On food and cooking the science and lore of the kitchen ( PDFDrive ) 1230

for“nutcake,”enteredthelanguageearlyin
thecentury;fondant,fromtheFrenchfor
“melting,”thebasicmaterialoffudgeandall
semisoftorcreamycenters,wasdeveloped
around1850.Mostcandytodayisavariation
ofsomekindonbonbons,taffy,andfondant.
SugarasDisguise
The medicinal origins of confections live
oninexpressionsthatweusetoday.While
“honey” is almost invariably a term of
praise,“sugar”isoftenambivalent.Sugary
words, a sugary personality, suggest a
certain calculation and artificiality. And
theideaof“sugaringover”something,the
deception of hiding something distasteful
in a sweet shell, would seem to be taken
directly from the druggist’s confections.
As early as 1400, the phrase, “Gall in his
breastandsugarinhisface”wasused,and
ShakespearehasHamletsaytoOphelia,


’Tistoomuchprov’d,thatwithdevotion’s
visage
Andpiousactionwedosugaro’er
Thedevilhimself.(III.i)
TheRiseoftheSugarIndustryThe18thcenturyexplosioninEuropeansugar
consumptionwasmadepossiblebycolonial
ruleintheWestIndiesandtheenslavementof
millionsofAfricans.Columbuscarriedthe
canetoHispaniola(nowHaitiandthe

DominicanRepublic)onhissecondvoyagein
1493.Byabout1550,theSpanishand
PortuguesehadoccupiedmanyCaribbean
islandsandthecoastsofwesternAfrica,
Brazil,Mexico,andwereproducingsugarin
significantquantities;English,French,and
Dutchcolonistsfollowedinthenextcentury.
By1700,some10,000Africanswerebeing
tradedviathePortuguesecolonySãoTométo
theAmericaseveryyear.Thesugarindustry
wasnottheonlyforcebehindthegreat
expansionofslavery,butitprobablywasthe