Fw: Fw: [Sca-cooks] Re: Blown Sugar is Chinese Apparently

[Phlip]

Ene bichizh ogsen baina shuu...

> Phlip, maybe you can post this?

Done ;-)

> Sugar was common in India and south China by the Medieval period--in
> China by Song (11th or 12th century).  It was not really all that
> common in Eliz England.  It was a big elite deal.  It was a
> spice--expensive and usually used in tiny amounts.  Real conspicuous
> consumption was making jam or preserves, an idea they'd gotten
> indirectly from the Moors not much earlier.  Even the Chinese and
> Indians weren't using it in anything like modern amounts, but they
> did have a fair amount of it.  The Arabs brought sugar cane to
> Europe, so Europe was producing some from the middle middle ages (?!)
> on.  But not much.  Sugar took off as a European food only with the
> rise of plantations and slavery, in the 18th century.  See Sid Mintz
> SWEETNESS AND POWER and (more a personal note, because it started as
> a thesis that I was an adivsor on) Sucheta Mazumdar SUGAR AND SOCIETY IN
CHINA.
> best--Gene Anderson


Saint Phlip,
CoD

"When in doubt, heat it up and hit it with a hammer."
 Blacksmith's credo.

 If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it is probably not a
cat.

Never a horse that cain't be rode,
And never a rider who cain't be throwed....