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Sugarcane and Slavery

Boy is this ever a topic I'd rather avoid! However there is no denying the historic link between sugarcane production.

We were tracing the spread of sugarcane and the sugar industry from the Old World to the new. But slave labor used to harvest and process sugarcane began long before sugarcane was brought to the Caribbean.  

Before sugarcane made its way to the Atlantic islands off the coast of Spain and Portugal, slave labor was used in Crete, Cyprus, and Morocco. Warfare and plague had diminished the local labor force so slaves were 'needed' to harvest it.

Slavery and sugar remained tied for a very long time, most notably so in the New World. 11 million African slaves were exported from their homelands. Six million of them went to work making sugar- the most of any profession. When the Haitian Revolution occurred near 1800, ending slavery there, it cut off 43 percent of Europe’s sugar supply.

One cool note: female slaves were often the distillers of rum in the islands. 

Abolition

(Anti-Saccharites parody cartoon.)

The abolition movement in England linked sugar to slavery, and encouraged people to boycott sugar. The movement was largely lead by women, who purchased the sugar for the home. They were known as anti-saccharites. 

1807 the British House of Commons made the slave trade- but not slavery- illegal.  It wasn't until the 1830s before it was by British law. 

The Emancipation Proclamation that finally freed the American slaves took effect in 1865.

After the abolition of slavery in Cuba in 1884, all Caribbean sugar was made by non-forced labor.

Sugar After Slavery

After slavery ended, new labor was needed to harvest sugar cane, as many former slaves weren't about to take it up again.

Laborers came from many places, but especially from China and India. They worked as  indentured servants, paying off their ride to the new island for several years. Indentured workers were called coolies.

This and other policies kept former slaves from buying land and becoming economically equal to whites.  

After 1869, Trinidad granted small parcels of land to people who completed their indenturship. They bought up 23,000 acres between 1885 and 1895.

On Mauritius, nearly half a million Indian workers imported between 1834 and 1910. At one point they produced 9.4 percent of the worlds sugar supply, mostly providing it to Britain.

Though it was far from smooth sailing, eventually things worked out. According to Sugar: A Bittersweet History by Elizabeth Abbott:

 “Mauritius is an anomaly in the colonized sugar world. Its minorities, Creole and white, have accepted its Indianness- at 68 percent of the population, it has the largest concentration of Indian outside India- and a succession of Indo-Mauritian leaders have governed. An elite minority speaks English, the country’s official language, while everyone else speaks French-derived Creole. Hindu and Muslim holidays are observed, and since 1877, the Mauitian currency has been its rupee. Mauritius’s unique circumstances and the dynamics of its society have enabled its people to unite in racial harmony. Ironically, they have embraced sugar as their common denominator.” 

In Hawaii, the indentured laborers were Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Filipino. Chinese workers were later banned from immigrating because the powers that be felt there were too many who stuck around after their indenture time expired. 

What fascinates me about the post-slavery indentured servant era of sugar production is the racial and cultural makeup of Caribbean islands that results from it. There are interesting mixes of whites, blacks, and Asian/Indian populations that vary depending on the island. The cross-cultural pollination over many years has lead to some fascinating local customs, celebrations, and cuisines that we think of as unique local island traditions when we visit on vacation. You go to Martinique and it's all very French and people drink champagne on the beach. You go to Trinidad and eat roti and other Indian food for every meal. As it turns out, those traditions developed due to the unique mix of people from diverse parts of the world, united under a shared history of sugarcane.  

 

The Sugar Spirit Project is sponsored by Bacardi Rum. Content created and owned by Camper English for Alcademics. For the project index, click on the logo above or follow this link. 

 

The Spread of Sugarcane in the New World

When we last left off looking at sugarcane's spread from India/Indonesia to the rest of the world, the sugar industry had shifted from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic islands of Spain and Portugal, including Madeira and the Canary islands. 

During this time, the powers in Europe were developing a taste for sugar. 

Sugar was only known in Europe after the 8th century. This is about the time that references to growing cane in the Mediterranean appear. Molasses reached England by late 1200s, coming from Sicily. 

