HERB - sugar [Long
Rauthulfr
mwolfe at nwlink.com
Sat Mar 11 09:50:24 PST 2000
Since Iasmin de Cordoba was good enough to post her thoughts and findings
on sugar, here are some snippits from primary sources. Since I've pulled
this out of some A&S documentation I did, I've moved the footnote citations
up, expanded them and stuck them behind square brackets. I've also
replaced the staff "s" with a normal "s" to avoid having the whole thing
sent out as HTML.
YIS
Rauthulfr
The European use of sugar dates back to the Romans as we know from the
writings of Pliny the Elder. Cane sugar was known although it was much
less common than sugar from the Spiny Bamboo, Bambusa arundinacea. The
writings of the period do not make a distinction regarding the source of
the sugar. As Veiling says in his translation of Apicius: Only
occasionally a shipment of sugar would arrive in Rome from India, supposed
to have been Cane Sugar.
[Apicius: Cookery and Dining in Imperial Rome, Edited and Translated by
Joseph Dommers Vehling, Dover Publications, New York, 1977 P. 296
Regarding Saccharon or Tabaschir, Pliny says this:
Arabia also produces tabachir, but that grown in India is more
esteemed. It is a kind of honey that collects in reeds, white like gum,
and brittle to the teeth; the largest pieces are the size of a filbert. It
is employed only as a medicine.
[Pliny, The Elder: Natural History: With an English Translation. Loeb
Classical Library, Harvard University Press, Bk. XII, Chap. XVII
References to sugar continue into the Renaissance. We find the fifteenth
century Tacuinum Sanitatus of Vienna says this about Sugar:
Nature: Warm in the first degree, humid in the second. Optimum: The white,
clear kind. Usefulness: It purifies the body, is good for the chest, the
kidneys and the bladder. Dangers: It causes thirst and moves bilious
humors. Neutralization of the Dangers: With sour
pomegranites. Effects: Produces blood that is not bad. It is good for
all temperaments , at all ages, and in every season and region.
[Tacuinum Sanitatis, The Medieval Health Handbook: Tacuinum Sanitatis,
Translated and Edited by Oscar Ratti and Adele Westbrook, George
Braziller, New York, 1976.
By late Renaissance the Sugar Cane, "Saccharum offinicarum" was well enough
known to make an appearance in Gerards 1598 edition of The Herball. Among
the things which Gerard says of the Sugar Cane itself are these:
The place.
The Sugar Cane groweth in many parts of Europe at this day, as in Spaine,
Portugal, Olbia, and Prouence. It groweth also in Barbarie, generally
almost every where in the Canarie Islands, and in those of Madera, in the
East and West Indes, and many other places. My self did plant some shoots
thereof in my garden, and some in Flanders did the like: but the coldnesse
of our clymate made an end of mine, and I thinke the Flemings will haue
like profit of their labor
¶ The vse
Of the iuyce of this Reed is made the most pleasant and profitable sweet,
called Sugar, whereof is made infinite confections, confectures, syrups,
and such like, as also preseruing and conseruing of sundry fruits, herbes,
and flowers as Roses, Violets, Rosemary flowers, and such like, which still
retain with them the name of Sugar, as Sugar Roset, Sugar violet, &c. The
which to write of would require a peculiar volume, and not pertinent vnto
this historie, for that is not my purpose to make of my booke a
Confectionarie, a Bakers furnace, a Gentlewomans preseruing pan, nor yet an
Apothecaries shop or Dispensatorie; but only to touch to the chiefest
matter that I purposed to handle in the beginning, that is, the nature,
properties, and descriptions of plants. Notwithstanding I think it not
amisse to shew vnto you the ordering of these reeds when they be new
gathered, as I receiued it from the mouth of an Indian seruant: he saith,
They cut them in small pieces, and put them into a trough made of one whole
tree, wherein they put a great stone in the manner of a mill-stone,
whereunto they tie a horse, buffle, or some other beast which draweth it
round: and in which trough they put those pieces of Canes, and so crush and
grind them as we do the barkes of trees for Tanners, or apples for
Cyder. But in some places the vse a great wheele, wherein slaues do tread
and walk as dogs do turning the spit: and some others do feed as it were
the bottome of said wheele, wherein are some sharpe or hard things which do
cut and crush the Canes to powder. And some likewise haue found the
inuention to turne the wheele with water workes, as we do in our iron
mills. The Canes being thus brought into dust or powder, they put them
into great cauldrons with a little water, where they boyle vntill there be
no more sweetness left in the crushed reeds. Then doe they straine them
through mats and such like things, and put the liquor to boyle againe vnto
the consistence of honey, which being cold is like vnto sand both in shew
and handling, but somewhat softer; and so afterward it is carried into all
parts of Europe, where it is by Sugar Bakers artifically purged and refined
to the whiteness as we see.
[Gerard, John: The Herbal, or General History of Plants. The Complete
1633 Edition as revised and Enlarged by Thomas Johnson, Dover Publications
Inc., New York, 1975, P. 38
RauthulfR Meistari inn Orthstori (OL, mCE, P-eX, Et Cetera)
or, non-SCA: Michael Wolfe M. A. I. S. AB-
*Practice Random Acts of Chocolate.....
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