Candy

   , PRINCE CONDE

   Everyone likes candy. It's hard to believe that a person would not enjoy a piece of chocolate after a meal. Candy is a food that supplies quick energy. Admiral Byrd took about a hundred pounds per man with the exploring party to the South Pole. During World War II, soldiers were given small amounts of candy in their field rations. But how candy came to be an important food among the people of the world is in dispute. The children of Israel ate manna, a wafer with honey, during their forty years of wandering. Ancient Egyptians and Romans ate sweets after large banquets. According to some authorities, a Venetian, in 1470, learned how to refine sugar imported from the Orient. The use of this sugar for making expensive sweets was the beginning of the candy industry. Apothecaries in England coated their pills with this sugar, and, as time went on, their shops became the forerunner of the modern candy store.

   Authors of eponymous stories attribute the founding of the candy industry to another source. Prince Charles Phillipe de Conde, grandnephew of Louis XIII, King of France, during the late 1600s loved sugary treats. His passionate fondness for sweets directed his toddling steps to the royal kitchen for such confections. When the royal chef realized that the Prince was not eating healthful foods and that his health could be damaged, he hit on a brilliant idea of glazing meat, vegetables, and fruit with sugar. The chef's idea worked. The King one day sampled the glazed food, smacked his lips and pronounced it delicious, and ordered that this sweet coating be named for the youngest member of the Conde family. Later, as the public came to eat this glazed food without the filling, just the coatings of the Prince's sweet treats, it adopted the name candy. Despite the many stories concerning the naming of this confection, word sleuths say that the word candy has come from Sanskrit Kharidakah.