a British sweet made in large and colourful sticks. There are two types: ordinary rock, sold at seaside resorts and other places visited by tourists, and Edinburgh rock, which is the original form of the sweet but remains mainly a local speciality of Edinburgh. Ordinary rock is a sweet of the plain pulled candy type, which is always professionally made, since it demands very complex pulling techniques. Each cylindrical stick consists of a coloured outer layer enclosing a white core with lettering made of coloured candy (‘A present from Llandudno’ or something of the kind) which runs the whole length of the stick, so that each letter is actually a long strip whose cross-section is that of the letter, and wherever the rock is broken the exposed ends will show a legible inscription (though one of them will show the letters in reverse. The letters are made in a fairly large size from hot coloured sugar and surrounded by a white matrix and coloured outer layer; then the assembly is drawn out to great length so that it becomes quite narrow. Sometimes the sticks are as long and thick as a child's arm.
Although the history of pulled sugar and pulled candy goes back to the Middle Ages, rock with letters in it is probably a recent invention. The first person who remarked on it was Henry Mayhew in the 1860s, in his study of the work of Londoners, where he noted that a sweet vendor had recently introduced short sentences into sugar sticks. Examples included ‘Do you love me’, ‘Do you love sprats’, and ‘Sir Robert Peel’—the last remembering a then recently dead Prime Minister.
Edinburgh rock comes in much smaller sticks, pastel coloured and with a peculiar chalky consistency. It is made from a conventional sugar syrup in which little attempt is made to inhibit crystallization, so that during pulling a mass of very small crystals is formed. It is left exposed to the air for a day after making, during which it absorbs moisture and becomes quite crumbly. White Edinburgh rock is flavoured with vanilla, lemon, or mint; pink with raspberry or rose water; yellow with orange; and beige with ginger. Although the vast majority of Edinburgh rock is made professionally (still mainly in Edinburgh), it can be made at home.
Alan Davidson was a distinguished author and publisher, and one of the world's best-known writers on fish and fish cookery. In 1975 he retired early from the diplomatic service—after serving in, among other places, Washington, Egypt, Tunisia, and Laos, where he was British Ambassador—to pursue a fruitful second career as a food historian and food writer extraordinaire. Among his popular books are Seafood of South-East Asia, North Atlantic Seafood, and Mediterranean Seafood. In 2003, shortly before his death, he was awarded the Erasmus Prize for his contribution to European culture.
Mason, Laura (1995), ‘Written in Sugar: The Phenomenology of Rock’, PPC 49.
