Candy floss. Hamburgers. Liquorice. Nougat. Pancakes. Waffles. Before your mouth can take a bite into these titbits, you’re nose is already filled with their scents.
Drinking and eating have always been very important at the old fairs. And they still are. At the fair you can enjoy things that are not easy to obtain in everyday life. Or do you know a supermarket where you can buy candyfloss? For centuries, drinking and eating copiously was too expensive for most people. That explains the widely spread tradition of saving money for the fair. Lots of children got fair-money from their grandparents. During the fair people feel rich. They spend more money than they usually would. The typical candy booths have always joined the other attractions on their journey through the country. Beer and wine however are rarities at the fair. That’s because authorities restricted the sale of alcoholic drinks to local bars. Thus they could keep the collecting of taxes in their own hands as well as helping to reduce drunken and disorderly behaviour on the fairground.
Ice-cream man with customers in 1940. The photo was taken at the Bologna Fair on the Square VIII August, 1940.
Pancake-restaurant. It is drawn by Anton Pieck, the artist that was closely involved in the designing of The Efteling amusement park in the Netherlands.
An ‘oliebollenkraam’, a typical phenomenon on Dutch and Belgian fairs. An ‘oliebol’ (or ‘smoutebol’ in Flemish) is a ball-shaped kind of doughnut. The Van Zetten-stand is photographed on the market square in Bergen op Zoom.
The Wurstelprater in Vienna is one of the oldest amusement grounds. It opened in 1766. This en graving shows the Prater at the heyday of the Austrian monarchy, around 1900.
One of the nougat-booths of Sjef Goris.
A Paris Gingerbread Fair in 1906.
The tradition of the Foire au pain d’épice (Gingerbread Fair) dates from 957. At that time, monks of the order of Saint Anthony got the royal permission to sell their gingerbread. Their patron is often depicted in the company of a pig. Therefore the monks baked their gingerbread in pig-shaped moulds. The Gingerbread Fair was held in different places in the French capital. In the 1960 it moved out of Paris to the borders of the Bois de Vincennes. But the gingerbread pigs survived all the moves.
J. H. Kooistra’s sweets stall. His specialties include big round acid drops.