Seasonal use of sweets
Sweets have been around for many years. The sweet industry booms mainly around seasonal holidays such as, Halloween, Valentines Day, Easter and Christmas. Halloween The reason as to why people give candy out on Halloween is because in Ancient Rome people would give out sweets and pastries on a day which they celebrated the dead. Trick or treats came for the medieval practise of souling when the poor classes would walk door to door asking for and receiving food in return for prayers for the dead on all souls. In modern day celebration of Halloween, children go door to door and say trick or treat and their neighbours give them candy mainly because of tradition, however the people who want to be disturbed will have a pumpkin outside there home welcoming children. The candy given represented a peace offering to send away the ghouls without harming any of the living people, and because food was already left out it meant that they wouldn’t, theoretically, come and eat you. Also candy was given out as a kind of bribe to stop the children from tricking which is where the term came from ; trick or treat. Valentines Day Sweets and chocolate are also given out on Valentines Day. Named after Saint Valentine, even though he never married he fell in love with the jailers blind daughter, and through the power of love her eyesight was restored. Before he was publically hung he wrote her a love note and signed it 'From you Valentine'. Chocolate and sweets were given out because in ancient times they were considered a devine, valuable and decadent possession that only the upper class could afford. The first chocolate candies were invented in the 1860's by Cadbury. Cadbury was also the first to market them in a heart-shaped box for Valentines Day during the same decade. As we all know chocolate is an aphrodisiac. However giving out chocolate on Valentines Day has been linked with women falling in love, chocolate contains an endorphone called phenylethylamine which can affect the levels of the brain which are linked with falling in love. Easter A lot of chocolate is produced around the time of Easter. It is one of the most exciting times for the confectionary market, with new ranges and presentations attracting more and more customers every year. The Easter egg gift market reaches all ages of the population making it an accessible product. Shell eggs make up a large portion of the market as they are hollow eggs filled up with chocolate assortments, involving anything from Cadbury roses to Crunchies and milk trays. Creme-filled eggs are the most famous Cadbury Egg. They mimic a chicken egg as inside the crème egg it is filled with white fondant cream and a yellow cream yolk. However over the years people have adapted the original crème egg and have filled it with hazlenut truffle, dairy milk truffle, marble and caramel. Christmas One of the main reasons for having sweets and chocolate around Christmas is because it was once seen as a precious and an expensive commodity. It was because of this that it was typically reserved for holidays like Christmas. http://www.theonlinesweetcompany.com/