ough, perhaps, a very short one, comparatively!--in that
direction.

More definite, however, is another field for speculation in connection
with vegetable candy. It offers to the housewife, house-daughter, and to
the teacher a new modeling medium. That from a cheap and easily made
base attractive objects may be made--and then eaten--surely is a
recommendation of no slight moment. Miss Hall's discovery has placed
within easy reach of persons of moderate means and skill a medium
through which really beautiful objects can be made in candy. For the
first time, the amateur candy-maker can prove for herself that
candy-making is not only an art, but that it is one of the fine arts.

WARREN DUNHAM FOSTER.

PREFACE

The years of work in candy-making that have made possible this book, I
now look back upon with a certain feeling of satisfaction. The
satisfaction comes from the knowledge that because of the discovery that
is here recorded, the candy of the future will be purer, more wholesome,
more nourishing than that of the past has been. Even if the processes
that are here set forth fail of the widest adoption, I have still the
satisfaction of knowing that just so far as they are adopted will there
be greater healthfulness of confectionery.

Another reason for the satisfaction that I feel is my knowledge that my
discovery has opened to the home candy-maker a whole new world.
Previously many of the better sorts of confectionery--particularly of
the decorative kinds--were out of her range, either because of the cost
of the necessary ingredients or the difficulty of their purchase or
handling; particularly under a heavy disadvantage has been the village
or country cook who has not had the service rendered by the specialty
stores of the great cities. Now, however, with the ever present potato
substituted for marzipan--hard to obtain at more a pound than potatoes
cost a peck!--it is the girl or woman with her own garden who has the
advantage. Moreover, decorative candies that formerly required more
skill than most amateur confectioners possess can now be made by anyone
who can model clay or use a cooky cutter. Mothers who formerly were all
too often required to gratify their children's longing for candies that
told a story--candies modeled or otherwise decorative--by giving them
boughten confectionery that contained plaster of Paris, aniline dyes and
other ingredients equal