#beet sugar

[victusinveritas]

[morethansalad]

Chewy Ripe Banana Shiratama / Banana Dumplings with Ginger Syrup (Vegan)

[empirearchives]

Napoleon and Sugar Production and Trade

A little bit about how the sugar industry was transformed during the Napoleonic Wars. Specifically, how sugar beet substituted and replaced sugar cane.

From Robert M. Harveson, History of sugarbeets, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources (source)

“Sugar was only obtained from the tropical sugar cane and was prohibitively expensive for most Europeans. During the early 1800’s most sugar was obtained from the West Indies. After supplies were cut off by the English blockade of continental Europe during the Napoleonic Wars, the demand for sugar grew throughout Europe. Napoleon encouraged new research with sugar beets, and between 1810 and 1815, over 79,000 acres were put into production with more than 300 small factories being built in France.”

From R. N. Dowling, Sugar Beet and Beet Sugar:

“Napoleon I, brought real life into the new industry. As a farsighted statesman, he recognized the great advantages connected with a future beet sugar industry that would produce at home all the sugar needed by his people. For this reason he at once, by a decree of 1812, appropriated 100,000 hectares, or 247,100 acres, exclusively for the cultivation of sugar beets and 1,000,000 francs for experiments in connection with beet raising and sugar extraction.”

The trade war:

“The interest of Napoleon was due to the continental blockade that excluded all products manufactured in England and her colonies from the European markets. As a consequence the price of cane sugar rose to an extraordinary height: it was more than 30 cents per pound in the period from 1807 to 1815. Under such circumstances the erection of beet sugar factories was a very profitable investment of capital and it is, therefore, not to be wondered at that in France, as early as 1812 some 40 factories were in operation, working up 98,813 tons of beets obtained from 16,758 acres, and yielding a total output of 3,300,000 Ibs. of sugar. For the first time in the history beet sugar came to compete with the tropical product. From very modest beginnings in the first quarter of the nineteenth century the beet sugar industry grew to the enormous dimensions of today, crowding out cane sugar from the markets of the European continent and successfully competing with the tropical product in many other countries.”

(From R. N. Dowling)

Long-term impact—Sugar beet today:

“Of the current world production of more than 130 million metric tons of sugar, about 35% comes from sugar beet and 65% from sugar cane. In the USA, about 50-55% of the domestic production of about 8.4 million metric tons derives from sugar beet.”

(From Robert M. Harveson)

[misforgotten2]

Better Living   July 1953

[tlatollotl]

Sweet historical discoveries at maple sugaring camps

Archaeological excavations at four Upper Peninsula sites are shedding new light on historic maple sugaring operations and the people – mostly Native Americans and French-Canadians – who ran them.

The research also sheds light on the “racialization of sugar” based on the race of those who produced it.

Producers used the sites in the Mackinac County section of the Hiawatha National Forest at different periods between the late 1700s and late 1800s when “fur-trade era maple sugar production in northern Michigan was part of the global expansion of industrial capitalism and increases in per capita sugar consumption,” according to a recent study.

“During this period, many residents of the Mackinac Straits spoke both French and Anishinaabemowin (Ojibwe or Ottawa) and would have referred to sugar camps as both ‘sucreries’ and ‘ziizbaakdokaanan,’” the study said.

The study published in the journal “Historical Archaeology” noted how Anglo-American and British writers of the time described sugar-making in racial terms by, for example, saying that maple sugar produced by Native Americans was less “clean” or “fine” than that made by the French.

And “racialization of sugar would have had a negative economic impact on ‘non-White’ producers,” it said. “The irony of parsing racial or cultural identity relative to sugar color is that producers, supposedly of different races, may have utilized the same sugaring practices.”

Women were the primary sugar producers at the time. They gathered the sap, maintained the fires and worked the syrup, said Eric Drake, the Hiawatha National Forest archaeologist and heritage program manager who co-authored the study. “It was a very labor-intensive process, and required a group effort.”

Sugar maples were abundant during that time that the camps were active, and maple sugar was more than a mere commercial product. “Producers consumed it as both a year-round seasoning and a significant calorie source during late winter or early spring food shortages,” the study said.

Yet global factors dampened the importance of Great Lakes maple sugar production: In the early 1899s, cane sugar from the West Indies was twice as expensive as maple sugar, but by the 1880s, “commercial maple products became specialty items no longer in direct competition with cane or beet sugar,” according to the study.

Archaeologists explored three of the sites near the shore of Gros Cap along the Lake Michigan coast. The fourth site is in the Pointe Aux Chenes area, also close to Lake Michigan. All are within the Hiawatha National Forest.

They found a wide variety of artifacts, including fragments of iron and flint, clay pipes, nails, wrought iron pothooks, parts of kettles and tools, and a metal bowl. The artifacts are kept at Michigan Technological University.

Lead author John Franzen, the retired Hiawatha National Forest archaeologist, said the personal items found, such as pieces of pipes, reflect the leisure activities that took place while the camp occupants worked.

The other author was Illinois State Museum’s emeritus curator of anthropology, Terrance Martin.

Overall, the study said, “These four sites illustrate both cultural continuity and changes in sugar- making technology.”

For example, there was evidence of technological transition from open-fire boiling of sap in kettles to the use of open pans, which was more efficient and sped up evaporation.

The team also studied the remains of wildlife for insights into the sugar producers’ diets. Among the findings: lake sturgeon, walleye, whitefish and lake trout were common food sources, with a few snowshoe hare and muskrat bones to show that they also ate some meat.

Franzen said the abundance of fish bones confirmed reliance on fish during syruping season in late winter and early spring. “We suspected that was a possibility. It’s the whole idea of what’s available at that time of year.”

And Drake said the fishing weights and other fishing gear found at the sites “tells us part of that group or family was off trying to find the food to feed the families while they were in the sugar camps.”

Discovering that shared division of labor was “most exciting” because “it’s really about these families coming together. – it’s a lifeway, it’s not just an occupation.”

[guardianbeargaming]

Just warming up for Inktober :)

lol don’t worry, Daro'Mei found some beet sugar to use on the strawberries. No moonsugar hallucinations for the chidlums.

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Vegan Triple Coconut Sorbet

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White Peach & Rose Sorbet (Vegan)