This excellent study of the ingenuity of sugar boiling and the manufacture of those intriguing avatars of childhood happiness: the humbug, the gobstopper, the peardrop and the stick of rock is now published in paperback. As well as a history, it is also a recipe book, with twenty tried and tested methods for sweets ancient and modern. The byways of knowledge that are illuminated make this so rewarding. There have been studies of modern-day sweeties and their immediate antecedents, but this goes further back, to the late Middle Ages. As much as a history of sweets, it is also a study of sugar and its place in our early diet.

Laura Mason is also the author of Traditional Foods of Britain (Prospect) and many other studies in food history, published in journals such as Gastronomica and Petits Propos Culinaires.