I always assumed sugarplums were plum-shaped candies made of marzipan and dusted in sugar. When I asked friends and family for their theories, guesses ranged from holiday jellies to booze-soaked prunes. We had never seen, let alone tasted one. To us, these Christmas confections existed only in Clement Clarke Moore’s poem A Visit From St. Nicholas and Tchiakovsky’s Nutcracker Suite.  Then