[Sca-cooks] Sugar beets

[Terry Decker]

Andreas Sigsmund Marggraf.  He first extracted sugar from beets in 1747 
(when Boswell was 7 or 8 years old).

The method used was high proof alcohol extraction (brandy in the original 
experiments) which would probably limit any earlier extraction to some time 
after 1400.  The extraction process is more complicated than that of cane 
sugar and doesn't produce the yield of cane sugar.  Marggraf hoped that his 
process could be used by farmers to produce sugar for their own use, but 
that idea went nowhere, suggesting that the process may have been too 
complicated, cumbersome or costly to join the whiskey still in the shed out 
back.

While I've seen the claims for beet sugar been known before Marggraf, they 
are always made as a throw in without supporting evidence or citations to 
primary sources.  The references smack of citing opinion of authority as 
authoritative fact.

Bear

> I've been reading Boswell's memoirs, and came across a mention of his 
> meeting with a German chemist. The footnote identified the chemist as the 
> first person to extract sugar from beets. The meeting is in the 1760's, so 
> that suggests that beet sugar was unknown prior to the 18th century, which 
> I thought interesting.
>
> Beet sugar is generally associated with Napoleon's response to blockade by 
> Britain, but I had seen it suggested that it was known long before, just 
> uncommon.
> -- 
> David/Cariadoc