The man in our painting is proposing a small stick of sweet rock candy to a lady. Such a sticks were made of cane sugar, a new commodity that appeared in the Low Countries at the end of the 16th century. It replaced honey as a sweetening agent, first in medicine, but also rapidly in culinary use.

These batons of large semi-transparent crystals were grown slowly over a period of days on sticks or strings suspended in a warm sugar solution. They were flavoured with flower essences such as rose or violet. They would be either sucked or crunched.