[Sca-cooks] CAne vs Beet sugar

[Terry Decker]

Marggraf is the earliest reference to beet sugar of which I know.  His basic
process was refined to a commercial process by Franz Carl Achard.

Both beets and carrots contain sugar and it is extractable at around 2%.
The 6% extraction was naturally occurring from the Silesian White sugar
beet, which was hybridized into the higher yield sugar beets of today.  The
process to extract and clean the sucrose is fairly complex, so I doubt it
was a stove top operation in the Middle Ages as some people suggest.

The process produces a tremendous amount of pulp, commonly used as animal
fodder.  Had beet sugar been produced in Medieval times, I would expect to
see comments on the odor, the volume of the waste products, and the amazing
feat of sugar from beets in contemporary writings.  They aren't there.
Which is my general answer to people touting period beet sugar.

Your source is playing fast and loose with economic history.  The sugar
planters were one of the primary economic forces behind the American
Revolution, but the had little to do with the initial success of beet sugar.
Achard's 1802 plant was a venture supported by Friedrich Wilhelm III of
Prussia, which did not own overseas sugar plantations.  It was a bust
because imported sugar cost less.

What gave the first big kick to beet sugar was the Napoleonic Wars and the
English blockade of the French ports.  In 1810, Benjamin Delessert opened
the first sugar beet plantation in France at Passay.  By 1813, there were
336 sugar beet plantations in France.  In 1814, most of them went bust when
Napoleon was removed to St. Helena and cheap sugar imports resumed.

The beet sugar process was refined to lower costs, so by the 1840s it was
again a viable means of producing sugar.  By 1850, 15% of the world's sugar
was from beets.  It is in this period, that artifically high cane sugar
prices helped support the new industry.

Bear


>According to The Origins of Fruit and Vegetables, Jonathon Roberts, the
>first account on how to extract Beet sugar was published in 1747 by German
>Chemist Andreas Marggraf. One of his students trialled commercial
>production, and by 1775 he had a decently sugared cultivar (6% sucrose) and
>the first sugar-extracting factory was set up in 1802. It was a profitable
>venture because there wa s a cartel of English sugar millionaires keeping
>the cane sugar prices high. Modern sugar-beets are about 18% sucrose
>
>Has anyone got any earlier references? Doesn't look as though the beet
>cultivars before the 18th century would really have supported sugar
>extraction.
>
>Glenda.