784 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



pile of candied figs, and a pile of preserved cherries lies beside him ; 

 while still another is sugar-coating almonds in an oscillating kettle. 

 In the middle of the room are low tables covered with marble slabs, 

 on one of which an operator will perhaps be working out stick candy, 

 and on another you may see long, shallow canals, or rivers, of congeal- 

 ing peanut or molasses candy, contined on the slab by long, solid iron 

 bars. Scattered around are the workmen's simple tools — spatulas, 

 strainers, molds, paste, syringes, and the like. The materials of the 

 candy-maker are equally simple and few, consisting in the main of 

 only three kinds of articles — sugar, flavorings, and colors. The flavors 

 usually employed are the essential oils of various aromatic plants. 

 Mixed with spirits these oils form extracts and essences, the extract 

 being a stronger flavoring than the essence. The extracts of lemon, 

 wintergreen, peppermint, clove, cinnamon, vanilla, and ginger, are used 

 in great quantities. Extract of lemon is best prepared fresh by grat- 

 ing the rinds of lemons either with a grater or with cubical lumps of 

 hard sugar, the operator being careful not to get down to the bitter 

 white portion which underlies the outer yellow skin. As to the vanilla 

 vine, the best Mexican pods will, if macerated in alcohol, give a fresher 

 flavor than that of the bottled extract. The colors employed by repu- 

 table confectioners are nearly all purely vegetable, and are quite harm- 

 less. They are such as cochineal, carniine, saffron, Prussian blue* (a 

 preparation of iron), and the like. For brown, caramel is used, and 

 mixed with carmine it forms orange-yellow. To convince one's self of 

 the harmlessness of these colors, one only needs to know that a bit of 

 red coloring-matter the size of a gum-drop will color five thousand 

 pounds of candy. Cheap candies colored with poisonous mineral stuffs 

 are annually seized by the New York city health oflicers. Many French 

 candies used to be colored not only with such disagreeable earths as 

 umber and sienna, but with red lead, chrome-yellow, and vermilion, 

 all of which are highly poisonous. French confectioners have now, 

 however, not only formed themselves into a national association to 

 protect themselves against unprinci[»led manufacturers, but they them- 

 selves are strictly supervised, being allowed by their government to 

 use only the following harmless colorings : Blues — indigo, Prussian 

 blue, ultramarine ; ?v^/.9— cochineal, carmine, carmine lake ; yellows— 

 saffron. French berries, and turmeric or fustic ; greens— mixtme of 

 above yellows and blues ; prirples—rmxtviVQ of red and blue. Cheap 

 candies are not only often poisonous, but badly adulterated with terra 

 alba, corn-starch, and starch-sugar or glucose. Cheap gum-drops are 

 made from corn-starch, to which ordinary glue is sometimes added ; 

 whereas the best gum-drops are made from gum arable and cane-sugar. 

 Stick-candy made from glucose may be detected by its lack of sweet- 



* f Prussian blue is not a vegetable color, and can not be correctly regarded as "quite 

 hai-mlcss." In Battcrshall's " Food Adulteration and its Detection " it is classed, as a col- 

 oring for confectionery, among pigments of a "very objectionable cliaracter."— Editor.] 



