Sugar

Sugar was not, historically, plentiful or abundant until the late 1500’s.  What we would consider an every day stable was used sparingly for medicinal used (improve digestion and increase appetite) to only found on the tables of the relatively wealthy.

SugarSaccharum officinarum “…considered a spice even rarer and more expensive then any other…pharmaceutical use…gives its species name of officinarum.”   Considered very expensive till the late 1500.

Loaf sugar given the name due to the conical shape derived from refining into a hard and very white refined form.

Caffetin or Couffin (English equivalent of “coffer” or “coffin”) named for the form, packed in plaited leaves palm and from the city shipped from called Caffa in the Crimea.   

Casson a very fragile sugar also considered the ancestor to Castor sugar.  Muscarrat considered the best of all sugars, reported to be made in Egypt for the Sultan of Babylon.

The Italian name mucchera denotes that it had been refined twice.

Toussaint-Samat, pg. 553-555

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