Whether they're hanging on Christmas trees or providing enjoyment as a festive treat, candy canes are one of the most recognizable foods of the holiday.
But is there a proper way to eat them?
A recent survey sought to find out the answer.
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More than half the people surveyed – 54% – said the proper way to eat a candy cane is to start with the straight end first.
But 30% of those surveyed said eating from the curved end first is the proper way to consume a candy cane, said the National Confectioners Association (NCA), headquartered in Washington, D.C.
The remaining 16% said breaking a candy cane into pieces is the right way to eat it.
No matter how these cane-shaped peppermint sticks are eaten, the group said it's pleased they're still being enjoyed.
"Candy canes are an iconic part of the season and a delight for anyone receiving them as part of a gift," association spokesperson Christopher Gindlesperger told Fox News Digital.
The origin of the candy cane can be traced to Germany in the 1600s.
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"Legend has it that in 1670, the choirmaster at the Cologne Cathedral in Germany gave his young singers sugar sticks to keep them quiet during the long Living Creche ceremony," according to the NCA's website.
"In honor of the shepherds featured in the story, he bent the candies into small shepherds' crooks."
The German tradition apparently made its way to the United States from a German Swedish immigrant named August Imgard. He celebrated Christmas in Wooster, Ohio, by decorating a small blue spruce with paper ornaments and candy canes in 1847, the website said.
The first known record of a "stick candy" in the U.S., however, was in 1837 at the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Association, where confections were judged competitively.
It was written that the candy was "excellent" and that "one sample of peppermint is of decidedly superior materials to any the committee have seen."
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A few years later in 1844, a recipe for straight peppermint candy sticks with white stripes was published in "The Complete Confectioner, Pastry-Cook and Baker."
The earliest known documentation of a "candy cane" was in the short story "Tom Luther's Stockings," published in Ballou's Monthly Magazine in 1866. There was no mention of the candy cane's color or flavor, though it was described as "mammoth."
Candy canes were originally solid white, but stripes started to appear at the turn of the 20th century.
It's not exactly certain when the red-and-white stripes commonly associated today with candy canes first appeared, but Georgia candy maker Bob McCormack is often credited with creating the barber's pole look.
McCormack founded the Famous Candy Co., which later became Bobs Candies, in Albany, Georgia, in 1919.
He started making candy canes as Christmas treats for his children, friends and area shopkeepers in the 1920s, the NCA said on its website.
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Bobs Candies was the first to package candy canes in cellophane, protecting the Christmastime treat from moisture and making it easier to sell in smaller quantities, according to candy distributor Redstone Foods Inc.
"But pulling, twisting, cutting and bending the candy canes by hand was a laborious process, so in the 1950s, Bob's brother-in-law, Gregory Keller, a Catholic priest, invented a machine to automate candy cane production," the National Confectioners Association said.
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Keller filed a U.S. patent for a "candy cane forming machine" in 1957. It was granted in 1960, patent records show.
As a result, Bobs Candies became the first company to mass-produce candy canes.
"Packaging innovations by the future generations of McCormacks made it possible to transport the delicate canes to communities across the country, and Bob McCormack's candy canes became a nationwide holiday treat," the NCA said.
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Although the McCormacks sold the company to Farley's and Sathers Candy Co. in 2005, Bobs Candies remained the largest manufacturer of striped candy in the world, according to a 2014 Georgia Public Broadcasting report.
The biggest single week for candy cane sales is the second week of December, the NCA said on its website — and National Candy Cane Day is celebrated Dec. 26 every year.
"This is likely because most people decorate their Christmas trees that week," the website said.
