Roman Sugar

[M. Porcius Cato]

Honey, of course, was a commonly used sweetener in ancient Rome. I was surprised to learn, however, from AD's The Classical Cookbook that sugar was also used in Rome, albeit as a costly medicine.

 

I wonder: Where did they get sugar? How did they use it medicinally? What are the literary sources testifying to its use?

[CiceroD]

I heard that they processed sugar from Carob, a kind of locust tree that has a sweet pulp in its seedpods. This is supposed to be the "Locust" (or so I heard) that John the Baptist subsisted off of in the wilderness. let me see if I can find the website where I read this from.

 

ahh its at Wikipedia. just wiki "carob" and you'll see it under 'uses'

[Andrew Dalby]

I heard that they processed sugar from Carob, a kind of locust tree that has a sweet pulp in its seedpods. This is supposed to be the "Locust" (or so I heard) that John the Baptist subsisted off of in the wilderness. let me see if I can find the website where I read this from.

 

ahh its at Wikipedia. just wiki "carob" and you'll see it under 'uses'

 

Yes, you can get a syrup from carob beans. That isn't what I meant, though. In ancient and medieval Europe cane sugar was a valued spice, extremely expensive like other spices because it had to be imported across the Indian Ocean. The ancient Greek word is sakkharon and the Latin saccharum. These words come from Pali (a classical Indian language) sakkhara, naturally, because India was the source.

 

In medieval Europe the most familiar form was in solid cakes -- the original meaning of the term 'sugar candy'; candy, too, comes from an ancient Indian word. I don't know if there is clear evidence what form the sugar took in the ancient Roman spice trade; probably the same. But the first description in the world of granulated sugar is in a work by an ancient Greek writer (it may be Dioscorides, I'd have to check) which shows that granulated sugar had been invented, in India, by the 1st century AD, and was known to Romans too.

 

The technology for making granulated sugar was taken by Buddhist monks from India to China round about the 6th century AD ... but that's getting off topic.

 

I believe that sugar was treated as a medicine mainly because it was expensive. It was in the spice (i.e. drugs) trade. Honey, raisins, grape syrup, dried figs and dates were the cheap sweeteners. In just the same way, my mother believed that sugar was bad and honey was good for me -- a medicine -- because honey was expensive.

 

I believe, in dietary terms, honey and sugar can be good for you. They really do give energy. The problem is, we get too much of them and we don't need that much energy! But I await Pertinax's correction on this.

 

A further note: the locusts that John the Baptist ate were really locusts. You can eat locusts, cicadas, etc. and ancient people did. And I don't think there is any link between locusts and carobs in ancient languages. Carobs would not have been prescribed for hermits if avoidable, according to Galen at least -- they cause terrible constipation ...

[Nephele]

I've really got to pick up some of your books, Andrew Dalby. (I'm embarrassed to say I haven't yet read any of them. But then, I'm still new around here.) I'm curious. Have you ever tried dining on locusts -- for research, or because they looked appetizing, or just on a dare?

 

As for the medicinal uses of sugar that MPC brought up... The ancient Greek and Roman physicians believed that the human body was governed by the Four Humors. While it was the Greek physician Galen who, in the 2nd century C.E., developed these ideas into his theory of the Four Temperaments, I'm guessing that Galen's use of sugar for medicinal purposes by that time may have been based on the teachings of those physicians who had preceded him.

 

Regarding Galen's use of sugar, I found the following written by Mark Grant for the British Journal of Educational Studies (March, 1999), titled "Steiner and the Humours: The Survival of Ancient Greek Science": "[Galen held] that a manifestation of melancholy in children was connected with some irregularity in the function of the liver. Sugar and sweet things could be prescribed to help normalise the function of the liver. With sanguine children a diet and a reduction in the consumption of sweet things was useful, since any abnormality was caused by an irregularity in the activity of the liver in respect of the secretion of gall."

 

So it would seem that the ancients might have used sugar as a means of balancing the humors within a patient.

