About sugar & sweeteners

 History of sugar marketing through 1974

 brown sugar
 confectioners's sugar
 corn syrup
 granulated sugar
 high fructose corn syrup
 honey
 maple syrup
 molasses
 refined sugar
 sorghum
 sugar beets
 sugar cones & loaves
 treacle

ABOUT REFINED SUGAR

"...the Chinese claim to have been the first to make cane sugar, among their many other
inventions. The craft may have been practised from very ancient times in the region of Ku-
ouang-tong (Canton), but it seems more likely and more logical that they learned it from the
Indians. In fact there is a clear statement to that effect in the Natural History of Su-king, of the
seventh century AD...Sugar cane, a giant grass, is native to India and in particular the Ganges
delta...Indian tradition--and tradition often bears out scientific theories--places the origin of sugar
cane a very long way back. According to legend, the ancestors of Buddha came from the land of
sugar, or Gur, a name then given to Bengal. The Sanskrit epic of Ramanyana (c. 1200BC)
describes a banquet with tables laid with sweet things, syrup, canes to chew'...Seven centuries
later, when Darius made his foray in to the valley of the Indus, the Persians in their turn
discovered a reed that gives honey without the aid of bees' and brought it home with
them...Eventually invasions, conquests and trading caravans, most notably those of the
Assyrians, spread sugar cane all through the Middle East, from the Indus to the Black Sea, from
the Sahara to the Persian Gulf...It syrup, considered a spice even rarer and more expensive than
any other, was used in medicine by the Egyptians and Phoenicians even before the Greeks and
Romans; it is this pharmaceutical use that gives sugar cane its species name
"officinarum."...Until modern times...sugar was an expensive medicine to Europeans, or a luxury
reserved for the rich and powerful, a fabulous food brought from beyond the deserts by caravans
than ended their journeys in the ports of the eastern Mediterranean...The Arabs installed the first
industrial' sugar refinery on the island of Candia or Crete--its Arabic name, Quandi, meant
crystalized sugar'--around the year 1000."
---History of Food, Maguelonne Toussaint-Samat,Translated by Anthea Bell [Barnes & Noble
Books:New York] 1992 (p. 549-554)
[NOTE: This book has much more information than can be paraphrased here. Ask your librarian
to help you find a copy.]
"In medieval times the growing of sugar had gradually spread westwards. By the year 1000 it
had reached the Middle East and the coast of east Africa. Around 1500, sugar plantations were
begin in the new colonies, notably in the Canaries and the West Indies. Thus, from the sixteenth
century onwards, we can read first-hand descriptions by Europeans of how to grow the cane and
how to refine the sugar cane...Investment in the planting and manufacture of sugar continued
unchecked until, in the seventeenth century, the world market collapsed. The price of sugar
dropped like a stone. In the West Indies, around 1700, there were far too many sugar plantations
and far foo much sugar being produced...This low price was a good reason to experiment with
sugar confectionery, which had already become complicated, varied, multi-flavoured and much
loved in seventeenth-century Europe. The making of rum was another use for sugar, or rather for
the refuse and by-products of the sugar industry."
---Dangerous Tastes: The Story of Spices, Andrew Dalby [University of California
Press:Berkeley CA] 2000 (p. 28-9)

"...it would not be Columbus of the Spanish but rather the British who would succeed in realizing
this [establishing sugar cane in the New World] goal, and in spectacular fasion. British colonies
established on Barbados in 1627 and on Jamaica in 1655 came to be devoted almost exclusively
to sugar production, with the requisite labor provided by slaves imported from Africa. For
centuries sugar had been made by pressing short lengths of sugarcane stalks through a roller
mechanism until syrup was exuded. The syrup was then evaporated by boiling--one, two, or
several times depending on the degree of refinement desired--and pourd into loaf-shaped vessels
to cool and harden. During the cooling stage, 'the emerging 'raw sugar' [would leave] behind it
molasses, or treacle, which [could not] be crystallized further by conventional methods," but
which could be consumed. Proving to be a great deal cheaper than crystallized sugar, molasses
was in fact consumed in vast quantities...In New England sugar appears in the records from an
early date...In the eighteenth century sugar was regularly advertised in Boston newspapers, and it
was on sale in other communities as diverse as coastal and mercantile Portsmouth, New
Hampshire, and interior and agricultural Deerfield, Massachusetts... Seventeenth-century
immigrants to the colonies "were advised to defer their sugar purchases" until reaching their
destinations, because sugar would be cheaper there than it had been at home."
---America's Founding Food: The Story of New England Cooking, Keith Stavely & Kathleen
Fitzgerald [University of North Carolina Press:Chapel Hill] 2004(p. 214-216)

 Sugar, history & medicinal uses

RECOMMENDED READING
Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History, Sidney W.Mintz
---history of economics and production
Cambridge World History of Food, Kenneth F. Kiple and Kriemhild Conee Ornelas, Volume I,
Chapter II.F.2 "Sugar."
---botany, historical geography, products/byproducts
Medieval Arab Cookery, Maxime Rodinson, A.J. Arberry & Charles Perry
---food & medicinal uses, early candy production, recipes & primary documents

SUGAR CONES & LOAVES

From Medieval times to the 19th century, refined sugar was sold in solid form, often in cones,
blocks or loaves. The standard unit of measure in the United States and United Kingdom (also
used in recipes) was the pound and increments thereof.

