Rigby's Reliable Candy Teacher and Soda and Ice Cream Formulas

Step into a turn-of-the-century American candy shop, where sugar crackles in copper kettles and soda fountains gleam with chrome. W. O. Rigby, a confectioner with two decades of hands-on experience, opens his notebook to share the secrets of a rapidly vanishing trade. This is no mere cookbook, it is a practical manual for building a business from scratch: everything from selecting the right ingredients and training efficient employees to crafting eye-catching window displays that pull customers through the door. Over five hundred recipes span buttery hard candies, silky chocolates, frozen custards, and carbonated sodas, each formula precise enough for a commercial operation yet clear enough for a determined home cook. Reading this book feels like discovering a time capsule from an era when candy was still made by hand and the local soda shop served as a neighborhood gathering place. It captures a moment before industrial production transformed American sweets, preserving techniques and traditions that would soon disappear. For anyone curious about food history, small business ownership, or the craft of turning sugar into magic, Rigby's guide offers both practical instruction and an irresistible glimpse into a sweeter, more laborious past.