King Henry III (in the 13th century) ordered three pounds of sugar “if so much is to be had,” as it was rare luxury item.

But by 1319 one Venetian trader carried 100,000 pounds of it to London. The sweet tooth for sugar developed fast. 

Starting in 1470, European countries radically changed how sugar was produced. They imported crude sugar and refined it locally. This changed the power dynamic – refineries had power and profits - and plays into how the sugar colonies in the New World were treated.

Sugar's Voyage to the New World

Columbus carried sugarcane from the Canary islands to New World on his second voyage to Hispaniola (Dominican Republic and Haiti) in 1493. However they were more concerned with finding gold than farming, so the sugarcane failed.

Later they brought in experts from the Canary Islands to help get it established. It was first grown in the new world in Santo Domingo (though it failed a few times first) and was first shipped back to Europe in 1516.

Portugal soon got into the sugarcane farming business as well. Brazil was shipping sugar to Lisbon Portugal by 1526 in large quantities. The Portuguese ruled the 1500s in terms of sugarcane dominance.  

In early 1500s, Spain conquered the Mexican mainland, and used the Caribbean islands more as protected harbors along shipping routes than as sugar growing islands. From 1580 to 1650 (when the English and French got into the game on smaller islands) the Caribbean didn’t produce all that much sugar for export. 

In 1625 Brazil was still supplying nearly all of Europe with sugar, but when English colonies got into full swing they drove Portugal out of the Northern European trade areas.

Until the mid-1600s, the British navy drink was "beer sometimes supplanted by brandy." Then the British started making rum. Barbados was settled in 1627 and sugar was grown there. Then after the 1655 British conquest of Jamaica, they started replacing the  brandy ration with Jamaican rum. (Rum is distilled from molasses, the byproduct of sugar production.)

In 1731 rum became part of the official ration all the way up until Black Tot Day in 1970. Navy rum didn't just provide tasty nutrients, it killed bacteria in the drinking water. 

Though the Portuguese, Spanish, and British were growing sugarcane, French prices were the best in Europe. Unable to compete, England just supplied its own needs from its islands, keeping pace with increasing demands. 

As we touched on before sugarcane was even grown in the New World, England  eventually forbade colonies from refining their own sugar. This kept the sugar colonies“infantilized and dependent.” Europe kept all the control, kept wealthy landowners in power in the colonies. The sugar colonies were to be used, not respected. 

In the early 1600s, the British, Dutch and French all established Caribbean plantations. Years later in the 1800s, Cuba and Brazil were the major producers. Between these eras, sugar production increased as people got a taste for it. The technology to grow and refine sugar didn't change much in this era, but consumer demand did. 

In the next post we'll look at sugar production and the labor used to do the work. 

*Bonus fun fact* The West India Docks in Jamaica had gang members with the best names: The River Pirates, Night Plunderers, Heavy Horsemen, Scuffle-Hunters, and Mud Larks.

 

The Sugar Spirit Project is sponsored by Bacardi Rum. Content created and owned by Camper English for Alcademics. For the project index, click on the logo above or follow this link. 

 

The Spread of Sugarcane in the Old World

In the last post we looked at what sugarcane is. Now we'll see where it came from and how it traveled around the world.

 

Sugarcane is a tall grass native to the region of the India and Southeast Asia. It was first domesticated in New Guinea, perhaps independently in Indonesia.

 

In 325 BC Alexander the Great’s general Nearchus said, “A reed in India brings forth honey without the help of bees, from which an intoxicating drink is made though the plant bears no fruit.”

 

Around the same time, sugar was referred to as khanda, from which we probably derive the word candy.

 

In China there are references to sugar in 286 BC. Sugar spread with Buddhism and the Buddha was even referred to as the “King of Sugarcane.”

 

Sugar loaves were probably first produced in India 2000 years ago. Sugar loaves are hardened in ceramic molds or cones from which the more liquid molasses was drained, leaving behind the dark-brown, crystalline loaf.

 

Dioscorides (circa 40—90 AD) wrote, “There is a kind of concentrated honey, called saccharon, found in reeds in India and Arabia Felix, like in consistence to salt, and brittle to be broken between the teeth, as salt is. It is good for the belly and the stomach being dissolved in water and so drank, helping the pained bladder and the reins.” This shows he was familiar with the crystalline form of sugar. 

