Sugar Changed the World: Prologue–Part One

In the Age of Sugar, Europeans bought a product made thousands of miles away that was less expensive than the honey from down the road. That was possible only because sugar set people in motion all across the world—millions of them as slaves, in chains; a few in search of their fortunes. A perfect taste made possible by the most brutal labor: That is the dark story of sugar.

Sugar created a hunger, a need, which swept from one corner of the world to another, bringing the most terrible misery and destruction, but then, too, the most inspiring ideas of liberty.

Though Indians used sugar in rituals, they also enjoyed eating chunks of sugar cane.

Masters of sugar, the Muslims began to use it in lavish displays.

Combining sugar with almonds—as is still done in marzipan—cooks who were serving wealthy Muslims built elaborate, edible sculptures.

He noted that while the Chinese had known how to grow cane and produce brown sugar for over a thousand years, it was “certain
Egyptians at the Khan’s court” who explained how to make the dazzling white sugar coveted by so many.

While the Islamic world was spreading and absorbing new knowledge, enjoying the taste of sugar, Europe had gone the opposite way: isolation.

Ever since A.D. 400, when invaders rampaged through Rome and the Roman Empire began to crumble, Europe had become increasingly violent, ignorant, and divided.

In 1720, when the Turkish painter Levni depicted the celebration for the circumcision of Sultan Ahmed III's son, his huge sculptures of gardens were made entirely out of sugar; the pieces were so heavy, it took eighteen men to carry each one.

Any lord who could afford spices (which were expensive) could easily get fresh meat or fish (which were readily available); and when a cook happened to be stuck with rancid food, the spices he had available could not hide the awful smell or taste.

Whenever they could, people used the spices that were so popular, they became an expensive necessity: pepper, ginger, sugar, sometimes saffron.

King Henry III of England, for example, liked sugar. Yet there was little he could do to satisfy his craving.

We know these wars as the Crusades—bloody, gruesome conflicts, the scars of which are felt in the Middle East to this day.

They were willing to believe that aloe, like ginger and cinnamon, could be found only by gathering twigs that drifted away from paradise. Much like incense today, spices were thought of as having almost mystical, spiritual qualities.

The Muslims worked out a new form of farming to handle sugar, which came to be called the sugar plantation. A plantation was not a new technology but, rather, a new way of organizing planting, growing, cutting, and refining a crop.