The history of candy dates back to the first man. The cave man created the idea of candy by eating honey combs and honey. In 1200 B.C. the first cocoa to be grown was grown by the Olmec Indians. Then the Maya natives used cocoa for money. In Maya tombs from 250 B.C they found artifacts of a chocolate drink.

The Spanish Explorers were the first Europeans to taste cocoa in the 1500's. In 1502 the first chocolate drink tasted by modern man was documented. In 1544 the first trace of cocoa in Europe was found. In 1556 the English were the first to sell cocoa. In the 17th century the first hot cocoa maker was made.

The first Dutch cocoa was made in 1828. In 1844 J.S. Fry and his sons were the first to make hard eating cocoa and in the same year the modern chocolate bar was made. In 1864 the first candy store was established. In 1876 Swiss chocolate was made. The first milk chocolate was made in 1879. In the 20th century The Hersey Kiss was made. In 1913 the chocolate bonbon was made. In 1929 the novelty of chocolate covered cherries were made. In 1926 vitamins were added to candy. Candy sales increased in 1997. In 2002 Hershey Industries became the number one candy maker.

Timeline

• The ancient Greeks chewed mastiche - a chewing gum made from the resin of the mastic tree.
• The ancient Mayans chewed chicle which is the sap from the sapodilla tree.
• North American Indians chewed the sap from spruce trees and passed the habit along to the settlers.
• Early American settlers made a chewing gum from spruce sap and beeswax.
• In 1848, John B. Curtis made and sold the first commercial chewing gum called the State of Maine Pure Spruce Gum.
• In 1850, Curtis started selling flavored paraffin gums becoming more popular than spruce gums.
• On December 28 1869, William Finley Semple became the first person to patent a chewing gum - U.S patent #98,304.
• In 1869, Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna introduced Thomas Adams to chicle.
• In 1871, Thomas Adams patented a machine for the manufacture of gum.
• In 1880, John Colgan invented a way to make chewing gum taste better for a longer period of time while being chewed.
• By 1888, an Adams' chewing gum called Tutti-Frutti became the first chew to be sold in a vending machine.
• The machines were located in a New York City subway station.
• In 1899, Dentyne gum was created by New York druggist Franklin V. Canning.
• In 1906, Frank Fleer invented the first bubble gum called Blibber-Blubber gum. However, the bubble blowing chew was never sold.
• In 1914, Wrigley Doublemint brand was created. William Wrigley, Jr. and Henry Fleer were responsible for adding the popular mint and fruit extracts to a chicle chewing gum.
• In 1928, an employee of the Frank H. Fleer Company, Walter Diemer invented the successful pink colored Double Bubble, bubble gum. The very first bubble gum was invented by Frank Henry Fleer in 1906. He called it Blibber-Blubber. Fleer's recipe was later perfected by Walter Diemer, who called his product Double Bubble.

1^st Century A.D. – Marcus Porcius Cato (234-149 B.C.) was a Roman politican. His treatise on agriculture, De Agricultura or De Re Rustica, is the only work by him that has been preserved. He wrote about farming, wine making, and cooking among other things. This is his recipe for libum, the small sweet cake often given as a temple offering:

Libum to be made as follows: 2 pounds cheese well crushed in a mortar; when it is well crushed, add in 1 pound bread-wheat flour or, if you want it to be lighter, just 1/2 a pound, to be mixed with the cheese. Add one egg and mix all together well. Make a loaf of this, with the leaves under it, and cook slowly in a hot fire under a brick.

Small cheesecakes were served to athletes during the first Olympic games held in 776 B.C. on the Isle of Delos.

230 A.D. - According to John J. Sergreto, author of Cheesecake Madness, The basic recipe and ingredients for the first cheesecake were recorded by Athenaeus, a Greek writer, in about A.D. 230:

Take cheese and pound it till smooth and pasty; put cheese in a brazen sieve; add honey and spring wheat flour. Heat in one mass, cool, and serve.

1000 A.D. -Cheesecake were introduced to Great Britain and Western Europe by the Roman conquering armies. By 1000 A.D., cheesecakes were flourishing throughout Scandinavia, England, and northwestern Europe.

1545 - A cookbook from the mid 16th century that also includes some accounts of domestic life, cookery and feasts in Tudor days, called A Proper newe Booke of Cokerye,  declarynge what maner of   meates be beste in season, for al times in the yere, and how they ought to be dressed, and  serued at the table, bothe for  fleshe dayes, and fyshe dayes, has a recipe for a cheesecake:

New York Cheesecake:

New York cheesecake is the pure, unadulterated cheesecake with no fancy ingredients added either to the cheesecake or placed on top of it. It is made with pure cream cheese, cream, eggs, and sugar. Everybody has a certain image of New York Style Cheesecake. According to New Yorkers, only the great cheesecake makers are located in New York, and the great cheesecake connoisseurs are also in New York. In the 1900s, cheesecakes were very popular in New York. Every restaurant had their version. I believe the name "New York Cheesecake" came from the fact that New Yorkers referred to the cheesecakes made in New York as "New York Cheesecake." New Yorkers say that cheesecake wasn't really cheesecake until it was cheesecake in New York.

1929 - Arnold Reuben, owner of the legendary Turf Restaurant at 49^th and Broadway in New York City, claimed that his family developed the first cream-cheese cake recipe. Other bakeries relied on cottage cheese. According to legend, he was served a cheese pie in a private home, and he fell in love with the dessert. Using his hostess’ recipe and a pie she made with ingredients he provided, he then began to develop his own recipe for the perfect cheesecake. Reuben soon began to serve his new recipe in his Turf Restaurant, and the cheesecake quickly became very popular with the people who frequented Reuben’s Broadway restaurant.

Neufchatel Cheese:

A soft unripened cheese originally from Neufchatel-en-Bray, France:

Cream Cheese:

1872 - American dairymen achieved a technological breakthrough that ushered in the Modern Age of cheesecakes. In attempting to duplicate the popular Neufchatel cheese of France, they hit upon a formula for an un-ripened cheese that was even richer and creamier (they named it cream cheese). William Lawrence of Chester, New York, accidentally developed a method of producing cream cheese while trying to duplicate the French Neufchatel.

1880 - The Kraft foods website states that the Empire Cheese Company of New York began producing PHILADELPHIA BRAND Cream Cheese for a New York distributor called Reynolds. In 1912, James Kraft developed a method to pasteurize cream cheese (Philadelphia cream cheese), and soon other manufacturers of dairy products offered this newer kind of cream cheese.

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