Sweets: A History of Candy

(NYTimes) The 19th-century cooks who came up with the chocolate-caramel recipe used molasses not for its subtlety but for its price. Tim Richardson writes in “Sweets: A History of Candy” that after the Sugar Act of 1760 imposed taxes on imported sugar, Americans were forced to supplement sugar with molasses until about a hundred years ago, when sugar production became cheaper. Molasses is the foundation of rum and birch beer, and during this heyday it came to define such dishes as gingersnaps, shoofly pie, baked beans, Indian pudding and Cracker Jack. Continued

Image: Library of Congress