The First Use For Candy Canes Was To Keep Kids Quiet

Along with gingerbread cookies and eggnog, candy canes are a food synonymous with Christmas. The red-and-white-striped candy can be unwrapped and eaten alone, but it's also often chopped up and used in recipes like peppermint bark and hot chocolate. Although anything made with candy canes is usually considered a Christmas flavor, the truth is that peppermint has been used medicinally for centuries, per The Conversation.

Though candy canes were invented in 1670, it wasn't until much later that candy companies started to make them with peppermint. The first record of this in the United States was in the 1844 cookbook "The Complete Confectioner, Pastry-cook and Baker." Back then, candy canes were also completely white. The signature red and white stripes didn't come along until the 20th century, as evidenced in the Christmas cards printed before then, which feature all-white candy canes. As for the signature shape, these edible Christmas tree ornaments have always resembled a cane, or more accurately, a shepherd's staff. Per Thought Co., the reason for this shape has to do with the fact that candy canes were handed out during nativity church services.

Anticipating that children would get bored during the nativity reenactments, the choirmaster at the Cologne Cathedral of Germany in 1670 decided to provide them with sugar sticks to ensure they stayed quiet, Thought Co. shares. This proved to be an effective way of keeping the children preoccupied during the long Christmas services, but according to History, it caused the church board to complain. Eating candy in a religious setting was considered inappropriate at the time, so in order to appease the board, the choirmaster reshaped the sugar sticks into what reassembled a shepherd's staff. The symbolism was enough to satisfy them, and the practice became a tradition at Cologne Cathedral in Germany.

Soon after, Thought Co. shares, other churches across Europe began doing the same, and in 1847, the candy was brought to the U.S. by German immigrant August Imgard of Wooster, Ohio (per National Geographic). Imgard put up a Christmas tree in his home, and because it was an uncommon practice in the U.S. at the time, curious Americans came to see it. His tree was decorated with candy canes, popularizing the German-born candy and the Christmas tree tradition abroad.