Candy has a lifespan: a beginning, a middle, and an end. Raw ingredients are combined using secret recipes in giant factories or methods passed down for generations in a family kitchen; the resulting candies are packaged and distributed to where they find their final destination; and, of course, the hopefully delicious moment of consumption. It’s pretty easy to learn about the end of a candy’s lifespan - just grab it at the store and eat it. That’s the “research” I’ve been doing for most of the entries in this blog. Recently, I was fortunate enough to spend some time at a small agro-forestry farm (Maya Mountain Research Farm) in southern Belize learning a little bit about some of the earlier stages of candy production… how the ingredients themselves are harvested and prepared long before anything resembles candy. (more…)