What are Sugar Plums? Unravel the History and Magic - The Dairy Alliance (2024)

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What are Sugar Plums? Unravel the History and Magic - The Dairy Alliance? ›

What are Sugar Plums and Where Do They Come From? Well, they're not sugar-coated plums. Instead, a sugar plum is a piece of hard candy made of hardened sugar coating and a seed, nut, or spice, not a plum or another fruit. In fact, part of the name, "plum," refers to its small size and oval shape, not its taste.

In essence, sugar plums are sugar coated seeds or nuts first made in the 17^th century. They were made by skilled craftsmen who apprenticed for years, absorbing the nuances of a trade that makes Julia Child look like a scullery maid in comparison.

But before it moved into something consumed, it would remain slang. For instance, if you had a “mouth full of sugar plums,” it meant you spoke sweet but deceitful words. If you “stuffed someone's mouth with sugar plums,” it meant you were trying to bribe someone.

The Sugar Plum Fairy is about the hope and faith that there is something in life far greater, more beautiful, and more powerfully good than any earthly human being. We can each aspire to be like her in some way and she will bring us to a higher spiritual place.

The confection's price often reflected this, which meant sugarplums were a luxury item worthy of visions, to be enjoyed on a special occasion. So enticing was the idea of a sugarplum that the term gradually came to describe a great many other enjoyable things outside the confectionery realm.

Sugar plum is a familiar term spoken throughout the Christmas season, but despite its shared name, the descriptor is unrelated to Sugar Plum fruits. Historically, sugar plums referred to an ancient type of sugar candy crafted in Europe as a treat for nobility.

The Sugar Plum Fairy is a coveted role in "The Nutcracker." The connection with the holiday season is clearer, however. “The association with Christmas is likely due to the value and scarcity and expense of sugar in the past, making it a special treat you might only have once a year,” Kimmerle said.

"Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse; the stockings were hung by the chimney with care, in hopes that St. Nicolas soon would be there; the children were nestled all snug in their beds, while visions of sugar plums danced in their heads."

Term of endearment: sweetheart, darling.

They symbolise perseverance and hope, as well as, beauty thriving in adverse circ*mstances. As the Plum tree blossoms between two seasons, it is also seen as a symbol of spring - bringing warmth, transition and the promise of fruitfulness.

What is the spiritual meaning of The Nutcracker? ›

Nutcracker dolls, also known as Christmas nutcrackers, are decorative nutcracker figurines most commonly made to resemble a toy soldier. In German tradition, the dolls are symbols of good luck, frightening away malevolent spirits.

Sugar plums are widely associated with Christmas, through cultural phenomena such as the Sugar Plum Fairy in The Nutcracker (composed by Tchaikovsky, 1892), as well as the line, "The children were nestled all snug in their beds/While visions of sugar plums danced in their heads," from Clement C.

She is capable of flight despite not having wings. She has the power of shape-shifting with seemingly no limits (from shape-shifting into full people to manifesting objects like drums and pedals) and can create miniatures of herself to manage tasks called "plumettes".

The plumb line then is the image — the parable — of God's holy and righteous standard for Israel. It served as a measuring line representing Israel's failure, and how far they had fallen from God's guiding principles.

The first Sugar Plum Fairy was Antonietta Dell'Era. She was a good technician, but Tchaikovsky's brother Modest described her as pudgy and unattractive. Although the Sugar Plum Fairy is the prima ballerina of The Nutcracker, she has very little dancing to do. This was a considered a major defect among early critics.

Maria Tallchief originated the role of the Sugar Plum Fairy in George Balanchine's The Nutcracker®, and is credited with much of the ballet's success.

It comes from the ballet The Nutcracker whose story is set at Christmas and the ballet is traditionally produced around Christmas time. So it is associated with Christmas.

Originally composed by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky in 1892 as part of Act 2 of the ballet 'The Nutcracker', 'Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy' is instantly recognizable, and an absolute holiday season hit.