Exchange currency more valuable than gold, the most desired and blasphemed temptation among culinary pleasures, pretext for political and economic wars, but also reason for historical conquests, the delicacy on the table of kings, but also the tasty reward of the common man, sugar has known , in its long and fascinating history, glory and decay, like the empires it built. Annually, around 185 million tons of sugar are produced in the world. This amount, related to the more than seven billion inhabitants of the planet, shows that around 25 kilograms return to each earthling. Beyond the statistics of average values, the reality speaks of countries where sugar consumption exceeds 60 kg per capita. Most of these quantities are found in food products, especially in the dessert sector. From the first "captains" to the sophisticated sweets on the supermarket shelves and in the confectionery windows, sugar has come a long way, over 2000 years.
It all started with sugar cane
Sugarcane is believed to have been first used by man in Polynesia, from where it spread to China and India. At first, people chewed sugarcane in its raw form to extract its sweetness. Two millennia before Christ, the Indians were the first to extract a syrup that, by cooling, forms very sweet crystals, called "sarkara", which means "grains". They were considered a luxury product. The shape of the "sugar cap", a currency used until late for exchange or payments, is due to the Persians. The production process consists in boiling the sugarcane juice and removing the foam until a very consistent syrup is obtained, which, upon cooling, crystallizes. Before it cools, the syrup is poured into a cone made of palm leaves. The conical shape of the "head" was invented to simplify packaging, for transport and marketing.
"Strange" honey made without bees
In 510 BC, during the expeditions of the Persian king Darius, the soldiers were amazed that a plant "gives honey without the help of bees". The "strangeness" came to the attention of the learned Pliny the Elder, who attributed healing powers to it. The miracle was rediscovered by Alexander Macedon's soldiers in 327 BC. The Macedonians were the ones who spread its cultivation in Persia and introduced sugar to the Mediterranean area. The secret of sugarcane was sacredly guarded, and the product was exported with immense profits. A few centuries later, after invading Asia, the Arabs bring sugar cane to Egypt, Palestine, Syria, North Africa, Cyprus, Spain. In Europe, the plant continues to remain an exotic product.
"Indian salt" reaches Europe after 1300
In 95 BC, in a document called "Periplus Maris Erythraei" (or "Guide to the Red Sea"), a merchant whose identity has been lost to time recorded that "...it was customary to export a kind of cane honey , called sugar". This is believed to be the first written mention of sugarcane as a commodity for trade. In Europe, "Indian salt" or "the new spice" as the sugar of the time was also called arrived around 1320, brought by the Crusaders. Being considered a luxury product, it commanded a very high price, although it was delivered in the form of dark brown crystals, full of impurities, the taste and smell altered by long journeys and poor hygiene.
White sugar was sold in pharmacies
In Venice, where some of the first refineries for "Indian salt" were built, sugar was only sold in pharmacies, in extremely small quantities. The "Sakkar" had reached the tables of Western kings. It represented a delicacy and was kept in sugar boxes closed with a key. The first written record of sugar as an inventory item was in England in 1099. Proof that it was an "exclusive ingredient" is that, historical records say, in 1226, King Henry III had difficulty finding three pfundi of sugar for a banquet. Because it was hard to find, it was also very sump. In 1259, writes "The Book of Spices" by Frederic Rosengarten, sugar was available at the price of 16,5 pence a pound.
Refineries in Europe and slaves in South America
Europeans quickly understand that sugar is addictive. It was therefore necessary to process much larger quantities. Around 1400, sugarcane began to be planted in the islands of Madeira, the Canary Islands and St. Thomas, which led to an increase in supply on the European market. Around 1410, there were already 30 sugar refineries in Palermo - Sicily alone. Kolossi Castle, in Cyprus, built around 1454 by Jacques de Milly, became a center of sugar production. There were two sugar refineries at Kouklia and one more at Episkopi. Production was widespread in Cyprus and Sicily, considered to be the best sources of sugar.
"white gold"
Sugar gained enormously in popularity and became equal in value to gold. Moreover, for a while it becomes the "strong currency" of the European economy and politics. Whoever controlled the sugar trade held the power. In the 7 Years' War (1756-1763), France preferred to lose Canada to the English rather than give up its own "sugar" colonies in the Caribbean. At the end of the 1750th century, France was the leader in refining sugar from the Antilles, which it exported to Holland, Germany and Scandinavia. Around 120, more than 30.000 sugar refineries were operating in the British Isles alone, producing around 1781 tons per year. Sugar was still a luxury product and the profits were so high that it was called "white gold". In England, taxes collected on sugar reached a total of 326.000 pounds in 1815, and 3.000.000 pounds were obtained in XNUMX, huge figures for those times, according to www.reteteleluiradu.ro/pe-urmele-zaharului.
Sugar beats honey
In the list of recipes in "Le Menagier de Paris" in 1393, sugar was mentioned 72 times in various forms, while, by comparison, honey was listed only 24 times. During the XNUMXth and XNUMXth centuries in Europe, sugar began to become relatively readily available in countries such as England, France, Spain and Italy, in powder and block form, being used in cooking and medicinally on a large scale wider than honey.
