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Towns throughout America have been named for presidents and explorers and rivers and mountains, but how many towns were named for the quality of its cuisine?

It's an honor once bestowed upon the town we know today as Candia. According to prevailing folklore, sometime around 1736, a surveying party was mapping the land within the township of Chester when the men happened upon a hunting party. Having endured a steady diet of bean porridge and bannock - that's hard, unleavened bread made of barley flour - the surveyors eagerly accepted an invitation to share a meal with the hunters.

Author Carl C. Forsaith brought the event to life in "A Pageant of Candia's First 200 years." In his dramatization of events, hunter William Healey carved off a slab of cooked venison, placed it on a piece of bark and handed it to Samuel Emerson, who proclaimed "This is charming fare!"

According to Forsaith, the story was told time and again until "the quality of a leg of venison became the name of the north parish of Old Chester."
Officially speaking, the name lasted until 1763.

That's when Governor Benning Wentworth decided to name the town after a city on the Greek island of Crete - Candia - where he had once been held prisoner during his sea-going days on the Mediterranean.