Sugar-plums and Sherbert

This excellent study of the ingenuity of sugar boiling and the manufacture of those intriguing avatars of childhood happiness: the humbug, the gobstopper, the peardrop and the stick of rock is now published in paperback. As well as a history, it is also a recipe book, with twenty tried and tested methods for sweets ancient and modern. The byways of knowledge that are illuminated make this so rewarding. There have been studies of modern-day sweeties and their immediate antecedents, but this goes further back, to the late Middle Ages. As much as a history of sweets, it is also a study of sugar and its place in our early diet.

Laura Mason is also the author of Traditional Foods of Britain.