Sugar beet, the alternative that is conquering Europe
While sugar is clearly becoming an economic "powerhouse", research is being done in Europe to find an alternative to sugarcane. The Frenchman Olivier de Serres discovers the potential of sugar beet, and in 1747, the German chemist Sigismund Marggraf notices that precious sweet granules can be produced from beet juice and sets up a laborious extraction process. A student of his, Franz Karl Achard, continues the research. In 1799, he obtained the first 300 kg of crystallized sugar. Also Achard, in 1802, puts into operation, in Silesia, the first sugar beet factory. 30 years later, the first sugar factory also appeared in Romania, in Gârbou, in Sălaj county. By 1880, beets had already replaced cane as the main source of sugar in continental Europe. The annual consumption in those years had reached 120 million tons, followed by an increase at a rate of two million tons annually. Globally, currently, 59% of the world's sugar production comes from cane and 41% from beet.
A love affair and sugar slaves
In August 1492, Christopher Columbus stopped in Gomera, in the Canary Islands, to stock up on water and wine. He intended to stay only four days, but spends more than a month there. The reason? A love affair with the governor of the islands, Beatriz de Bobadilla y Ossorio, also famous for her relationship with King Ferdinand II of Aragon. The noble lady also gives the navigator some sugarcane seedlings, which would become an important industrial plant in the New World. Like tobacco, cotton or coffee crops, sweet cane is linked to the slave trade. Over three quarters of the slaves brought from Africa worked on the sugar cane plantations.
The oldest "sweet" recipes with sugar
There are few written testimonies about the first sweets made with sugar. First of all because, being very expensive at the beginning, sugar was used quite late in culinary preparations, and this first at the royal courts. Secondly, in those days, recipes were passed down orally from masters to apprentices, so there are no written testimonies. The conclusions of historical research are not unanimous: some say that the first sweets prepared with sugar would be biscuits served at the court of Queen Elizabeth I (1533-1603). This dessert was made from four eggs, two tablespoons of rose water, one pound (450 g) of sugar and one pound of flour.
Other testimonies claim that macarons, prepared with sugar, almond flour and egg, were the first sweets known since the 1533th century and prepared in a nunnery in Venice. It is certain that they were brought to France in 1547, by Catherine de Medici, to be served at her wedding with the Duke of Orleans, crowned king of France in 1653. According to other historical documents, the oldest "sweet" recipe with sugar is the Linzer cake, named after the city of Linz in Austria. It is certainly the world's oldest printed recipe for sugary sweets. The recipe dates back to 13 and was discovered by Waltraud Faisner, director of the Upper Austrian Landesmuseum and author of the book "How to make Tort Linzer". Faisner found the recipe, 35 years before it was printed, in Codex 31/200, in the archives of the Admont Monastery. Here are the recorded ingredients: 200 g of crushed walnuts, 400 g of powdered sugar, 300 g of flour, 1 g of butter, walnut pieces, 2 pinch of baking soda, XNUMX eggs and a jar of jam.
Image from the encyclopedic dictionary De L'épicerie et des Industries annexes, by Albert Seigneurie, edited by L'Épicier in 1904, page 431.
The Greeks treated themselves with "sugar water"
The Greek writer Dioscorides names the new product Saccharum, inspired by the Sanskrit term "sharkara" meaning sand. Between the 40s and 90s AD Dioscorides, who was a physician and botanist, indicates that "the solid honey called sugar resembles salt in consistency and in being crisp." Only it tastes sweet. He recommended sugar water to treat or purify the kidneys, stomach, intestines and bladder. Moreover, it appears from historical documents that both the Greeks and the Romans at that time used sugar more for therapeutic purposes.
Where does the word "sugar" come from?
The word sugar originates from the Sanskrit term sukura, from where it became sukhar in Arabic. The name was spread in Europe first by the Spanish, who took it from the Arabs ("azúcar" in Spanish and "açúcar" in Portuguese).
In Italian it became "zucchero" and in Old French "zuchre" and then the current "sucre". England imported the name from French, which it transformed into "baby". The Romanian term is apparently borrowed from the New Greek (zahari).
Sweet coffee, Voltaire's favorite
After the siege of Vienna in 1683, the habit of drinking coffee becomes a fashion in the West. The Viennese learned from the Turks that naturally coffee should be sweet "Coffee should be black as night, hot as hell and sweet as love," said the poet Voltaire, then the guest of Frederick II. In the time of Louis XV, ladies loved sweets, sweet coffee and their morning chocolate, a drink that had become fashionable a few decades after coffee and was absolutely inedible without sugar. In that era, women were not "required" to be thin, and the corpulence due to considerable sugar consumption was in keeping with their outfits of those times. In the XNUMXth century, sugar became the most popular delicacy.
Article made by Redaccia Arta Albă
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