[Sca-cooks] treacle RE: German Breads
Stefan li Rous
StefanliRous at austin.rr.com
Mon Mar 31 18:17:24 PDT 2008
Otsisto asked:
<< Long shot here - how about the use of fruit pulp instead of
molasses or
honey, say pounded raisens? >>
Yes, in limited uses and geographic areas. It doesn't seem to have
created a strong international trade. When we've discussed this
previously date sugar was one of these, and often you find raisins in
medieval recipes and I suspect that this was a way of adding some
sweetness.
sugar-msg (172K) 3/ 7/08 Sugar and other medieval sweeteners.
carob-msg (4K) 6/13/01 Use of carob in period.
-----Original Message-----
Treacle and molasses come out of the sugarmaking process, so my argument
against their use in period German bread is same. First, sugar is a
easily
transportable, high value good with wide application. Molasses has less
value, has limited application, and costs more to ship with greater
risk of
leakage. >>>
Thank you for the elaboration, Bear. This was about what I was going
to say. Thank you Otsisto for the differentiation between molasses
and treacle. We've discussed both before but I hadn't realized they
weren't the same thing.
I was going to question Bear on his mention of 16th century as far as
export/use of molasses went. I'd have said 17th century. But...
<<< Let me say that this is my analysis and interpetation of the
situation and
that I have no direct evidence of the use or non-use of molasses in the
German States during the 15th and 16th Centuries. >>>
I think both of us are working more on gut-feel on this than having
specific facts to work from. If someone does have more specific
information on the time of commercialization of molasses/treacle, I'd
love to see it. It might be instructive to see at what dates the
triangle of trade developed with molasses/treacle to the American
colonies, where it got turned into rum, and much of that got shipped
to Africa to buy slaves to be transported and sold in the West
Indies, linked with the price (falling) of sugar.
A similar situation existed with Maple syrup. While Maple trees were
tapped beginning in the 17th century, what little wasn't used locally
was shipped out, even to New England towns, as Maple sugar, not Maple
syrup. It wasn't until the middle of the 19th century that any Maple
syrup was being shipped in quantity with improvements in transportation.
Stefan
--------
THLord Stefan li Rous Barony of Bryn Gwlad Kingdom of Ansteorra
Mark S. Harris Austin, Texas
StefanliRous at austin.rr.com
**** See Stefan's Florilegium files at: http://www.florilegium.org ****
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