Sugar-Free Lent: Day Twenty-Seven

Sugar-Free Lent: Day Twenty-Seven!

Good old sugar did come a long way. 

Sugar cane in its crystallised form and as a sweet juice seems to have been known for about 2500 years. Its origin seems to be in China, where so many plants come from, and India but this is not known for sure.

Its botanical name is Saccharum officinarum. It belongs to the grass family like rye, spelt, oats, rice, barley and bamboo. And like bamboo it grows long canes out of rhizomes, that is the bit in the ground with the roots on. Unlike bamboo, which has a hollow stem, the stem of sugar cane is filled with a juicy pith and can grow up to 5 meter high. The sugar concentration is highest at the bottom of the cane. When harvested the cane is cut off and the rhizome stays in the ground where it grows a new cane. Sounds all very nice but I have never seen a live sugar cane. And I haven't found a suitable image on the Internet. Apparently the plantations deplete the soil of nutrients and nothing very much will grow after sugar cane has been planted.

At first the crystallised sugar and the juice have been used as a spice and for medicinal purposes by the old Egyptitians and the Phoenicians. That is were the "officinarum" at the end of its name comes from because that means something like medicinal.

So the journey of sugar progressed from a very rare medicine to a luxury good which was as expensive as gold and kept in lockable silver jars, to an every day cupboard staple with an abundance in our everyday diets.

I will not forget to mention that it was produced by slave labour for 3 centuries which cost nearly 20 million people their lives.

And last but not least I will not forget to mention that I obtained all that information out of Frans Vermeulens' wonderful book "Plants, Volume IV".