Confectionery in the English Renaissance

Refined sugar is extracted from sugarcane and processed at length to remove impurities.

Confections of the English Renaissance span a wide range of products. All were heavily based on sugar, which was a relatively new development. Many were considered to have medicinal properties – a belief that was influenced by the Arabic use of sugar as a medicine and that carried over from medieval sugar usage.[1][2] In the mid-sixteenth century,[3] sugar became cheaper and more widely available to the general populace due to European colonization of the New World. It began to be used more as a flavouring, preservative, and sweetener, as it is today, rather than as medicine.[2][4]

  1. ^ Mason, Laura (2018). Sweets and candy: a global history. Reaktion Books. ISBN 978-1-78023-967-5. OCLC 1038061439.
  2. ^ a b Albala, Ken (2002). Eating Right in the Renaissance. University of California Press. ISBN 1-59734-587-3. OCLC 1058548870.
  3. ^ von Hoffmann, Viktoria (3 May 2016). "The Taste of the Eye and the Sight of the Tongue: the Relations between Sight and Taste in Early Modern Europe". The Senses and Society. 11 (2): 83–113. doi:10.1080/17458927.2016.1195564. ISSN 1745-8927. S2CID 218838701.
  4. ^ Cite error: The named reference :1 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).