Stories Collected While Living in France

French la Vie

French Antique Candy Boxes and other sweet things

Fabric-covered-candy-box

Photos of antique candy boxes by Corey Amaro.

A French nineteen century fabric covered candy box.

Candy box

A blue grey paper candy box with gold lettering.

Chocolate covered chestnuts from Ardeche… an antique candy box without any chocolates.

Baptismal-candy-box

A French baptismal candy box. In France Jordan almonds are given by the Godfather.

Antique-Candy-Box

A round candy box with embossed siding, personage scene on top and a ribbon around the edge.
Who needs the chocolates with a box like this? Did I say that?

French-candy-box-1893

An individual antique candy box (Aren't they all individual?) dated 1893.

French-candy-tins

Candy tins from Carpentras, for hard mint flavor, candy drops.

French-candy-box

Baby blue, candy favor boxes. Imagine a wide satin ribbon attached.

Pink-candy-bag

A pink antique candy bag.

Did you know that a seventeen ounce bag of M&Ms cost 9 euro in France.

French vintage candy bags

I prefer these old "bonbons fins" fine candy bags to the newer ones… and I prefer Chocolate Kisses and Big Hunk … is it just me or do those candies have sexy names? Bonbon fins is right!

Romantic-candy-box

Romance in Venice, captured on a candy box lid.

"Darling?"
"Yes Princess?"
"I love the pink curtains and your white socks."
"Thank you My Princess."
"Darling?"
"Yes my Princess?"
"Cut the Princess stuff, and give me a chocolate would you!"

French-bonbon-tins

More of the matchmaking tale in the days to come.

What is your favorite candy?

Comments

40 responses to “French Antique Candy Boxes and other sweet things”

  1. Julie M ~ The Little Red Shop

    Hmmm, I think the correct answer to that is…what ISN’T my favorite candy?
    Sweet boxes!
    : )
    Julie M.

    Reply
  2. Carol

    Ms Matchmaker – cupid’s arrow has flown , and I thought you would enjoy this image…
    http://graphicsfairy.blogspot.com/2008/02/1905-cherub-postcard.html
    chocolates and cupids arrow…irresistable !

    Reply
  3. Irina

    all these boxes are such beauties!
    I love many kinds of chocolate candies but they all are European made. my most favorite are candy balls from Salzburg known as Mozartkugel or Mozart Chocolates. just thinking about it makes my mouth water.

    Reply
  4. Maria

    Oh my, this must be the toughest question you’ve ever asked!However, when I was little we always went to the local amusement park once a summer in Rye, NY and they sold coconut patties the size of a hamburger. I would alawys get one as we were leaving to go home. I love, love coconut!

    Reply
  5. Merisi

    Tummy ache will ensue and more of the matchmaking story will be the only vade mecum. 😉

    Reply
  6. Laura

    chocolate…..any kind, anytime, anywhere.
    LOVE those tins and old graphics!
    xxoo
    :}

    Reply
  7. Jackie

    My favorite candy is a chocolate heart-so thin it shatters when you bite it, filled with soft, gooey caramel. The shop is on the same street as the food market at the Marche d’Aligre, in the 12th. Yum!

    Reply
  8. kelly

    Oh I love sugerbabies…..anything carmel….and waiting for the next chapter of the matchmaker..

    Reply
  9. Kathie B.

    Sees’ dark-chocolate-covered marzipan — mmmm! Can’t you tell I’ll always be a California girl at heart?

    Reply
  10. Chris Wittmann

    Anything with caramel,especially “turtles!” Love the beautiful graphics on the candy tins and papers.

    Reply
  11. Natalie Thiele

    What a diversion tactic! Cory, you are slick! Using chocolate to change the subject from matchmaking is clever, but I am on to you. I’m with Kathie B. give me See’s any day, actually everyday.

    Reply
  12. Jeni

    I’m more of a Pastry Girl, but hey I do love delicious handmade chocolates, and will never pass up good ole reeces cup!
    When I was 5, we lived 16 miles out of town,( 5 miles of it were dirt). We lived on a 760 acre ranch. Every morning I would ride
    along to take the three siblings to a country school. The school had a little store where they sold the baked goods from their bakery. I will never forget when Mom would take me as a treat to get a big squishy cinnamon roll. I can still taste it now, the smell of the store, rich with overwhelming goodness. But then, she would let me pick something for later. I loved the Chick-O-sticks, they are peanut butter and toasted coconut. Thanks for the memory prompt Corey, food is so linked with special memories! I can imagine a sweet story to go along with those beautiful candy boxes!