"Sugar finally came to the sixteenth- and seventeeth-century consumer in blocks or cones, in
varying degrees of refinement. This accounts for the elaborate directions for clarifying sugar, and
the reiterated instructions to searce (sift) or powder it. (Powdered sugar was only finely sifted
sugar, not confectioners' sugar). Block sugar also accounts for the strewing of scraped sugar that
made for a charming textural and taste contrast that we have all but forgotten.The presence of
sugar in so many of our meat recipes, almost in conjunction with fruits and spices...is part of our
heritage from medieval cooking, which, in turn, had come from the Arabs. It is virtually
impossible to give precise amounts of sugar It is virtually impossible to give precise amounts of
sugar required..."
---Martha Washington's Booke of Cookery and Booke of Sweetmeats, Transcribed by Karen Hess
[Columbia University Press:New York] 1995 (p. 11)

"Large and prosperous households bought their white sugar in tall, conical loaves, from which
pieces were broken off with special iron sugar-cutters. Shaped something like very large heavy
pliers with sharp blades attached to the cutting sides, these cutters had to be strong and tough,
because the loaves were large, about 14 inches in diameter at the base, and 3 feet high [15th
century]...In those days, sugar was used with great care, and one loaf lasted a long time. The
weight would probably have been about 30 lb. Later, the weight of a loaf varied from 5 lb to 35
lb, according to the moulds used by any one refinery. A common size was 14 lb, but the finest
sugar from Madeira came in small loaves of only 3 or 4 lb in weight...Up till late Victorian times
household sugar remained very little changed and sugar loaves were still common and continued
so until well into the twentieth century..."
---English Bread and Yeast Cookery, Elizabeth David [Penguin:Middlesex] 1977 (p. 139)
[NOTE: Mrs. David has much more to say on the subject of sugar than can be paraphrased here.
Ask your librarian to help you find a copy of this book.]

"Conical molded cakes of granualted sugar, wrapped in blue paper & tied, as customary for
maybe centuries in Europe, & in US in 18th - early 19th C. This one is from Belgium, but form
is the same. About 10"H x 4 3/4"diam...The blue paper wrapped around sugar loafs was re-used
to dye small linens a medium indigo blue...Sugar nippers were necessary because sugar came in
hard molded cones, with a heavy string or cord up through the long axis like a wick, but there so
that the sugar should be conveniently hung up, always wrapped in blue paper...Conical sugar
molds of pottery or wood were used by pouring hot sugar syrup into them and cooling them until
solid. They range from about 8' high to 16" high. These molds are very rare, especially those
with some intaglio decoration inside to make a pattern on the cone...Loaf or broken sugar-A bill
of sale form Daniel E. Baily, a grocer of Lynchberg, VA, dated 1839, lists two types of sugar
sold to John G. Merme (?). "Loaf sugar" and "Broken sugar," the latter cost half as much...Loaf
was 20 cents a pound, and broken it was only eleven cents a pound. For cooking, the broken
would have been more convenient by far...Perhaps the fear of adulturation...made people want
the Loaf."
---300 Years of Kitchen Collectibles, Linda Campbell Franklin, 5th edition [Krause
Publications:Wisconsin] 2003 (p. 100-101)
[NOTE: other sources say blue paper was employed because it made the sugar appear
whitest/most pure.]

"Various kinds of sugar were available in the 18th century, with names indicating either the
extent of the processing which they had undergone or the manner of presentation for sale. It
normally came in a loaf', of a conical shape...Some of these terms are self-expalnatory, while
others are readily understood in the light of early methods of refining sugar. There were
succinctly described by the great Swedish naturalist Linnaeus [1741]...Here the coarse and
unrefined raw sugar was pulverized and boiled in water, diluted with lime-water, mixed with ox
blood or egg white, skimmed and poured into inverted cone-shaped moulds, perforated at the tip;
from these a syrup trickled down into a bottle; this was repeated, and then the mould was
covered with a white, dough-like French clay in Sweden, but it has to be imported.' What
Linnaeus witnessed was sugar refining...Lump sugar was just lumps broken off the loaf, whereas
powdered sugar had been grated from the loaf'"
---The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy, Hannah Glasse, facsimile first edition, Introductory
Essays by Jennifer Stead and Priscilla Bain, glossary by Alan Davidson [Prospect Books:Devon]
1995 (p. 200)

"Colonial cooks used many grades and kinds of sweetening, both solid and liquid. Virtually all
were derived from sugarcane...At earliest settlement in America, sugar was used both
medicinally and to season dishes lightly. By the beginning of the nineteenth cnetury, it was
called for in a substantial number of recipes for baked goods, puddings, and pies...To supply this
increasing demand for sugar, the Caribbean islands and the American South became ever more
involved in growing canesugar and refinings its juice for export. A labor-intensive crop and
process, the production of sugar consumed the lives of many African slaves without whose
unpaid work it would not have been so profitable. The primary forms in which sugar was sold
during the Colonial period were white refined sugar in loaves; soft, brown sugar; and molasses.
All sugar was boiled out of the juice extracted from the crushed sugarcane. The juice was cooked
until granules of sugar began to appear in the thick molasses, whereupon it was packed in
barrels. Molasses was allowed to drain out, and the barrels were sent to the refiners or sold as
raw, or muscavado, sugar. Refining was another complicated process, and there were several
refining methods used in the Colonial era."
---Food in Colonial and Federal America, Sandra L. Oliver [Greenwood Press:Westport CT]
2005 (p. 77-8)

"...it would be useful to review the various grades of whole-sale sugar as they were designated in
Pennsylvania during the nineteenth century. The following list is taken from Hope's
Philadelphia Price-Current for October 5, 1807:
Havana white
Havana brown (like Brasilian Demarara)
Muscovado 1st quality
Muscovado 2nd quality
Muscovado ordinary
West India clayed white
West India clayed brown
Calcutta white
Batavia white
Of these, ordinary muscovado was the cheapest, just about half the cost of Havana white, the
most expensive sugar then available and the one most like the white granulated sugar of today.
Cheap, black, sticky moscovado or brown Demarara-type sugars were the most common table
sugars used by the Pennsylvania Dutch. Like molasses, moscovado sugar was always in great
demand, even in the eighteenth century, for it was one of the first sugars to be advertised in the
Philadelphia America Weekly Mercury of 1719. Regardless of grade, sugar was imported in
large cones or loaves...Once the loaves of sugar reached the United States, they were usually
purged or refined again and converted into smaller loaves for retail sale and wrapped in blue
paper to preserve the whiteness. In spite of this precaution, none of the retail loaf sugar was
usable until it was boiled again in water to remove insects and other extraneous material. This
irksome process involved egg whites, charcoal, and constant skimming. The syrup was then
strained thorugh a cloth bag until clear, returned to the fire, and boiled down."
---Sauerkraut Yankees: Pennsylvania Dutch Foods and Foodways, William Woys Weaver, 2nd
edition [Stackpole Books:Mechanicsburg PA] 2002 (p. 152-4)

GRANULATED SUGAR
Our survey of American Historic Newspapers (Readex) reveals the term "granulated sugar" was
used from the 1820s forward. Prior to this time, white sugar was sold in solid cones. The sugar
was scraped off and pounded to achieve the desired textures.

