[Sca-cooks] Molasses and Columbus

[a5foil]

Bear,

I don't know about molasses on ships, but some histories of sugar mention
that the Muslim sugar manufacturers on Sicily, and later on Cyprus, offered
several grades of sugar, from a well-drained cone sugar to a heavy syrup. I
haven't ever focused on that myself, but I doubt the strong body and depth
of flavor that molasses lends went unnoticed.

Could this have been a golden syrup, rather than what we think of as
molasses, today? Truly a honey of sugar?

Thomas Longshanks

----- Original Message -----
From: Decker, Terry D. <TerryD at Health.State.OK.US>
To: <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
Sent: Monday, July 16, 2001 5:29 PM
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Molasses and Columbus


Remembering some of the problems we have had finding references to molasses
use, I've come across an interesting reference in Columbus' diary.

Begining in folio 12v42 and continuing to 13r1, there is the following
reference (without the proper accents):

"y tambe los madava dar p[ar]a q comiesen quado ve nian en la y miel de
acucar."

This has been translated as, "And I also ordered them given food, in order
that they might eat when they came to the ship, and molasses."

The "miel de acucar" appears to be a variant of "miel de azúcar" or "honey
of sugar."