Month: September 2011
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The Sugar Spirit Project: Enter the Sugar Beet
In studying sugar and sugarcane (go here for the project index) we need to study the sugar beet; sugarcane's competitor. Here we'll look at the sugar beet's early history. Sugar beets were not economically important as a source of sucrose until the mid-1800s. In 1774 a German scientist discovered the sugar from beets was the…
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Solid Liquids: Campari Syrup
In the last post in the Solid Liquids project, I used dehydrated Campari to make a non-alcoholic Campari & Soda. Then it occurred to me that for that purpose there was no need to dehydrate the liqueur completely. I could just burn off the alcohol and have a non-alcoholic syrup. So that's what I did.…
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Sugar in Early American History
In studying sugarcane and sugar, we've looked at its biology, origins, spread to the West, association with forced labor, how it was processed in the olden days, and how the English developed a taste for it. (Go here for the project index.) Now we'll look at sugar in America. Again I have used these resources…
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Solid Liquids: Cane Sugar, Fruit Sugar, and Honey
I hit a snag in the Solid Liquids Project (project index here) as I can get some liqueurs to dehydrate into a powdered sugar, but not others. In the last two posts, I think I've identified a commonality in the liqueurs that did not crystallize: they are probably sweetened with something other than (or possibly…
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Primitive Sugar Production
In studying sugarcane and sugar, we've looked at its biology, origins, spread to the West, and its previous nefarious association with forced labor. (Go here for the project index.) In today's post we'll look at how sugarcane was processed in the olden days to make cyrstallized sugar. Most of this information comes from the sources…