Gula melaka with palm sugar. Photo / Babiche Martens.
Idly chewed on for its pleasant sweetness around 200BC, - give or take a few years - sugar has an extraordinarily long but interesting history.
At one time worth its weight in gold, sugar became a culinary staple largely because of the slave trade. Before that, the refining
process involved grinding or pounding the cane to extract the juice. This was evaporated and then dried in the sun to produce a type of sugar "gravel".
By 500BC, the process had become sophisticated enough for sugar to have become a staple of Asian cookery.
It was the huge demand caused by the change in eating habits of Europeans that created a a sugar frenzy. Sugar cane was being planted all over North America to keep up with the desire for jam, candy, sweet tea and coffee and processed food.
People were needed to tend the crops so millions of slaves were used. When slavery ended, sugar cane was largely produced in the Caribbean and now is also grown in South America, the South Pacific and parts of Africa.
So after the history lesson, a few yummy recipes. Vanilla bean cupcakes with floss, my favourite - gula melaka with palm sugar and the quite delectable ricotta fritters with cinnamon sugar ... how does that sound?
Chef's Tip
Look out for organic sugar that has simply been crushed, then its juice filtered and crystallised - no pesticides, herbicides or artificial fertilisers involved. That has to make you feel better about eating it.