 

Sugar making in Egypt probably came before Arab conquest. The Arabs were experts at irrigation and used their skills to grow sugarcane and spread it to new places. Arabs spread it to the Mediterranean, Sicily, Cyprus, Malta, Morocco, and Spain. 

 

During the First Crusade (1096-99) Christians discovered Arab cane farms. Soon they were growing and transferring sugar cane to new locations.  

 

From the Canary Islands it traveled to the New World. We'll pick up sugar's spread to the West in the next post. 

 

 

The Sugar Spirit Project is sponsored by Bacardi Rum. Content created and owned by Camper English for Alcademics. For the project index, click on the logo above or follow this link. 

 

Tales of the Cocktail Preview: What the V.O.C. Did for the Modern Bar

This is a preview of a seminar that will be given at Tales of the Cocktail in New Orleans, which takes place July 20-24, 2011.

The V.O.C., better known as the Dutch East India Company, influenced world history as well as the world of cocktails. It was a corporation big enough that it waged wars, coined currency, and executed prisoners.

It was established in 1602 and given a government-granted trade monopoly with Asia, with the main purpose being to enter the spice trade that was until that point dominated by Portugal.The company was highly prosperous until the later 1700's, and it went bankrupt and dissolved in 1800. Its territories in the Dutch East Indies eventually became Indonesia.

The company established posts and protected harbors throughout Asia, first in what today is Indonesia; particularly in Jakarta. Jakarta was once called Batavia, and that brings us into the V.O.C.'s connection with Batavia Arrack.

Back at home, ships bringing spices would land at ports such as Rotterdam and offload. Rotterdam is darn close to Schiedam, a city with so many distilleries that it was coated in black soot from the smoke billowing forth from them.

Those distilleries made delicious genever, of course, which is distilled with some of those exotic spices brought home by traders. The Dutch were also famous for making liqueurs (such as Curacao) undoubtedly flavored with other exotic citrus peels, herbs, and spices brought into the country from afar. 

Today Scheidem is still a distilling hub making such products as Van Gogh Vodka and Ketel One Vodka.

I'm guessing we'll be learning these and other details in this seminar.

Seminar Info:

What the V.O.C. did for the Modern Bar
Time: 10 AM to 11:30 AM
Date: Thursday the 21st of July, 2011
Venue: The Riverview Room, Hotel Monteleone
Moderators: Misja Vorstermans
Panelists: Andrew Nicholls

The seminar will address what the VOC (Dutch East India Trading Company) essentially did for the modern bar. Everything from trade of spirits to herbs, spices and slaves were established or heavily influenced by the VOC. The seminar looks at the knock on effect from the 1600's and the little country of The Netherlands helped mould the industry we know and love today.

A Negroni or Two in Florence

When I was in Florence with Bombay Sapphire, we had an education session by Luca Picchi. Picchi has taken it upon himself to study the history of the Negroni cocktail and the man who inspired its creation.

He published a book, "Sulle Tracce Del Conte" about the life of Cammillo Negroni. The book has been translated into English and may be available at Tales of the Cocktail this year (Picchi will be there) if they settle some international copyright issues. 

According to Picchi, Negroni was an Italian playboy who fathered an illegitimate child and decided it was best to skedaddle. He moved to the United States and became a big cattle rancher near Saskatchewan, Canada. 

He moved back to Italy in 1912, and wasn't welcome in Florence initially,but soon enough he was frequenting the bars of the city. 

It was at Cafe Casoni where the drink bearing his name was invented. Negroni would frequent the place and asked for something stronger than his usual Americano. The bartender replaced the soda water with gin and the drink was born. 

Currently, Picchi works at Caffe Rivoire and I stopped in for a drink. (If I remember correctly, Casoni and Rivoire had the same owners, and now Casoni is a store owned by Roberto Cavalli, so Rivoire is considered the inheritor of the Negroni legacy.)

Living in San Francisco, I thought that all Negronis were made the way they make them here- stirred, served up, and garnished with an orange or lemon twist. Not so!

