Licorice

“I’ll swap you two of my rolls for three of your spogs.” That was the sort of thing you’d hear round the tuckshop in morning break when we schoolboys swapped and bartered our Liquorice Allsorts. We all had our favorites, spogs being the round pink or blue jelly buttons that had a coating of tiny sugar grains, while the pink or yellow coconut rolls featured a plug of licorice surrounded by coconut ice. Pontefract Cakes were another schoolboy favorite: small round discs of licorice that were allegedly one of, if not the oldest commercial sweets in the world. In the 11th century, Benedictine monks introduced licorice to Pontefract, Yorkshire. At