General overview of 19th century manufacturing processes:

"Granulated sugar. This very popular and strictly American style of sugar was first made and
introduced about thirty years ago at the Boston Sugar Refinery. Although extremely popular in
the United States since its origin, it has become popular in England only withn a few years past.
The apparatus at first consisted of a steam table fifteen or twenty feet long and three to five feet
wide, on which the moist sugar was, by an ingenious process or movement of wooden rakes,
gradually worked the length of the table, becoming thoroughly dried in so doing. Afterward it
was separated by sieves of different grades or mesh, into coarse and fine, and barreled and sold
accordingly. This apparatus was superceded ten or twelve years since by a large cylinder of
wood or iron, some four feet in diameter and fifteen to eighteen feet long, slightly depressed at
one end. The inner surface carries small projecting buckets, by which, as the cylinder revolves,
the sugar, entering at the upper end, is lifted and poured through the heated interior. The heat is
supplied by a small steam cylinder running through the length and center of the large one, and
the position of the buckets is such as gradually to work the sugar throught the length of the
cylinder, during which it becomes thoroughly dried. An arrangement of sieves, as before,
completes the operation. The upper one has the coarsest mesh, to retain the largest grains, which
are run directly from it into barrels and branded "extra granulated." The sugar which falls
throught his first sieve drops into the next below, which has a mesh just fine enough to retain the
grains next in size to those before mentioned, which are run into barrels and designated as
"medium granulated." The remaining sugar, too fine to be retained by either sieve, is packed in
barrels under the name of "fine granulated." Powered sugar is mostly manufactured from the
coarsest granulated sugar, after it has been thoroughly cooled. The powdered articles, are mostly
manufactured in smaller establishments as a specialty. Other grades of sugar are obtained from
the liquor or syrup which is thrown out by the centrifugul, in the process of separating the
crystallized sugar from the "mother liquid.""
---The Grocers' Hand-Book and Directory for 1886, Artemas Ward [Philadelphia Grocer
Publishing Co.:Philadelphia PA] 1886 (p. 227-228)

MOLASSES
A popular, economical 17th/18th century substitute for refined white sugar. One of the primary
points of the Triangle Trade (the other two being rum and slaves). Well known by period cooks
in England and America.

"Molasses...as sweetener made from refined sugar, including cane sugar, sugar beets, and even
sweet potatoes. The word is from the Portuguese 'melaco', derived from the Latin 'mel' for honey.
The first use of the word was in Nicholas Lichefield's 1582 translation of Lopez de Castanheda's
First Booke of the Histoire of the Discoverie and Conquest of the East Indias, which described
'Melasus' as a 'certine kind of Sugar made of Palmes of Date trees'. Molasses became the most
common American sweetener in the eighteenth century because it was much cheaper than sugar
and was part of the triangular trade route that brought molasses to New England to be made into
rum, which was then shipped to West Africa to be traded for slaves, who were in turn traded for
molasses in the West Indies...By the end of the [19th] century molasses vied with maple syrup
and sugar as the sweetener of choice, but when sugar prices dropped after World War I, both
molasses and maple fell in popularity, so that today both are used as sweeteners in confections
only when their specific taste is desirable, as in Boston baked beans."
---The Encyclopedia of American Food and Drink, John F. Mariani [Lebhar-Friedman:New
York] 1999 (p. 207-8)

"Molasses first came to America from the Caribbean. The British started sugarcane cultivation in
Barbados in 1646, and by the late 1670s there was a flourishing two-way sea trade between
Barbados and the American colony at Rhode Island. The colonists shiped agricultural and forest
products, such as pork, beef, butter, cider, barrel staves, and shingles, to the West Indies, and the
ships returned with cargoes of cotton wool, rum, molasses, and sugar. The large volume of sugar
and molasses going to Rhode Island could not be used there, so much of this cargo was resold in
Boston. The New England colonists used molasses not only as the primary sweetener in cooking
and baking but also as an ingredient in brewing birch beer and molasses beer and in distilling
rum. In the early 1700s rum made in New England became an essential element in a highly
profitable triangular trade across the Atlantic. The colonists exported rum to West Africa in trade
for slaves; the ships brought the slaves from Africa to the French West Indies, trading them for
more molasses and sugar; these products were then shipped to New England to make more rum.
Because importation of molasses to New England from the French West Indies seriously harmed
British farmers in the Caribbean, the British government passed the Molasses Act in 1733. This
law imposed a duty on "foreign" molasses or syrup imported into the American colonies or
plantations...The Molasses Act of 1733 and the Sugar Act of 1764 caused the price of molasses
to rise, leading to the use of less expensive maple sugar as a sweetener. When the cost of refined
sugar dropped at the end of the nineteenth century...molasses lost its role as an important
sweetener in the American diet."
---Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, Andrew F. Smith editor [Oxford
University Press:New York] 2004, Volume 2 (p. 122-3)
"Molasses, from the Latin word melaceres, meaning honey-like, is a thick dark syrup that is a
byproduct of sugar refining. It results wen sugar is crystallized out of sugar cane or sugar beet
juice. Molasses is sold for both human consumption, to be used in baking, and in the brewing of
ale and distilling of rum, and as an ingredient in animal feed. The pressing of cane to produce
cane juice and then boiling the juice until it crystallized was developed in India as early as
500B.C. However, it was slow to move to the rest of the world. In the Middle Ages, Arab
invaders brought the process to Spain. A century or so later, Christopher Columbus brought
sugar cane to the West Indies."
---How Products Are Made, Jacqueline L. Long, editor, Volume 5 [Gale:Farmington Hills MI]
2000 (p. 316-320)
[NOTE: this book has much more history and an excellent description of how molasses is made.
If you need more details please ask your librarian to help you find this book.]

"When cane sugar began to reach the colonists from the West Indies, it was for a long time far
too expensive for general use. Hence there was instead wide use of its cheaper by-product,
molasses. The abundance of cheap molasses created the profitable New England rum industry."
---Eating in America: A History, Waverly Root & Richard de Rochemont [William Morrow:New
York] 1976 (p. 83)

Recommended reading: Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History/Sidney
W. Mintz

See also: treacle.

