Sugar rush

If pepper was known as Black Gold, sugar was White Gold. Here’s a chronicle of the prized ‘sweet salt’ from Anurag Mallick & Priya Ganapathy

Sugar from the Aventure le Sucre sugar factory in Mauritius. PHOTOS BY AUTHORS

Sweetness is one of the most basic tastes that we recognise and one of the most vital fuel needs of our body for energy at a cellular level. Sugar is medicine, a mark of royalty, a channel of disease as well as a symbol of addiction and oppression that shaped the world from Papua New Guinea to Hawaii, India to Mauritius and the lands in between. Besides Brazil, India is one of the largest producers of sugar in the world. It’s no surprise that we are also one of its largest consumers.
Until 10000 BC or so, honey wore the crown of sweetness across Asia, Africa and Europe. In the Americas, indigenous folks discovered sweeteners in agave nectar from cactus, maple syrup from sugar maple trees and mashed fruit. Arabia’s sweet answer was the date palm. But it is believed that the Papuans of New Guinea were among the earliest people to taste sugar as we know it. They were chewing sugarcane reeds (Saccharum officinarum) around 8,000 years ago and this knowledge spread to the Philippines, Java, India and other parts of the globe through sea trade. The Austronesians in Taiwan and Southern China also cultivated sugarcane (Saccharum sinese) to feed pigs.
The earliest known production of crystalline sugar began in North India around 1000 BCE. The existence of sugar mills in India is mentioned in written records dating to 100 AD besides ancient recipes using sugar from 400-350 AD in Patanjali’s Mahabhashya! The very word sugar comes from shakkar, a derivative
of the Sanskrit word ‘sarkara’ meaning grit or gravel while jaggery comes from the Indo-Portuguese jagara. India is the largest producer and consumer of khand or muscovado (Portuguese for ‘unrefined sugar’), which bears a strong molasses content. India’s brown-hued sugar was purified into a porcelain white form by the Chinese, hence its popular term cheeni. India’s thriving trade with Greece and Rome slowly unlocked the secret of sugar. Some attribute it to Emperor Darius of erstwhile Persia, who, in 510 BC invaded India and discovered ‘the reed which gives honey without bees’. Around 237 AD, Alexander’s general Nearchus spoke of “a reed in India that brings forth honey without the help of bees, from which an intoxicating drink is made.” Small quantities of sugar brought back by the Greeks returning to the Mediterranean were used for medicinal purposes by the physicians of yore. Soon a university called Jundi Shapur was established in Persia where Greek, Christian, Jewish and Persian scholars studied and researched texts from various cultures and wrote about the virtues of a potent Indian medicine — sugar. Around 600 AD they began exploring better methods of manufacture and processing sugar into the crystalline form but maintained it as a closely guarded secret as sugar could be traded for a hefty profit. However, when the Moors invaded Persia in 642 AD they discovered how sugarcane is grown and the manufacturing process. Around 8th century, Arab traders introduced sugar from medieval India to other parts of the Abassid Caliphate from Mesopotamia to Andalusia and the Mediterranean to North Africa. They improved the methods to make kurat al milh, a sweet sugar ball that could easily be transported by caravans across Asia Minor carrying ‘sweet salt’ to Mediterranean ports, from where it reached Greece and Rome. The shrewd Arabs became adept at cultivating, refining and cooking with sugar and went beyond its use as a medicine and spice; they turned it into a sought after rarity for royalty and exported it to upper echelons of European society by creating blended delicacies and confectioneries with almonds like marzipan and exotic sugar sculptures. The 12th Century chronicler of the crusades, William of Tyre wrote how soldiers returning from the Holy Land in the 11th Century during the Crusades, introduced sugar to the European world, which triggered a massive demand. He praises it as ‘a most precious product, very necessary for the use and health of mankind’. People tagged it ‘white gold’ that was often locked away in a sugar safe! The best place to learn about the Mauritian tryst with sugar is L’Aventure du Sucre, the Sugar Factory and museum near the famous Pamplemousses Botanical Gardens. It was only around 1942 that people drew attention to the ill-effects of sugar prompting the need for healthier sweeteners.
(The authors are travel and food writers “loosely based” in Bengaluru. They’ve authored guides and coffee table books including a cookbook for the USDA called ‘Southern Comfort: Southern American Soul Food’, set up an award-winning restaurant and curated the India episode of Gordon Ramsay: Uncharted, Season 2. Follow their adventures on Instagram: @red_scarab)