Visions of sugarplums

In "The Night Before Christmas," the children who were all snug in their beds had visions of sugarplums dancing in their heads.

But what, exactly is a sugarplum? Apparently, it's either a piece of candy or a real piece of fruit.



(above) An extremely fine example of plums, and a featured photo from wikipedia. Taken or Created by User:Fir0002, used under gnu license.

I personally like to think of sugar plums as candied plums, rather like those lovely sugared cranberries that Paula Dean and Kat Cora made on Iron Chef America for the dessert battle, except with plums.


A more commonly-recognized Christams candy. Public domain image by Kathleen French