[Sca-cooks] Sugar beets

[Micheal]

 So what was other then honey  their sugar base? I was always told it was of 
beets. Now I am confused, another layer of misinformation and conclusion.
 Cealian Of Moray
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Terry Decker" <t.d.decker at worldnet.att.net>
To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
Sent: Saturday, March 19, 2005 6:44 PM
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Sugar beets


> 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
>
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