changed significantly during this time.
This article will tell you about what types of sweet goodies are produced today by confectionery enterprises, how they differ and how they are called.
When did they appear?
Sweet treats, the forerunners of our favorite sweets, have been loved in different countries since ancient times. So the culinary specialists of Ancient Egypt created sweets from honey, lemon balm, iris, reed and dates, and the ancient Romans from boiled poppy seeds, nuts, honey and sesame. In Russia they loved a treat made from maple syrup, honey and molasses.
Candies, outwardly similar to modern, began to be produced only in the 16th century in Italy. This is due to the fact that industrial production of sugar was established, without which it is impossible to make sweets. Initially, it was believed that this is a fairly powerful drug, and it was sold only in pharmacies. Over time, candied fruits in sugar, it was they who got the name of sweets, ceased to be considered medicines, and became popular sweets.
What it is?
The word "candy" came to the Russian language from Italian, where confetto means "pill, candy." It was originally used by Italian pharmacists to name candied fruit slices - candied fruit sold as medicines. The plural form - “sweets” - appeared a bit later in the 19th century, when Italian carnivals became popular, where participants threw confetti at each other - fake gypsum sweets.
Today, sweets mean sweet confectionery products of various shapes, appearance, taste and structure.
What are they like?
The modern range of sweets is so large that the confectioners have come up with many classifications. We are interested in what types of sweets we can buy in the store, whose names can hardly differ from different manufacturers. The most popular and sought after by Russian buyers:
- Caramel. Consists of molasses and sugar.
- Lollipops. One of the easiest confectionery products to be made by cooking molasses, sugar or corn syrup. The resulting composition is flavored and poured into special forms. The name of the candy list is presented below.
- caramel candies ;
- sweets on a stick;
- paper-wrapped candies;
- soft candy - monpassier;
- licorice or salty sweets;
- elongated or oblong form of candy. The names and photos of such “pencils” and “sticks” are presented below.
- Iris, often called toffee butts. The French confectioner Morna, who worked at the beginning of the 20th century in St. Petersburg, came up with such a name and saw the similarity of such sweets with the petals of an iris flower. They are made from condensed milk, butter and sugar and contain the necessary vitamin B 12 for the normal functioning of the body. “Tuzik”, “Kiss-Kiss”, “Golden Key”, “Dairy Cows” - these are all the names of sweets in the Soviet era. The list of butterscotch, as you see, was small.
- Chocolate candies.Depending on the filling, the following types are distinguished:
- soufflé, for example, “Bird's milk”, which may also be called “Wondrous Bird”, “Bogorodskaya Bird”, “Zimolyubka” and others;
- roasting, obtained from crushed nuts filled with sugar, fruit or honey syrup. These are such sweets as “Chocolate roasting”, “Roasting fairy tale”, “Strawberry roasting” and others;
- pralines - chocolates filled with grated with sugar and cocoa nuts mixed with cognac or some other flavoring: “Bud”, “Babaevsky”, “Shokonatka”, “Juliet”;
- liquor sweets contain inside a filling of liquor or sugar syrup with cognac: “Cream-liquor”, “Liquor in chocolate”, “Blue velvet”;
- in sweets with jelly filling under a layer of chocolate there is a thick berry or fruit jelly: “Lel”, “Southern Night”, “Lebedushka”, “Bay” and others;
- “Fondant” or sweets with fondant filling obtained from milk, molasses, cream, sugar, fruit fillers and other components: “Mia”, “Rakhat”, “Spanish Night” and others;
- Truffles - elite round-shaped chocolates filled with a special French cream - ganache. It is made from butter, cream, chocolate and various flavors. The outer surface may be covered with crushed or ground nuts, wafer chips or cocoa powder.
Chocolate Stories
Many-loved chocolate sweets appeared thanks to the famous navigator Hernando Cortes, who discovered the American continent. It was he and his associates who brought cocoa beans to Europe and introduced Europeans to chocolate. The monk Benzoni encouraged the Spanish monarch to regularly use chocolates to maintain his health, and his courtiers after him. Subsequently, the fashion for chocolates spread to other countries, where influential people used them as a medicine. Until the 17th century, only confectioners in Spain made chocolate and sweets from it, and sent sweets to many royal courts. Over time, the secret of making chocolate sweets became known to other countries, but until the end of the 17th century they were made only by hand.
How did sweets appear in Russia?
The first chocolate confectionery factory was opened at the end of the 17th century by French confectioner David Shelley. Until the 19th century, Russia did not have its own candy production, and delicacies were brought from abroad, or special cooks were prepared in the kitchens in the homes of rich nobles. The first Russian confectionery factory was opened in St. Petersburg only in the middle of the XIX century.
What was candy called before?
As already mentioned, until the 19th century, sweets were either imported into our country from abroad, or produced at home in estates and palaces of nobles. For home-made sweets, the names were given descriptive, taking into account the form, method of preparation, size, fruits and fruits used. In the book “A New Perfect Russian Confectioner, or Detailed Confectionery Dictionary”, published at the end of the 18th century in St. Petersburg, such funny names for sweets are given as strawberry cakes and green apricots in caramel, jasmine candies and anise sugar snacks, cherry marzipans and apricots in candies.
Industry names
The opening of the first Russian confectionery factory led to the fact that already at the beginning of the 20th century many different varieties of sweets appeared. At first, French recipes and candy names prevailed, the list of which was not very large:
- "Baton de Grail";
- "Finschampagne";
- “Cream de rizien”;
- “Bul de Gom”;
- “Cream de Noisone”;
- Maron Praline and others.
Over time, the French name of chocolates began to be translated into Russian, and on sale appeared, decorated in accordance with Russian grammar, “Creamy Venus”, “Cat's Tongue”, “Girl's Skin”, “Salon”. Nevertheless, in some cases, bilingual names of sweets were used, for example, “Humbled with Pearls, or Coriander Perle”. Russian confectioners new, created by themselves sweets, called in Russian and often used names associated with the images of the fair sex: "Sophie", "Marianne", "Merry Widow", "Fisherwoman", "Marsala". Cognitive series were also produced, for example, The Riddle. On a candy wrapper of such candies the simple riddle was located. Before the revolutionary events of 1917, the chocolate series Sport, Geographic Atlas, Peoples of Siberia and others were produced.
Soviet sweets
Until the October Revolution of 1917, it was possible to buy caramel "Tsar Raspberry" or "Tsar Fedor Mikhailovich." After him, the names of sweets changed dramatically. Caramels “Peasant” and “Krasnoarmeyskaya”, “Sickle and hammer” and “Our industry” appeared on sale.
However, chocolates for the most part retain the French names: “Dernier Cree”, “Miniatures”, “Chartreuse”, “Bergamot”, “Peperment” and others. Such neutral names as “Squirrels”, “Sorvans” and “Bunnies” were not subjected to ideological rethinking. The Soviet names for the new chocolates reflected current events and achievements. So in the 30s of the last century, there were produced: “Fight for technology”, “Be ready”, “Sabantuy”, “Milkmaid”, “Chelyuskintsy”, “Heroes of the Arctic”, “Winner of the ice”.
Man's conquest of outer space in the 60s of the 20th century was reflected in the appearance of “Cosmic” and “Cosmos” sweets.
Around the same time, it became popular to introduce the
names of fairy-tale and literary characters into the names of chocolates: “Snow Maiden”, “La Bayadere”, “Blue Bird”, “Sadko”, “Little Red Riding Hood” and others.