[Sca-cooks] Sugar Cane

[Huette von Ahrens]

>From my sources, sugar cane is native to New
Guinea and then spread to Asia.  The earliest
known mention of sugar cane comes from a love 
poem in the Indian sacred work, the Atharva-veda,
[written some time between 1500 and 1000 BC]
which used sugar cane as a symbol of sweetness
and attractiveness.  In 327BC, Alexander the 
Great sent sugar cane home from India.  In 510BC,
in Persia, the first mention of solid sugar
describes it as coming from the Indus Valley.
This probably was jaggery.  In the 7th century
AD, the Persians improved the refining process of
sugar, with the introduction of lime [the
mineral], producing an almost white block sugar,
which quickly was exported to Western Europe.

Huette


--- Volker Bach <bachv at paganet.de> wrote:
> 
> On Thu, 8 Apr 2004 19:59:59 -0400, "Carper,
> Rachel" <rachel.carper at hp.com> 
> wrote :
> 
> > Howdy everybody. As I plan Olwen's AoA scroll
> I need a little
> > information. Is sugar cane period? If not did
> they use anything else
> > besides Honey as a sweetner? 
> 
> Sugar cane is period in that its existence was
> known from the beginning of 
> the Middle Ages onwards (it may be mentioned in
> Pliny - there is debate 
> whether he isn't describing another type of
> reed - and was certainly 
> described by a source close to Alexander's
> campaign, most likely Nearchus. 
> Herodotus is usually credited with the firtst
> mention of sugar in European 
> culture. By the 2nd century AD,
> 'saccharum/sakkharon' was a familiar 
> substance to doctors, listed by Galen and
> Discurides.  
> 
> However, in spite ofsome claims to the contrary
> I know of no evidence 
> forsugar cane in the Byzantine territories
> prior to their loss to the 
> Islamic world. Sugar cane was probably grown in
> Persia (Euphrates/Tigris 
> delta) as early as the 6th/7th century AD, and
> made it to Egypt prior to 
> 1000. The Crusaders encountered sugar cane in
> the Levant and Syria, and by 
> the 12th century the Kitab al-Felah from
> al-Andalus lists it as a familiar 
> cash crop. Presumably it would also have been
> found in Sicily. By the 14th 
> century it was becoming a staple cash crop in
> Sicily and the southern 
> Iberian peninsula, the Balearics, and parts of
> the Middle East (North 
> Africa, too, most likely, though I have found
> no mention of it outside 
> Egypt), and by the 15th century had been
> transplanted to the Cape Verde 
> Island and Canaries. The the New World
> encountered it within Columbus' 
> lifetime (Portuguese-style island plantations
> were an early business model 
> for the Conquistadors). 
> 
> However, sugarcane does not grow very far north
> (Spain and central Italy is 
> about the limit), so most medieval Europeans
> (as opposed to most medieval 
> North Africans or Syrians) would not know
> sugarcane, just possibly know 
> about it (and considering how many Brits were
> prepared to believe in the 
> spaghetti harvest in the 60s, I wonderhow many
> would). Sugar processing was 
> usually done on the spot as the cane
> deteriorates rapidly after harvesting. 
> 
> Does that help?
> 
> Giano
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=====
Blessed are they who can laugh at themselves for they 
shall never cease to be amused.

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