[Sca-cooks] Sugar production

[Stefan li Rous]

Kateryn de Develyn asked:
<<< A couple of questions about sugar:

Has anyone read of how sugar was produced from cane written/described  
by someone (in period) in a letter somewhere? >>>

Check this file in the FOOD-SWEETS section of the Florilegium:
sugar-msg        (112K)  3/25/04    Sugar and other medieval sweeteners.

<<< Has anyone tried to grow or otherwise produce their own sugar  
using period methods to acertain how close the various sugars  
available to us modernly are to period sugars? >>>

This file has a number of folks different comments on modern types of  
sugar and how they think they compare to various period sugars:
sugar-sources-msg (16K)  6/13/01    Modern sugar sources. Sugar types.

<<< Have you seen any paintings or drawings by artists in period  
which might show the production of sugar? >>>

Several months ago I got an excellent paper on period sugar and sugar  
making by Gavan MacBane. The only reason it isn't in the Florilegium  
is that, due to the number of pictures included, it is 220 Mbytes in  
size. Yes, 220 Megabytes in size, in RTF format. This is larger than  
the rest of the Florilegium combined. So I've tabled editing that  
file until I figure out how to handle it. I'm sure he'd be willing to  
let me email it to you since he sent it to me for the Florilegium. Or  
maybe I can figure out if and how I can get it online, although that  
will have to be after Pennsic.

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 ****