This is not the case in Italy, where Negronis are always made on the rocks and with an orange slice (rather than peel) garnish. I stopped in to Rivoire for a Negroni (or two) from Picchi, and on a hot day on Florence it was delicious. 

At the bar, they have a plaque dedicated to the Negroni. I think it may be the same plaque that was once at Casoni. 

I popped the text into Google translate and this is what it says, not revealing much. 

In mid-twenties, these walls driven by imaginative delicacies.
Count Camillo Negroni gin to add some Americano who came to drink with friends everyday. Count Camillo thus cause the accidental invention of the Negroni and its spread in the elegant world of the time. it was unique sir
deserve as much gratitude and memory availability of dark unaware Scarselli first mixer [Scarselli was the bartender who made the drink for Negroni.] and the consistency of coffee in Giacosa keep alive memory of the event along with the current owners brothers bardelli.

If any of you Italian speakers would care to offer a better translation I would appreciate it. 

So, if you happen to be traveling to Florence any time soon, I recommend that you stop in to the Caffe Rivoire to have a Negroni from Luca Picchi.

What's the Difference Between Orange Curacao and Triple Sec?

I tried to answer that question as best as I could in my recent post for FineCooking.com.

Four hundred years ago, the Dutch were some of the world’s greatest traders and, not coincidentally, great distillers. They’d preserve the spices, herbs, and fruit brought home on ships in flavored liqueurs and other spirits. Curacao was one of those liqueurs, flavored with bitter orange peels from the island of the same name. At the time, the liqueur would have had a heavy, pot-distilled brandy as its base.

Then the French came along (a couple hundred years later) and invented triple sec. The “sec” meaning “dry,” or less sweetened than the Dutch liqueur. The origin of the “triple” is still up for debate, but the two leading schools of thought are “triple distillation” versus “three times as orangey”. Triple sec was also clear, whereas curacaos were dark in color.

Today, triple secs are usually still clear (made from a base of neutral spirits), whereas curacaos may start that way and be colored orange, blue, and even red. Cointreau is probably the most recognized brand of orange liqueur in the triple sec style, and Grand Marnier, despite being French, is more in line with the Dutch curacao style as it has an aged brandy base.

Nerds: Do you think that's an accurate summation?

The full post is here, and it includes a recipe for the White Lady cocktail.

Whisky Galore Day is February 5th

On February 5, 1941, the SS Politician ran aground off the islands of Scotland. After a bit, the ship broke up and began to sink, so local islanders rowed out to help salvage its contents: over 20,000 cases of whisky. Unfortunately, the government considered the salvaging more like looting, and pursued those who took part in it. 

 This story was told in the novel Whisky Galore, by Compton Mackenzie. (Mackenzie also wrote Monarch of the Glen, which became the basis for a long-running series on British television.)

The book was then made into a comedy film called Whisky Galore and released in the US under the name Tight Little Island. It's available for sale on Amazon or for rent on Netflix. 

The 70th anniversary of the grounding of the ship is Saturday, Feb 5, 2011, so make sure you celebrate with a dram of your favorite maritime scotch whisky. 

In 1970 a newspaper funded a diving expedition to find the ship and pull out some of the whisky still trapped inside. This whisky went up for auction in 2008 and I wrote about that here. 

The book Whisky Galore spawned at least two follow-ups:  Scotch on the Rocks: The True Story Behind Whisky Galore and  Polly: The True Story Behind Whisky Galore. 

And if you happen to be in Liverpool at the moment, the local maritime museum is having a display of whisky and a couple of artifacts from the SS Politician. 

Read about the museum exhibit here, see the Wikipedia pages for the book and the film.

The entire movie is currently up on YouTube, cut into six parts. The first one is below. 

 

 

Germany, Ensslin, Aviation, and Blue Cocktails

My latest post on FineCooking.com is up. It's typical of my thought process: I was going to write about my time in Germany and ended up talking about a German bartender who wrote an American cocktail book in which the Aviation cocktail was first mentioned and later forgotten. 

Read it here. 

(I took this picture- not bad for me!)