[Sca-cooks] Sugar WAS Spices in England

[Stefan li Rous]

Sharon asked:
<<< Has anyone on the list ever made sugar from sugar cane or sugar  
beets?  How
did it go?  >>>

I've only seen pieces of sugar cane a few times in my life. I suspect  
the total length of what I've seen in the grocery store would only be  
a couple of feet. So where would you find raw sugar cane today? Other  
than perhaps flying to Hawaii?

I did ask this same question here in the past few months, but got no  
replies.

I suspect that getting a useable amount of sugar from sugar beets  
would be much more difficult at home than from starting with sugar cane.

Perhaps this file, which talks about sugar production techniques in  
Cyprus in the Middle Ages might be of interest:
Cypriot-Sugr-art  (54K)  8/ 5/06    “From Cane To Kitchen: An  
Investigation into
                                        Medieval Processed Sugar” by  
Gavan
                                        MacBane. Sugar processing in  
Cyprus.
http://www.florilegium.org/files/FOOD-SWEETS/Cypriot-Sugr-art.html

I do seem to remember that Gavan does describe his experiments at  
recreating some of these processes at home.

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 ****