[Sca-cooks] Re: Blown Sugar is Chinese Apparently
Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius
adamantius.magister at verizon.net
Thu Oct 27 20:24:19 PDT 2005
On Oct 27, 2005, at 11:05 PM, Stefan li Rous wrote:
> 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.
Well, given the size and remoteness of some of the lands the Mongols
travelled through, what makes you think they weren't, even if someone
had a lot of sugar 1000 or more miles away? From my rather limited
research into things Mongol, I get the impression Temujin probably
preferred a nice glass of mead, himself. But as I say, Asia's a big
place, and without things like railroads, one cannot assume that
commodities readily available on a sub-tropical coastline are
necessarily easy to come by on the steppes.
Adamantius
"S'ils n'ont pas de pain, vous fait-on dire, qu'ils mangent de la
brioche!" / "If there's no bread to be had, one has to say, let them
eat cake!"
-- attributed to an unnamed noblewoman by Jean-Jacques Rousseau,
"Confessions", 1782
"Why don't they get new jobs if they're unhappy -- or go on Prozac?"
-- Susan Sheybani, assistant to Bush campaign spokesman Terry
Holt, 07/29/04
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