TREACLE

"The word treacle originally had nothing whatsoever to do with 'syrup'. Until as late as the
nineteenth century, it was used with reference to antidotes for poison...It comes originally from
the Greek phrase theriake antidotos, literally 'antidote to a wild or venomous animal'. The
adjective theriake came to be used on its own as a noun, and passed via Latin and Old French
(where it acquired its l) into fourteenth-century English. its ingredients varied from apothecary to
apothecary, but usually included, presumable on homoeopathic grounds, a touch of viper's
venom. Bt the sixteenth century, the word was becoming generalized to mean any 'soverign
remedy', and often had rather negative connotations...The modern application of treacle to sugar
syryup (common in British English, relatively rare in American) seems to date from the
seventeenth century, and probably arose literally from the sugaring of the pill: the mixing of
medicines with sugar syrup to make them more palatable. The practice continued well into the
nineteenth century, particularly in the administration of brimstone [sulphur] and treacle to
anyone with the least symptom of anything...In technical usage, treacle now refers to a cane
sugar syrup which has been boiled to remove some of the sucrose (it has less removed than
molasses, which is therefore darker but less sweet). The famous treacle well in Lewis Carroll's
Alice in Wonderland, at the bottom of which, according to the Dormouse, the three little sisters
Elsie, Lacie, and Tillie lived, had its origins in the medicinal sense of treacle. Treacle wells really
existed--they got their name from the supposed curative properties of their water--and there was
apparently one at Binsey near Oxford with which Carroll may have been familiar."
---An A to Z of Food and Drink, John Ayto [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 2002 (p. 349)
"Treacle, a term in Britain may be correctly applied to various sugar syrups including golden
syrup obtained during the process of sugar-refining, ranging in colour from just about black to
pale golden, is in practice used mainly of the darker syrups, brown or black, which are called
molasses elsewhere. Treacle tart is a favourite dessert in England."
---Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 1999 (p. 804)

"When the production of molasses in Britain's refineries outstripped the needs of both
apothecaries and distillers, it was sold off in its natual unmedicated state as a cheap sweetener,
Its name of molasses was taken by the early settlers to America. But in Britain in the later
seventeenth century the alternative term 'common treacle' came into circulation, and thereafter it
was known simply as treacle. One of the first usus to which it was put was the making of
gingerbread. Medieval gingerbread has been coloured red with sanders. In Tudor times dark
gingergread was made with powdered licorice. When the licorice was replaced by black treacle,
it became possible to omit the honey which had sweetened the old gingerbread, and to add a
much smaller mount of sugar instead. Treacle gingerbread, said to have been made for Charles
II, had as ingredients three pounds of treacle, half a pound each of candied orange peel, candied
lemon peel and green citron, two ounces of powdered coriander seed, and flour to make it into a
paste. But ordinary folk made do with no more than two ounces candied peel and one ounce
ginger and new spice to three pounds of flour and two of treacle. By the later eighteenth century
treacle consumption was much higher in northern England than in the south; for the diet of the
poorer classes now differed considerably between the two regions. In the north a spoonful of
treacle was often added to a bowl of oatmeal porridge, a dish almost unknown in the
south...Treacle went into parkin (the northern form of gingerbread, containing oatmeal), and into
oatmeal biscuits of various kinds. it was still a thick, dark brown syrup...The increasing use of
sugar and treacle meant a gradual decline in beekeeping."
---Food and Drink in Britain From the Stone Age to the 19th Century, C. Anne Wilson
[Academy Chicago:Chicago IL] 1991 (p. 305-6)

See also: molasses.

BROWN SUGAR
Basically, white sugar (granulated to XXX confectioner's) is the product of the most refined
processes and has historically been the most expensive/desirable. Real brown sugar takes its
color and texture from molasses. Modern food production methods can also create brown sugars
by adding colored syrup to white sugars. Which brand of brown sugar did you buy? We can
check that company's Web site to find out what they have to say about it.

"Brown sugar...Less refined than white sugar, brown sugar consists of sugar crystals contained in
molasses syrup with natural color and flavor. It may also be made by adding syrup to white sugar
and blending."
---Encyclopedia of American Food & Drink, John F. Mariani [Lebhar-Friedman:New York]
1999(p. 316)

How is brown sugar produced?

There are two methods for producing brown sugar - boiling and blending - and both are currently
in use in Canada. Boiling involves heating a purified sugar syrup, which still contains some of
the colour and flavour elements from the sugar cane, until it crystallizes to form a soft yellow or
brown sugar. Blending is a process that combines the separately purified white sucrose crystals
and refiners' syrups (something like fancy grade molasses) to produce yellow or brown sugar.
The difference in the method used to produce brown sugar should not result in a difference in
taste or affect the texture and consistency of baked goods. The difference between light (yellow)
and dark brown sugar is that the darker brown sugars have more of the refiners' syrup
("molasses") left in the product. Turbinado, Muscovado and Demerara sugars are all specialty
brown sugars."
---Canadian Sugar Institute

Types of brown sugar & their uses:

"Turbinado sugar: This sugar is raw sugar which has been partially processed, where only the
surface molasses has been washed off. It has a blond color and mild brown sugar flavor, and is
often used in tea and other beverages.
Brown sugar (light and dark): Brown sugar retains some of the surface molasses syrup, which
imparts a characteristic pleasurable flavor. Dark brown sugar has a deeper color and stronger
molasses flavor than light brown sugar. Lighter types are generally used in baking and making
butterscotch, condiments and glazes. The rich, full flavor of dark brown sugar makes it good for
gingerbread, mincemeat, baked beans, and other full flavored foods. Brown sugar tends to clump
because it contains more moisture than white sugar.
Muscovado or Barbados sugar: Muscovado sugar, a British specialty brown sugar, is very dark
brown and has a particularly strong molasses flavor. The crystals are slightly coarser and stickier
in texture than “regular” brown sugar. Free-flowing brown sugars: These sugars are specialty
products produced by a co-crystallization process. The process yields fine, powder-like brown
sugar that is less moist than “regular” brown sugar. Since it is less moist, it does not clump and is
free-flowing like white sugar.
Demerara sugar: Popular in England, Demerara sugar is a light brown sugar with large golden
crystals, which are slightly sticky from the adhering molasses. It is often used in tea, coffee, or
on top of hot cereals."
---Sugar Association

How available was brown sugar in 19th century America?

