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

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

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

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