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

[Stefan li Rous]

Giano mentioned:
> On Oct 27, 2005, at 3:20 AM, Volker Bach wrote:
> > As an aside, economic historians have estabnlished that until the  
> 18th
> > century, per-capita sugar consumption in both China and India was
> > higher than in Europe.

More sugar per-capita than the Elizabethans???  Wow, then there must  
have been a large inequality in England about who got the sugar and  
who didn't. Or the Chinese and Indians must have eaten a huge amount  
of sugar. The published recipes and menus show the Elizabethans  
putting sugar in almost everything.

Adamantius then commented:
>  Well, then there's the sort of anecdotal evidence stating that for
> centuries, cane sugar has been the primary fermentable in India, as
> opposed to the grapes/apples, malt or honey of Europe. As far as I
> can tell, there are probably few instances of cultures whose primary
> booze outlet doesn't center around the most abundant/readily
> available/cheapest sugar source.

I always thought the Mongols must have been rather desperate to use  
milk as their sugar source for their alcohol. But if cane sugar was  
as common as mentioned above, I'd think the Mongols would have used  
sugar, not milk.

Stefan
--------
THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
    Mark S. Harris           Austin, Texas           
StefanliRous at austin.rr.com
**** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****