These notes from 1807/Philly market lists three types: "...it would be useful to review the various
grades of whole-sale sugar as they were designated in Pennsylvania during the nineteenth
century. The following list is taken from Hope's Philadelphia Price-Current for October 5, 1807:

Havana white
Havana brown (like Brasilian Demarara)
Muscovado 1st quality
Muscovado 2nd quality
Muscovado ordinary
West India clayed white
West India clayed brown
Calcutta white
Batavia white
Of these, ordinary muscovado was the cheapest, just about half the cost of Havana white, the
most expensive sugar then available and the one most like the white granulated sugar of today.
Cheap, black, sticky moscovado or brown Demarara-type sugars were the most common table
sugars used by the Pennsylvania Dutch. Like molasses, moscovado sugar was always in great
demand, even in the eighteenth century, for it was one of the first sugars to be advertised in the
Philadelphia America Weekly Mercury of 1719. Regardless of grade, sugar was imported in
large cones or loaves...Once the loaves of sugar reached the United States, they were usually
purged or refined again and converted into smaller loaves for retail sale and wrapped in blue
paper to preserve the whiteness. In spite of this precaution, none of the retail loaf sugar was
usable until it was boiled again in water to remove insects and other extraneous material. This
irksome process involved egg whites, charcoal, and constant skimming. The syrup was then
strained thorugh a cloth bag until clear, returned to the fire, and boiled down."
---Sauerkraut Yankees: Pennsylvania Dutch Foods and Foodways, William Woys Weaver, 2nd
edition [Stackpole Books:Mechanicsburg PA] 2002 (p. 152-4)

The recipe below confirms brown sugar (no description, though) was available in the Midwest
(Wisconsin) during the 1840s. We did not find any period/place specific advertisements for
brown sugar. We cannot tell if this item was commonly available or the provenance of wealthy
families who could afford to purchase expensive goods from larger markets. Neither can we tell
what is meant here by "ordinary."

"Ordinary brown sugar may be used, a larger portion of which is retained in the syrup."
---"Recipe for Making Tomato Figs," Wisconsin Democrat, September 28, 1843 (p. 3)

CONFECTIONERS' SUGAR
Powdered sugar is the finest grade of granulated white sugar. Confectioners' sugar (also known
as icing sugar) is the finest grade of powdered sugar. These sugars are graded by "X," indicating
the fineness of the powder.

"Powdered Finely-ground granulated sugar to which a small amount (3%) corn starch has been
added to prevent caking. The fineness to which the granulated sugar is ground determines the
familiar "X" factor: 14X is finer than 12X, and so on down through 10X, 8X, 6X (the most
commonly used) and 4X, the coarsest powdered sugar." ---Sweetener glossary

Food historians tell us powdered sugars were used by European confectioners as early as the
18th century. Technological advances in the 19th century made them available to a wider
audience. It is no coincidence that cake icing appeared during this time:
About sugar grades & processing

Sorghum

"Sorghum...There are several varieties of this Old World grass (Sorghum vulgare) that are
cultivated for grain, for forage, and as a source of syrup. Sorghum is native to East Africa,w ehre
it was being cultivated around 5,000 to 6,000 years ago. Sometime in the distant past (at least
2,000 years ago), the grain crossed the Indian Ocean to India and subsequently made its way to
China. More recently, various sorghums reached the New World via the slave trade. Today, grain
sorghums are grown extensively in Africa and Asia for use as human food and in the Americas
as animals. Some sorghums in North America--like "Johnson grass" and "Mississippi chicken
corn"-- probably arrived as the as the seeds of important cultivars, only to escape from
cultivation and become annoying weeds. The juices of sorghums have provided humas with
syrup for sweetening and in Asia and Africa for the plant supplies malt, mash, and flavoring for
alcoholic beverages, especially beers. Sorghum grains are made into flour (for unleavened
breads) and into porridges, and they are also prepared and consumed much like rice."
---Cambridge World History of Food, Kenneth F. Kiple & Kriemhild Conee Ornelas [Cambridge
University Press:Cambridge] 2000, Volume Two (p. 1854)

"Sorghum...a cereal related and simlar to and sometimes confused with millet, is an important
staple food of the upland, drier, parts of Africa and India. In other parts of the world it is chiefly
grown as animal fodder. It is native to Africa, and was probably first cultivated in Ethiopia
between 4000 and 3000 BC. It spread thence to W. Africa, the Near east, India, and China, and
later to the New World...In the USA, in the 19th and early 20th centuries, sorghum syrup was
popular as a cheap alternative to maple syrup. Production, mainly in the southerns tates, was as
much as 20 million gallons or more annually."
---Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson, 2nd edition, Tom Jaine editor [Oxford University
Press:Oxford] 2006 (p. 733-4)

"Historical records trace the sorghum plant...to Africa. Benjamin Franklin was thought to have
introduced sorghum to the United States in the late 1700s...Syrup-making techniques came into
prominence in the United States around the mid-1800s. Because of the scarcity of sugar during
wartime, sorghum syrup was the principal sweetener in many parts of the county."
---Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, Andrew F. Smith editor [Oxford
University Press:New York] 2004, vol. 2 (p. 458)

