Welcome to the summary page for FabulousFusionFood's Cook's Guide entry for Sweetmeats along with all the Sweetmeats containing recipes presented on this site, with 29 recipes in total.

This is a continuation of an entire series of pages that will, I hope, allow my visitors to better navigate this site. As well as displaying recipes by name, country and region of origin I am now planning a whole series of pages where recipes can be located by meal type and main ingredient. This page gives a listing of all the Sweetmeats recipes added to this site.

These recipes, all contain Sweetmeats as a major wild food ingredient.

Sweetmeats: Today the term typically refers to sweets (candy), sweet confections, sweetened blends of milk, fruit and nuts (particularly from India and Pakistan), sugared fruit and also meat dishes that have been made sweet.

The origins of these confections are undoubtedly ancient, and probably began as ways of preserving the autumnal harvest of fruit and nuts in honey. Indeed, ancient Egyptians made sticky blends of fruit, nuts and honey coated in sesame seeds to serve at festivals.

Such confections became increasingly popular in Europe during the Middle Ages and they became ways of demonstrating one's wealth (sugar and spiced used to make or preserve sweetmeats were both very expensive). A good example being Marchpane, a stiff paste of almonds, sugar and eggs. Originally this was an expensive decoration, but as sugar became commoner in Elizabethan times it grew evolved into a sweetmeat used for decoration or serving on its own.

Sweetmeats became increasingly popular in the 17th century, as sugar became increasingly available and was much cheaper than before. Essentially any preserved fruit was classed a sweetmeat during this period, with the 'meat' representing the flesh of any preserved fruit.

Indeed, during the 18th and 19th centuries jellies (clear jams) were also considered sweetmeats and spoonfuls of these would often be used to garnish or dress other dishes, particularly chilled desserts.

Now, the term is more likely to be used for things like Turkish Delights, marshmallows and Indian and Pakistani Sweetmeats. They can also refer to Chinese-style preserved fruit, such as Suzhou. Examples of all these (as well as early Sweetmeats such as Marchpane are given in the recipe lists below).