Many ingredients in our kitchen have passed through the apothecary's jars before reaching the table, and sugar is one example. The official name of sugarcane – Saccharum officinarum or 'pharmacy’s sugar' – betrays its purpose. Sugar is also an excellent preservative, and its properties were exploited to create new compounds based on fruit pulp or peel that were used in traditional medicine.

It is no coincidence that one of the first preparations of candied fruit is described in an 8th century classic of Arab medicine, 'De consolatione medicinarum' written by Mesue the Elder, known in Italy thanks to the Italian translation published in Venice in 1493.