"In earlier days, no kitchen table in the mountains was complete without its glass cruet of
sorghum. Many poured sorghum on badly cooked meats and vegetables to give them a sweet
kick.. And when the cow went dry, fold would make a butter substitute by micking sorghum and
pork drippings. Sorghum came into its own in colonial America as a substitute for sugar. When
sugar became available in the 1700s, it was very expensive, being sold in cones and sliced off as
needed. Sorghum also was relied upon as a sweetener during the Civil War when Union
blockades halted sugar shipments to Southern ports. Syrup made form sweet sorghum is
primarily a hill country sweetener with a light amber color. Darker-colored "molasses"--made of
sugar cane--is mostly a Deep South product coming from Louisiana and surrounding states.
Applachian people call their sorghum sweetener "molasses," the precise term is sorghum or
sweet sorghum or sorghum syrup. Sorghum was a key ingredient in moonshine in earlier days...It
was during the Prohibition era (1920-33) when whiskey-making progressed to the point where
moonshiners, to meet increased demand, turned to sugar to speed up fermentation of what
formerly had been pure corn whiskey. The smoother-tasting "sugar whiskey"--corn combined
with sugar--zoomed. During the years leading up to World War II, sugar supplied dropped
sharply, forcing moonshiners to turn to sorghum for their mash barrels. The syrup, in shiny tin
cans, would arrive at distilleries by the truckload...There are mountain folk yet today who love to
sweeten their coffee with sweet sorghum."
---Smokehouse Ham, Spoon Bread, & Scuppernong Wine: The Folklore and Art of Southern
Appalachian Cooking, Joseph E. Dabney [Cumberland House:Nashville TN] 1998 (p. 424-5)
[NOTE: This book contains far more information than can be paraphrased here. If you need mroe
information ask your librarian to help you find a copy.]

More on sorghum.

Corn syrup

Corn syrup was an accidental discovery based on past experiences with other vegetables, most
notably potatoes and sugar beets. High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) is a more refined and
sweeter version. Invented in 1967, HFCS is widely used in today's processed foods.

CORN SYRUP CHEMISTRY & VARIATIONS

"In the language of corn refining, once the starch matrix has been separated from its protein
gluten, the starch is converted by chemical action (an acid or enzymes, or both, are added to
starch suspended in water) into "simple" sugar, called a "low-dextrose solution." Sweeteners and
tecture (crystal or syrup) are controllled at every point to produce different products, depending
upon how much starch is digested by the acid or enzyme...By the same initial process through
which the Hopi made "virgin hash," our modern corn refiners make glucose, maltose, dextrose
and fructose. The larger the number of these long glucose chains in the molecule, the more
viscous the syrup, a quality important to the baking and candy industries because it prevents
graininess and crystallization. Without corn syrup, no easy-to-make chocolate fudge. The more
complete the digestion of starch, the sweeter the syrup, because the rate of glucose and maltose is
higher. Maltose is a "double unit" sugar produced, as in brewing, by enzyme-manipulated starch.
By manipulating the glucose unites with an enzyme derived form...Streptomyces bacteria, the
refiner can get a supersweet fructose called High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS). Today, this is
where the king's share of cornstarch goes, becasue this syrup is the sweetener of choice...for the
soft drink, ice cream and frozen dessert industries. Although supersweet fructose tastes about
twice as sweet as ordinary sugar, we do not as a result consume half as many soft drinks or ice
cream cones. On the contrary, American sweetness consumption spirals ever upward..."The
family of corn syrups includes hyrdol, or corn sugar molasses, a dark, viscous syrup useful in
animal feed and in drugs; lactic acid, a colorless syrup useful as a preservative and flavorer for
everything from pickles to mayonnaise; and sorbitol (dextrose plus hydrogen), and emulsifier
that shows up in toothpaste and detergents as well as processed edibles."
---The Story of Corn, Betty Fussell [North Point Press:New York] 1992 (p 272)

ORIGINS & EVOLUTION

"Gottlieb Sigismund Kirchhof accidentally discovered that sweet substances could be prepared
from starch while working at the Acadmey of Science, St. Petersbug, Russia, during the
Napoleonic Wars. Kirchhof needed gum arabic for use in manufacturing porcelain. No gum
arabic was available because of the continental blockade imposed by the British at that time.
However, a Frenchman, Bouitton-Lagrange, had reported that dry starch, when heated, acquires
some of the properties of the vegetable gums. Kirchhof attempted to make a substitute gum
arabic from starch by adding some water and acid before heating. As a result, instead of a
gummy substance, he obtained a sweet-tasting sirup and a small amount of crystallized sugar
(dextrose), a finding he reported in 1811. Because of the extreme shortage of sugar in Eruope at
the time, the discovery attracted immediate notice in scientific and commercial circles. Starch,
largely obtained from potatoes, was already being manufactured in a number of countries in
Europe. With this supply of raw material available, numerous small factories were erected to
convert starch to either sirup or sugar. Means were soon discovered by which either sirup or
sugar could be obtained as desired. The fact that neither beet sugar nor any other acceptable
substitute for imported can sugar had as yet become available encouraged the development of
starch sweeteners. However, the new industry, after the defeat of Napoleon and the lifting of the
blockade, declined almost as rapidly as it had grown. Sugar became very cheap for a while...Few
statistics are available concerning the early operation of the starch sweetener industry in Euope.
But 11 million pounds of dextrose were reported to have been produced from potato starch in
France in 1855 and about 44 million pounds in Germany in 1874...Starch sweetener production
developed more slowly in the United States than in Europe, since there was no sugar shortage
here early in the 19th century. A small factory near Philadelphia processed potato starch in 1831-
1832. The next plant established in this country to make dextrose from cornstarch was in New
York City in 1864."
History of Sugar Marketing Through 1974, US Dept. of Agriculture (p. 7-8)

EARLY 20TH CENTURY DESCRIPTIONS

[1911]
The Grocer's Encyclopedia, Artemis Ward: Corn syrup & Commerical glucose.

[1916]
"Corn syrup. This is a product of clear but thick, syrupy consistency which is derived from corn,
as the name implies. It is commonly called 'glucose' among the [confectioners] trade, but this
name is rapidly dying out due to the constant effort of the authorities to discontinue the name
'glucose' because of the unfounded associations people have connected with the purity and
wholesomeness of this prodouct. In all formulas contained in this book the however mention is
made, the term 'corn syrup' is use instead of 'glucose.' Corn syrup is sometimes used in candy
because it is cheaper than sugar, but that is not the only reason for using it. In a great many cases
it is essentially used as a 'doctor' to prevent a batch from graining or returning to sugar. It
performs a purpose parallel to that of cream of tartar, but as corn syrup is cheaper to use than
cream of tartar and does not require such extacting attention in the batch, it is use oftener as a
'doctor' than cream of tartar. Corn syrup good stand up better than cream of tartar goods; hence
the more common use of corn syrup in candies intended for wholesale business. Some pieces
cannot be made without corn syrup, as, for instance, caramels and fudges. Honey was formerly
used in place of corn syrup in making caramels but it was very expensive to use, and allowed the
batch to grain unless extreme care was taken. Like all materials the batch to grain unless extreme
care was taken. Like all materials, there are different grades of corn syrup, depending on the
grade of corn used in making the finished product. Corn syrup should be used less in the summer
than in the winter as it tends to make goods sticky."
---Rigby's Reliable Candy Teacher, W. O. Rigby, 19th edition [1916?] (p. 16)