    Reply
  13. Julienne

    Haigh’s chocolate! It is the only sweet that I hide and absolutely, will not, share with anyone!

    Reply
  14. Rhonda P

    Where do I start? Dark chocolate, coconut and chocolate are my favorite.
    Beautiful candy boxes – you are so blessed to have found these.

    Reply
  15. Everton Terrace

    Luckily for me, my favotie candy is a “Topic” candy bar and can only be found in England (I live in Arizona). It’s better for my hips that we live so far away from each other. I LOVE this little collection. I WANT this little collection. Delightful. Truly. As concerned as I am to get back to yesterday’s story, I’m perplexed as to why M&M’s cost so darn much? Do you like them? Would you like me to send you some?

    Reply
  16. AmyKortuem

    Whatever I may have been thinking was my favorite before I read this, it’s now totally CHOCOLATE! And if there’s a bit of caramel in there, all the better.
    I’ve been loving your matchmaking story. It’s making me wonder if maybe, perhaps, just possibly, I might ready to step into the world of romance again after this year of healing?
    Now, where I can I find a matchmaker…

    Reply
  17. cynthia Wolff @Beatenheart

    I don’t like American candy except for See’s. All the others taste weird…I think they changed the recipes. It all tastes waxy and cheap.. I like English candy a little too much…I’m sinful when i go over there. Never had French candy…Afraid!…Catching up on your
    stories. I love the mimi story….lucky lady…another Yank caught up
    in a Frenchman arms.

    Reply
  18. Brother Mathew

    Chocolate or licorice. Love licorice.

    Reply
  19. Paula S In New Mexico

    When I was a child my grandmother would let us walk up the street to “Danny’s Market”. They had this big glass covered case full of candy. We’d usually get those candy necklaces…although I never really loved them, I did like the dual use aspect.
    These days I’m hooked on anything from the Chocolatesmith in Santa Fe. OMG. They have this wonderful white chocolate laced with lavendar, dark chocolates with chili in them, and many other wonderful selections. It always reminds me of the movie “Chocolate”……too bad those chocolates don’t come with a dose of Johnny Depp! HA!
    Ok Corey, you got away with this for one day……but no more! Let’s hear more romance!

    Reply
  20. carol

    Homemade divinity with almond flavoring and homemade fudge (old-fashioned kind made with cocoa not marshmallow creme). Pecans in or on top of each, please! My mother would make these every Christmas, along with a bevy of other delectable goodies. I make these every Christmas. Divinity is also my Dad’s favorite.
    Waiting patiently for the next installment of Mimi and Mr. A!!!

    Reply
  21. Shelley@thiswhiteshed.blogspot.com

    Skor bars…hard pressed caramel wrapped in chocolate.

    Reply
  22. ThroughtheMilkhouseDoor

    One pound of candy. Nuts and Chews. Sees.

    Reply
  23. Patt

    Old English Cadburys of course. But now in California I love the little chocolate disc by Guittard. Milk Chocolate one at a time, just before a sip of black coffee. Wish I had some now. Now back to your romance story please.

    Reply
  24. Franca Bollo

    Choop … that better be black licorice or we cannot be friends.
    Fleur de sel caramels, Belgian chocolate. Reese’s Cup.

    Reply
  25. bramble

    I’m easy and childish when it comes to candy. I go back to my picks for the movies…swedish fish and/or Junior Mints!
    But a 3 Musketeers will do it almost everytime as well!

    Reply
  26. Sharon, Morrison Mercantile

    The best toffee around is Engstrom’s Almond Toffee. They are located in Colorado…and ship anywhere.
    Now, back to the story???
    hugs

    Reply
  27. Karin

    Lovely candy boxes! My favorite candy has always been Bit O’Honey. Mmmmm, good. Tough on the teeth, though. 🙂

    Reply
  28. Julie Ann Evins

    Move over Laduree. I love boxes generally more than their contents. Chocolate is the best, currently with sea salt but i am not particular – just addicted. Back to the romance, I so want it to work for Mr A, and Mimi is one of my favourite names, jx

    Reply
  29. Patrice

    Being from Chicago I have to say either Fannie Mae dark chocolate or Marshall Field’s Frango mints. But I am using Dove dark chocolates to get through menopause and they are sooooo much better than HRT!

