Summer brings to mind old time treats to enjoy while taking a summer break. Some of the oldest American candies are hard candy flavored sticks and jelly filled hard candies. The filled strawberry, the primrose red raspberry filled candy, and even others like filled root beer barrels are the most recognized of these American standard old time candies. The origin of these candies come from the flavored candy stick, which birthed the Christmas Candy cane. And, oddly enough, their homeland is in northwest Switzerland at the Basel Fall Streetfairs.
The Herbstmesse, or Fall Street Fair, of Basel lasts for two weeks in late October into November. This tradition has been going on since 1471 and is spread over seven of the city’s squares and a hall at the trade fair center. Not only filled with rides, fun games, and entertainment, mysterious products, particularly food from foreign lands were and still are one of the big attractions.
One candy product that became a staple for the fair is what Baselers call “Mässmogge”. These colorful candies have a hard shell that hides a hazelnut paste filling consisting of roasted and ground hazelnuts, sugar, and some fat. The shells come in various flavors and colors, such as strawberry, chocolate, lemon, and many others. These were the first filled hard candies and are grandfather to our old time treats like the filled strawberry candy. Today, mässmogge make up for one-fifth of all the candy production in Switzerland. Other names and spellings for this candy include mässmögge, mässmocke, or messmocken.
According to consistent reports, two French sugar cookers from Lyon and Nancy offered their goods at the Basel Fair in the 1860s. Their elongated, thin stems made of boiled sugar porridge quickly became very popular. Because sugar was cheaper in France than in Switzerland at the time, the business paid off for the two sugar cookers. In addition to sugar, another ingredient played a central role in the success of the sugar stems of the time: the discovery of artificial food dyes in the second half of the 19th century. These colorful sugar sticks must have inspired the trade fair visitors at that time. The success of the sugar cookers naturally attracted imitators, so that from 1869 several French sugar cookers and confectioners offered sugar stems at the Basel fair. In order to be able to serve customers more quickly, resourceful confectioners came up with the idea of producing shorter and thicker stems. The stem became such a mogge and – as the legend goes – in 1879 a child ran home for the first time with the joyful cry: “Father, Muetter, lueget dä Mässmogge!”
At the turn of the century, the confectioner Leonz Goldinger, also from France, refined the glass moggs of the Basel Fall Fairs by pouring a hazelnut mass into the sugar stems. It was the birth of the stuffed mässmoggen.
It was these flavored, colored sugar sticks, glassmoggi, first shown at the Basel street fairs that would become the Christmas treat the candy cane. In antebellum America, pharmacies and general stores sold these flavored, dyed candy sticks. We added American flavors like horehound and root beer in addition to the popular peppermint flavor.
Who bent the ends to make them ‘canes’ is highly debated. One theory is that in 1670, a Catholic choirmaster in Cologne gave out pure white sugar sticks to the children as a way to soothe them during the long nativity ceremony. That choirmaster asked a local candy maker for each sugar stick to be turned into a hook to resemble the shape of a shepherd’s staff in the Christmas nativity story.
Another theory brings us to Wooster, Ohio. August Imgard was just 19 when he came to America in 1847 from Wetzlar, Hesse, Germany, about 30 miles north of Frankfurt. Living with an older brother named Frederick Imgard in Wooster, Ohio, August decorated a small blue spruce tree with white candy canes that he made from his mother’s recipe. The National Confectioners’ Association today gives Imgard the credit for being the first to crook the canes to hang them on a Christmas tree. We in America, later added the red stripe into the cane. The number, pattern and size of the stripes were the signature of the skill of the specific confectioner.
Our own oldest confectionery company in Cincinnati, Doscher’s was founded in 1871 by German immigrant Claus Doscher. He came from the town of Grossenheim, near Dresden, then in the Kingdom of Hanover. One of their first candy products was the striped candy cane, which they still make today in their Newtown candy factory.
Before hard candy was a treat, it was how pharmacists integrated less-than-tasty ingredients into medicine. Even the most recognized throat lozenge, Ricola has roots directly south of Basel, in the town of Laufen. In 1930 Emil Richterich founded his company of specialty candy, inspired by the massmoggi and other sugar confections seen at the Basel street fairs. He experimented with the healing properties of herbs and came up with the 13 ingredient formula for Ricola, integrated into the signature square hard candy herb drop. In 1948 there were two Richterich confectioners in Laufen and Emil took the first syllable of his name and created the name and brand Ricola.
Although the Germans seem to have brought the candy cane to America, we can thank the Swiss of Basel for bringing us the idea for fruit & flavored gel-filled candies that descend from the French made sugar sticks which became the candy cane.
dannwoellertthefoodetymologist 