ABOUT KARO BRAND CORN SYRUP

The most famous corn syrup in the USA is Karo brand, introduced by the Corn Products
Refining Company in 1902. History here.
"Corn syrup. A sweet, thick liquid derived from cornstarch treated with acids or enzymes and
used to sweeten and thicken candy, syrups, and snack foods. By far the most popular and best-
known corn syrup is Karo, introduced in 1902 by Corn Products Company of Edgewater, New
Jersey. The name "karo" may have been in honor of the inventor's wife, Caroline, or, some say,
derivative of an earlier trademark for table syrup, "Karomel." So common is the use of Karo in
making pecan pie that the confection is often called "Karo pie" in the South."
---Encyclopedia of American Food and Drink, John F. Mariani [Lebhar-Friedman:New York]
1999 (p. 98)

HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP

"In 1967 new Japanese enzyme technology brought about a revolution in corn syrup
development. High fructose corn syrup was made by a more complete hydrolysis of glucose to
fructose. IsoSweet, a high fructose corn syrup developed by [A.E. Staley Manufacturing
Company], was approximately 92 percent as sweet as sugar."
---Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, Andrew F. Smith editor, [Oxford
University Press:New York] 2004, Volume 1 (p. 346)

"...the premium is high-fructose corn syrup, first commercialized in 1967 by the Clinton Corn
Processing Co. of Clinton, Iowa, which patented Isomerose (named for the enzyme xylose
isomerase, which converts glucose to fructose). By 1972, the company had increased the
sweetness from 14 to 42 percent fructose, to make it equivalent to ordinary sugar. As sugar
prices rose, food and beverage industrialists began to replace more and more sucrose with
"Isosweet." Within four years, production of the supersweet syrup jumped from two hundred
thousand to two and a half billion pounds a year, and within the decade it had become a major
component of all major soft drinks. Today, HFCS can be made 25 percent sweeter than
sugar...and in crystalline form is an important rival to saccharin in the sugar-substitute industry."
---The Story of Corn (p. 273-274)

What exactly is HFCS?

General current US Dept. of Agriculture definition: "High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS): A corn
sweetener derived from the wet milling of corn. Corn starch is converted to a syrup that is nearly
all dextrose. HFCS is found in numerous foods and beverages on the grocery store shelves."

A more technical definition: "High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS)—A corn sweetener derived
from the wet milling of corn. Cornstarch is converted to a syrup that is nearly all dextrose.
Enzymes isomerize the dextrose to produce a 42 percent fructose syrup called HFCS-42. By
passing HFCS-42 through an ion-exchange column that retains fructose, corn refiners draw off
90 percent HFCS and blend it with HFCS-42 to make a third syrup, HFCS-55. HFCS is found in
numerous foods and beverages on the grocery store shelves. HFCS-90 is used in natural and
"light" foods in which very little is needed to provide sweetness. (ERS, USDA). Total fiber is the
sum of dietary fiber and functional fiber.
White bread in the USA
"The production of wheat flour picked up after the invention in 1834 of the Swiss steel roller that
ground the meal very finely, a process vastly improved in 1865 by French-American Edmund
LeCroix, by separating bran from granual middlings with a middling purifier and fan-driven air
currents to clean the wheat as it moved through the mill. The first all-roller flour mill was
displayed in the United States at the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exposition. After 1900
American wheat flour was processed to appear white by bleaching and removal of the wheat
germ and other flecks of grain, thereby lessening its nutritive value. Today there has been a trend
favoring unbleached and whole-wheat flours."
---Encyclopedia of American Food and Drink, John F. Mariani [Lebhar-Friedman:New York]
1999 (p. 129)

Notes from The Grocer's Encyclopedia, circa 1911, indicate white wheat flour was firmly
established and readily available to American consumers.

WHAT IS FLOUR?
Flour is ground grain. The roots of this product are prehistoric and cross all cultures except
peoples living inhabiting Arctic regions. The grains differed according to region (wheat, rye,
oats, barley, buckwheat, millet, rice, corn, chestnuts). Throughout time, wheat has been the grain
of choice.

About flour milling

"To make wheat flour the wheat must be ground by one means or another. The evolution of
grinding and milling began with the earliest known pestle and mortar, dating from about
10,000BC; this came from the Azilian culture of S. France, where it was used to grind pigments.
No doubt pestles and mortar were subsequently used for grains, but the result they produce,
although adequate for a gruel or pottage, does not really produce flour for bread. In most places
where a series of early food-gathering implements has been found, development can be seen to
have proceeded in one of two ways. One was the larger mortar worked by two or more people
pounding alternately with long-handled pestles, as is still seen in Africa. This is quicker, but does
not give a finer grind. The other is a device in which the top stone, or pestle, rubs against the
lower stone, or mortar, with a shearing effect on the grain which can produce flour as we know
it...Such devices, sometimes called saddle stones, are represented in ancient Egyptian paintings
and tomb models and on Assyrian reliefs. Actual examples are found both in the old world and
America, where they were used for maize. Early equipment of this type has also been excavated
in the Balkans...Later progress in milling with stones depended on harnessing extra power. Once
achieved, the stones could be enlarged and flattened, but the principals remained identical. Water
power was perhaps first mentioned by Strabo in 150 BC...It spread throughout W. Europe,
bringing the potential of fine flour to most communities. Wind power was harnessed around the
year AD 1000, allowing mills to multiply still further...The conventional stone mill, even when
powered by steam engines and placed in series or groups in early industrial units created for the
supply of large towns, for example in Paris, had a relatively low output...The problem was
resolved by the efficient, fast roller mill, first tried in Hungary in the 1820s, perfected in
Switzerland in 1834, then quickly adopted all over Europe and America...For the first time, truly
white flour was available at a low price."
---Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 1999 (p. 309-
310)

Natural oxidation vs. chemical bleaching

"Natural oxidation" or "Natural aging" of flour may take several weeks or months, depending
upon the wheat and the storage facility. If the flour sits too long it may be susceptible to mold or
rodent infestation. This source does a fine job explaining the history [skip to page 8] and uses of
both types of whitening. Earliest accounts of chemical bleaching date to the early 1900s. Several
bleaching chemicals were employed.

