Words by Matt Dursum
Growing up, my parents were sugar addicts. From the Sara Lee Corporation’s refined goodies to midwestern-styled Polish pączkis, nothing was too sweet. Like most kids, I hated most of what my parents liked, and sugar quickly became my enemy.
The detest I felt slowly shifted towards processed foods. And once I tasted fresh pressed sugar cane juice, it turned my world around. Sugar, when eaten or drunk in moderation, could be ok. And when you factor in the finest rums and cachaças, it’s hard not to be a fan. Yet, it still has a dark side. By looking at its role in slavery and obesity and its importance in the global economy, we can come to understand this ever popular ingredient better.
The Sugar Harvest
Saccharum officinarum is the scientific name for the tall perennial grass known as sugar cane. This versatile crop is cultivated for its high sugar content as sucrose and is a major global agricultural commodity.
People in Southeast Asia and Oceania were the first to gather the sweet cane stalks. Around 8,000 years ago, people domesticated it, starting in Papua New Guinea. From there, it spread to other parts of the world through trade routes and colonization. In India, archeologists discovered the first scripts describing the refinement of sugar around 100 A.D.
For centuries, it remained a novelty spice, despite its growing popularity in the cuisine of the upper classes. Cultivating sugarcane was backbreaking work. It starts with planting stem cuttings, known as “setts,” into prepared fields. The setts develop into shoots, which grow into mature sugar cane stalks.
Once sugarcane reaches maturity, it is ready for harvesting. The traditional method involves cutting the stalks manually using machetes or specialized harvesting machines.
Refinement starts with crushing the stalks to extract the juice. This nectar is rich in sugar, as sucrose and contains water, fiber, and other nutrients. Farmers then clarify the juice to remove impurities and evaporate the liquid by boiling it. From here, workers separate the pure sugar crystals from the leftover syrup, known as molasses. Eventually, these two products fueled a global food craze and the most brutal industry in human history.
Sugar’s Connection to Slavery
Madeira and the Canary Islands became home to Europe’s first sugar plantations after Europeans colonized the islands. The colonizers enslaved the indigenous people, forcing them to work on the new plantations.
The Portuguese and Spanish were the first Europeans to set foot in the Americas and it wasn’t before long that sugar and slavery began happening there too. Initially, the enslaved indigenous people worked the colonies’ plantations. However, Europe’s growing appetite for coffee, tea, and sweet beverages and deserts made the demand for sugar hard to satiate.
In the late 16th century, Portugal, Spain, and other European nations started the trans-Atlantic slave trade. The cultivation of sugarcane required extensive labor. To satisfy the demand for sugar, slavery from Africa went hand in hand with the sugar industry. Sugar became one of the key drivers of European expansion and colonization in the Americas, Africa, and Asia. In the 17th century alone, over a half a million Africans were enslaved and brought to the Americas to work on the plantations. Enduring unimaginable suffering, generations of enslaved peoples worked tirelessly. Because of this, cheap sugar continued to flow into the homes of Europeans and white Americans.
Rum, Cachaça, and Fresh-Pressed Juice
It didn’t take long before distillation technology made it to the shores of the Americas. In Brazil, fresh pressed cane juice was fermented and distilled to make cachaça. In the rest of Latin America, distillers preferred to use the byproduct molasses as the vessel for fermentation. Once distilled, this new spirit took on the name rum.
To make rum, distillers use either unsulphured raw molasses, sulphured and blackstrap molasses, or occasionally fresh cane juice, known as rhum agricole. The original rum was distilled from naturally fermenting cane waste in Barbados.
As the drink’s popularity spread, traders and navies brought rum and its recipe to the world. The terms rumbullion and rumbustion, all meaning hell-raising, were thrown around initially to describe the drink; thanks in part to the effects of its high-alcohol strength. Soon, people began shortening these terms to rum.
The drink soon took over the Americas, especially in the North American colonies. New England colonies started producing and shipping the spirit and British privateers got in on the action. When some of these privateers entered the risky yet lucrative business of piracy, their taste for rum remained strong. Thus, the image of rum-guzzling pirates came to be.
The Modern Day Sugarcane
After European countries finally abolished slavery, other forms of sugar hit the markets. Honey, maple syrup, and sugar beats were the first. Then came the artificial sweeteners of the industrial age.
Sugarcane remained a valuable source of sugar in the tropics. Even today, sugarcane accounts for around 80% of the world’s sugar.
The cane itself has several non-food applications. It’s a key source of ethanol, a renewable biofuel that can be blended with gasoline or used as a standalone fuel source. Another use is producing bagasse, a fibrous residue left after the juice extraction process. Bagasse is a renewable energy source and makes paper, pulp, and bio-based products.
Photo by Josh Withers on Unsplash
Aside from its industrial uses, sugarcane remains a beloved food for many people in warm latitudes. It’s hard not to visit tropical Asia, Latin America, or Africa without ordering a glass of freshly pressed cane juice.
Sugarcane has undeniably caused a lot of societal problems. From slavery to colonization, our cravings for it have forever scarred our societies. This isn’t even including the health risks. Around the world, over consumption results in obesity, diabetes, and many other health problems.
Yet, sugarcane remains an unchallenged ingredient in our modern lives. For me, even though I shun away from the processed sugars my parents loved, I still sip on caipirinhas or rum old fashions. I enjoy caramelized flan, and guzzle fresh-pressed cane juice like an addict. I may be able to say no to refined sugar, but that sweet grassy goodness of pure sugarcane gets me every time.