    Reply
  30. Julie

    hmmm yumm… Lindt chocolate would probably be the winner for me… but just found out I have insulin resistance and no more sweet things!! too sad… trying hard to be good so i think all these lovely candy boxes would have to suffice!!! A treat for the eyes instead…

    Reply
  31. Debi

    My favorite is Reese’s peanut butter cup – best when frozen! (Oh, and the new ‘dark chocolate’ ones are my absolute FAVORITE!!)

    Reply
  32. Kathie B.

    Patrice, My Farmboy Husband (originally from downstate Illinois) loved Fannie Mae turtles when he was growing up! Even when he’d go back to visit, he’d buy himself a box, or relatives would give him one, as a souvenir. I thought they went out of business, though (or did they just cut way back on their storefronts?).

    Reply
  33. naomi

    One of my favorite candies ever were some little chewy/hard candies that my sister brought back to me from Paris, I think? They were in a little tin box and said “pastillenes” if I remember correctly. They were pale pink, and about the size of a quarter that had been rolled over and squashed out into an oval rather than a circle. They were SO yummy.
    Here in America, I like Bottle Caps!

    Reply
  34. dancing kitchen

    Sweet lady…more of the Mimi story please…I’m living vicariously.

    Reply
  35. Ann

    Sees’ is my fav and they also have pretty tins and boxes. I make great Turtles but my kitchen is a wreck when I finish so once a year at Christmas.
    At MBA school and corp world we are taught to speed read, sort through hundreds of reports and come to a conclusion in lightening speed, multitask as many projects as possible, read e-mails in our sleep, give presentations without notice, and then in the evenings I read a few blogs to wind down but now you are killing me making me wait for the matchmaking story to unfold.
    For Type A’s like myself you should email us the end result. ha-ha

    Reply
  36. Jane Ann

    Would love to say that I have a refined palate, but truth be known, I love any kind of dark creamy chocolate. However, my absolute favorite thing is chocolate cake. YUM!! I also love sweet romantic stories. 🙂

    Reply
  37. Danna

    Hands down the English Toffee they make at Wiseman’s Chocolates in the tiny little town of Hico, Texas. Man-0-man is it fantastic!!!!!!! We always stop there in route to the hill country and buy “enough to get us through the week” but the candy NEVER makes it to our destination!!

    Reply
  38. jend’isère

    Chocolate which approaches 100%. Butterscotch and peppermint are tempting, too. This intermission is better than cinema popcorn anytime.

    Reply
  39. Carolyn

    My favorite candy is generally the last one I ate! The most romantic candy memory is from my first deep love. We were at band camp and it was movie night. He went and bought me a York Peppermint Patty and I was so touched because it was (okay and still is) my favorite and I had not told him…he just knew. I think of him every time I see one of those delicious things.

    Reply
  40. M

    i’m very fond of one candy from holland. years ago a great uncle used to drop either tiny 2-pack chicklets or hopjes down the backs of the shirt collars of any little child he liked.
    blessedly i haven’t made a life out of gum-chewing, but i still love hopjes–if i can find them. tiny tarry black cubes of coffee/choco delish, wrapped precisely in a white label with black and yellow print.
    right after ww2, one of the first european industries to be revived was confectionary–beet sugar was again easy to come by–and there were seeming millions of varieties of hard candies, many filled with jam, and all of different shapes and with lovely individual wrappers, precisely folded by machines. every ethnic neighborhood had an ‘appetizing’
    store which sold smoked fish and dairy and fruit baskets for gifts, and candy, glorious candy.
    was a great time to be a kid, until the dentists got hold of us, and of our parents’ pocketbooks.
    last time i found hopjes, about 15 years ago on the lower east side of new york, i brought them to the one of uncle’s grandchildren with whom i was friendly. he was born after uncle died, and had no idea what i was nattering on about. but, he liked the hopjes anyway…..
    hope you will be able to blog a list of esoteric candies from years gone by. wish i had a label to send you, but you are more likely to discover one in europe, if they exist at all now. for years i kept a couple of stale hopjes in a tiny malachite pin box i bought at the porta portesi market in rome, but all that disappeared in my moving about.

    Reply

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