"Freshly ground wheat contains small amounts of carotene, a plant pigment that gives it a
yellowish tinge. Over time, the pigment oxidizes and the flour turns off white. But in milling,
time is money, and millers begain to use an improved bleaching process using chlorine. J.N.
Alsop, the founder of the Alsop Process Company, St. Louis, patented the clorine bleaching
process for flour in 1904."
---Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, Andrew F. Smith editor [Oxford
University Press:New York] 2004, Volume 1 (p. 119)

"Chlorine bleaching of processed flour is also expedient, for the giant milling combines own the
plants which manufacture the white wrapped loaf, and artifical bleaching produces flour better
suited to high-speed mechanical dough mixing than natural unbleached flour. Bleaching is by no
means a necessity, and in some countries--France is one of them--is prohibited. It is not carried
out solely in order to obtain whiter-than-white flour. it is also a method of instant maturing or
ageing of the flour, and matured flour, as long as it has been deprived of its germ, has long been
recognized as giving the most satisfactory performance for machine-made dough. To a certain
extent flour whitens during storage. Not sufficently, however, to suit English millers and bread
and biscuit manufacturers, so the flour is bleached with a chemical which speeds up the ageing
process. When we remember that one of the bleaches widely used during the immediate post
1914-1918 War period and for the succeeding thirty years was called agene we immediately
understand its function (This bleach is now banned in England. It was suspected, although not
proved by the medial profession, of causing serious nervous disorders.) At the same time as
maturing and bleaching the flour, chemicals destroy its natural vitamin B content."
---English Bread & Yeast Cookery, Elizabeth David, American Edition, with notes by Karen
Hess [Penguin Books:New YOrk] 1980 (p. 32-3)

When did sliced white bread debut in the USA?

1930, courtesy of Wonder.

"Wonder bread was first sold sliced in 1930, and during the decade extensive promotion was
carried out on its behalf."
---Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, Andrew F. Smith editor [Oxford
University Press:New York] 2004, Volume 1 (p. 121)

"Otto Frederick Rohwedder, a jeweler in St. Joseph, Mo., began tinkering with the idea of a
machine to slice whole loaves of bread in 1912. An early model held the loaf together with
sterilized hairpins, but the pins fell out. Finally, in 1928, he coupled slicing and automatic
wrapping, and two years later the Continental Baking Company bought his machine to produce
Wonder Bread." ---"Slices of History," New York Times, April 28, 1989 (p. A38)

Need more details on Wonder? (1) Wonder Bread History & (2) "Wonder Bread," Encyclopedia
of Consumer Brands, Volume 1: Consumable Products, Janice Jorgensen editor [St. James
Press:Detroit] 1994 (p. 645)

Related item? Pullman loaves (aka sandwich bread, pain de mie, pain anglais)

Whole wheat bread

Food historians confirm whole wheat (aka Graham's flour, etc.) bread has been popular in health
food circles from the early 19th century forwards. When were commercially manufactured whole
wheat loaves available in American grocery stores? Our survey of historic newspapers suggests
they were readily available in the early 20th century. This period makes sense: it converged
health food advocates, home economists/social nutritionists, and pure food legal advocates. Food
shortages caused by diverting commodities to feed WWI soldiers provided the economic push
Americans needed to try this alternative product.

Whole wheat bread is one of several varieties listed in Artemas Ward's famous Grocers'
Encyclopedia [c. 1911]

Commercial manufacturing/branding by Ward's Bakeries, New York, makers of popular Tip-Top

brand [c. 1915]:
"Food experts all agree that whole wheat bread, made from genuine whole wheat flour, is one of
the most healthful foods we can eat. You need have not doubt about getting the real thing if you
buy Ward's Wheatheart Bread, the real whole wheat loaf, made from genuine whole wheat flour,
ground especially for us by the old fashioned stone process. Ward's Wheat-Heart Bread is made
by the Ward standard of quality, purity and cleanliness. It is the kind you can depend on. All
grocers will supply you on order, made in 10 cent loaves. Made in the Ward Bakeries at New
York, Brooklyn and Newark."
---display ad, New York Times, September 17, 1915 (p. 5)

WWI-era food [wheat] shortages prompt economists to promote whole wheat bread to the
American public. This tidbit also explains the prevailing preference for white bread.
"Whole-Wheat Bread. To increase our wheat acreage is not the only way to meet the present
shortage in breadstuffs. This of course must be the first object in any campaign to augment food
supplies. However, in the grinding of the wheat and the treatment of the flour another big gain
can be effected between the harvested grain and the finished loaf. It means something when we
hear that 18,000,000 barrels of flour could have been added to last season's supply had whole
wheat instead of white flour been the rule adopted by our millers. We cannot disregard taste and
habit and prejudice, and the American people have somehow grown to connect the white flour
loaf with our better brand of prosperity. Black bread in the past was for the serf, the slave and the
downtrodden. White bread has the glorious heritage of the free man. But whole wheat bread is
not black bread nor does it distantly resemble it in taste, color or substance. It is white bread
raised to a higher degree of healthfulness and nutriment: it contains some food elements lost in
milling white flour. The use of a whole wheat bread will conserve our food supplies to an
appreciable extent. These are points the public should weigh well when the use of whole wheat
bread is surged upon them by economists."
---"Whole Wheat Bread," Los Angeles Times, May 5, 1917 (p. I14)

About these notes: Food history can be a complicated topic. These notes are not meant to be a
comprehensive treatment of the subject, but a summary of salient points supported with culinary
evidence. If you need more information we suggest you start by asking your librarian to help you
find the books and articles cited in these notes. Article databases are good for locating current
recipes, consumer trends, and new products.

Have questions? Ask!

About culinary research & about copyright.

Research conducted by Lynne Olver, editor The Food Timeline. About this site.

http://www.foodtimeline.org/foodbreads.html
© Lynne Olver 2000