SC - <<<SNIP>>>I make superfine sugar in my blender

[Nanna Rognvaldardottir]

>I have information that sugar was ground in mortar and pestal in >order to
make it usable.  Up until at least 15th century in Western >Europe cooks
also had to use a sort of grater in order to get the >sugar from the
compressed loaves that the sugar came in.  They >didn't so much have sacks
of sugar in most of Europe, from what I >have read, as we now do until
closer to the end of 17th century.  The >grater made it similar to crytal
sugar, and a mortar was used to >make it finer as needed.

As far as I know, here in Iceland at least white sugar was only available in
compressed cones up until mid or late 19th century. I think this was the
case in the Scandinavian countries as well; will look it up later. Lumps
were broken off the cones with special pinchers. These were still in use at
my childhood home - we had regular sugar but we also used lump sugar and the
lumps were too large so we children were assigned the task of cutting each
lump in 2-4 pieces with the pinchers. Quite an effort when you are six,
IIRC.

Nanna

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