[Sca-cooks] sugar and rice in Iberia

[Stefan li Rous]

A little over a week ago Johnnae mentioned:

<<< I am reminded that on our recent travels to Hawaii where we saw
sugar cane being harvested on Maui and Kauai (and went to the Sugar
Museum
on Maui) that the early Polynesians brought sugar cane with them to the
islands of Hawaii.
They did not however process the cane into sugar. So while cane grew
freely
and quite well in the tropical climate there, the sugar processing
didn't begin until
the 19th century. Just because one has the plant available doesn't mean
that one processes it into the products we do today.>>>

A good example. But what did they do with the sugar cane? That's a  
long way to bring it if you aren't using it because it is sweet. Were  
they just chewing/squeezing out the sugar syrup and using it that  
way? If you have the syrup doesn't it quickly evaporate giving you  
something like sugar? It seems like that would be almost hard to miss  
creating sugar refining, or at least creating useable sugar crystals,  
even if they aren't very pure.

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 ****