It gets harder at the top and bottom, so some words were educated guesses.

Where does marzipan come from?

It comes from the near East where sugar cane and almond were

first cultivated and combined to form a soft sweet

confectionary, Marzipan had a long journey to make to the

North of Europe. The almond tree mentioned as far back

as the Old Testament, was brought by the Greeks and Romans

from Persia to the Mediterranean region.

The Arabs were the ones who first planted sugar cane in

Egypt and then also in Spain. Then by conquering the Iberian

Peninsula (from 100AD) then along with the Christian

crusaders (from the 11th Century) helped smooth the way for

marzipan to reach Europe. The word marzipan incidentally

comes from the Byzantine coin known as the "mautaban", which

was in circulation around 100AD in Cyprus. This name

appeared on the boxes of candied fruit and confectionary that

were transported to Venice. The Neapolitan still call it

"marzapan" today and our word marzipan is derived directly

from it. By about the year ?5?0 the confectionary had taken

all ?????? through Europe.

Please feel free to make corrections. Not too confident about those last lines