 

-- Nephele

[Pertinax]

Two dispartate observations to add a little spice to this thread.

 

One can indeed eat locusts, they are nutritious and calorific . As a survival technique eating fresh maggots taken from a rotting carcass is also quite sensible (70 calories per ounce) , though weight for weight , the termite is an excellent nutritive assemblage.Larvae , grasshoppers , beetles and grubs are edible but one must avoid anything hairy, brightly coloured or smelly (spiders, ticks caterpillars).Worms are top notch but must be purged first.I will not be advocating this diet for delegates at the UK meeting.

 

So one may conclude that a savvy hermit might indeed live off dew (by dragging a light garment over grass and wringing the moisture out) and locusts, for a while at least. If St John had lived off Locust beans (they bear his name as a commonplace), he would have had a purged bowel and they probably would have killed him by dehydration.

 

I thought I would cross check my early Islamic sources for any "tradition" of refined sugar use (Iman Qayyim Al-Jawzlya 1292 CE onwrds), the learned scholar mentions frequent exhortations for the faithful to use honey but no doctrinal mention of sugar .Hakim Chisti in his commentary on Ibn Sina (Avicenna- collector and annotator of Roman and Greek treatises in the 9th C CE), rather brusquely says " white sugar should be banished from the home forever" and honey substituted for any culinary purpose .

 

The modern difficulty with refined sugar is its superabundance and addictivness, the fast rise and consequent sharp slump in blood sugar levels are not good:

http://www.chetday.com/bloodsugarinsulin.htm

 

heres an amusing straightforward summary telling you not to fill your veins with maple syrup!

Slow burn carbs from oats and the Roman Bread (spelt-coarse and varied endosperm) are a much better bet.

[CiceroD]

I dont know about how the ancients sold honey

 

But as a former beekeeper I know that before modern food laws honey was considered "safe" from adulturation. This was so, only if it was sealed in its original honeycomb.

 

Therefore while sugar was pure sweetness (that wasn't sticky)

I can imagine one was always running the risk that that the "expensive spice" was actually half sawdust or somthing.

[Andrew Dalby]

Regarding Galen's use of sugar, I found the following written by Mark Grant for the British Journal of Educational Studies (March, 1999), titled "Steiner and the Humours: The Survival of Ancient Greek Science": "[Galen held] that a manifestation of melancholy in children was connected with some irregularity in the function of the liver. Sugar and sweet things could be prescribed to help normalise the function of the liver. With sanguine children a diet and a reduction in the consumption of sweet things was useful, since any abnormality was caused by an irregularity in the activity of the liver in respect of the secretion of gall."

 

So it would seem that the ancients might have used sugar as a means of balancing the humors within a patient.

 

And a side effect would be that it would make the children happy and keep them quiet. As Gripe Water used to do. Even modern parents occasionally look for treatments that have this useful side effect.

 

For those who don't know, Gripe Water is (or was) a cure for stomach-ache in children. It contained fennel or aniseed (which are widely accepted to be useful digestives), plus a proportion of sugar, plus a proportion of alcohol. It tasted very good indeed: in fact, you would be inclined to claim that you had stomach-ache just to be given a spoonful of Gripe Water.

 

I dont know about how the ancients sold honey

 

But as a former beekeeper I know that before modern food laws honey was considered "safe" from adulturation. This was so, only if it was sealed in its original honeycomb.

 

Therefore while sugar was pure sweetness (that wasn't sticky)

I can imagine one was always running the risk that that the "expensive spice" was actually half sawdust or somthing.

 

Oh, yes, there was a big problem with adulteration of expensive spices. If you read what Pliny has to say about them (in Natural History), he gives careful instructions for how to tell if they have been mixed with undesirable additives.

 

I don't often get the chance to buy honey in the comb. But when I help to organize a Roman banquet I always try to serve it like that if I can. It really tastes good, I think.

[Pantagathus]

An interesting note in the old John Bostock translation of Pliny:

 

"Saccharon." F