History of the Candy Cane

I was thinking the other day about how the candy cane originated, since I have heard different stories. I decided to search around and see what I could come up with. From what I found, the following story seems to be the one mostly accepted as true. The following is taken from about.com:

Birth of the Candy Cane

Around the seventeenth century, European-Christians began to adopt the use of Christmas trees as part of their Christmas celebrations. They made special decorations for their trees from foods like cookies and sugar-stick candy. The first historical reference to the familiar cane shape goes back to 1670, when the choirmaster at the Cologne Cathedral in Germany, bent the sugar-sticks into canes to represent a shepherd's staff. The all-white candy canes were given out to children during the long-winded nativity services.
The clergymen's custom of handing out candy canes during Christmas services spread throughout Europe and later to America. The canes were still white, but sometimes the candy-makers would add sugar-roses to decorate the canes further.
The first historical reference to the candy cane being in America goes back to 1847, when a German immigrant called August Imgard decorated the Christmas tree in his Wooster, Ohio home with candy canes.

The Stripes

About fifty years later the first red-and-white striped candy canes appeared. No one knows who exactly invented the stripes, but Christmas cards prior to the year 1900 showed only all-white candy canes. Christmas cards after 1900 showed illustrations of striped candy canes. Around the same time, candy-makers added peppermint and wintergreen flavors to their candy canes and those flavors then became the traditional favorites.

SO that's the story !
If you are searching for the perfect candy cane and don't mind spending a bit of money on it  you can find some all natural varieties at The Natural Candy Store. I'd love to try them, but $7.99 each times 7 children  - we'd have to win the lottery first! I think we will just stick to the average (read cheap) ones.!