Sugar confusion

[bunnyjadwiga]

Why is it that so many people are so convinced that beet sugar (invented in the Napoleonic era) is *more* ancient and specifically medieval than cane sugar (the original form of sugar)? Why do people think that cane sugar was not available in the middle ages and renaissance?

What can we do to combat this?

Comments

... because they're ignorant?

[strawberrykaren.livejournal.com]

There's several Persian images too, but just to focus on western Europe, there's the sugar-merchants in the Tacuinum Sanitatis in BNF Nouvelle acquisition latine 1673, fol. 81, c. 1390-1400 and ÖNB Codex Vindobonensis, series nova 2644, c. 1370-1400, as well as several images of sugar cane. (FWIW, here's the text that accompanies the Tacuinum images.)

And references to sugar, sugar candy, sugar loaves, etc.

From Trevisa's translation of Bartholomaeus Anglicus' De proprietatibus rerum: "Sugure ... comeþ of certeyn canes and reedes þat groweþ in leyes and pondes faste by þe ryuer nilus, & þe jus of þilke canes hatte Canna mellis, and of þat jus is sugre y-made."

And Baking with Sugar in Renaissance Germany, and The Sweetest of Smiles. And ... a whole bunch of recipes.

You wanna put this all into a webpage/article, or shall I? ;) (It's more up your alley, really; if it were just a material culture thing, I'd be all over it.)