Pattaya Mail — Columns

Winebibber’s Grapevine  

Dolf Riks:  Sugar is sweet my love

I have related once before the bizarre legend of the smitten grandmother, but it has been long ago and many of the present readers must have missed it. Here is a repeat of this extraordinary tale.

The people of the enchanted island of Bali believe that in ancient days there was only sugar cane juice for food. Out of compassion with the human race, Vishnu, Lord of the underworld, came down in disguise in order to do something about this problem. Being a god, he proceeded to rape an unwilling Mother Earth in order to fertilise her and give birth to rice. After this extraordinary act, the old lady became pregnant and did what was expected of her. She became known as Sanghyang Ibu Pretiwi, or the smitten grandmother, and in spite of her ruined chastity, she is still held in high esteem.

The above legend tells us among other things that sugar cane is an ancient crop in Southeast Asia. That is - if it was indeed sugar cane (sacchaeum edule of the gramineae or grass family) and not the sugar palm (arenga pinnata of the palmae or palm family) the legend tells us about. Last week I mentioned the "no-carbohydrate diet revolution" of Dr. Atkins, which is at present, after more than twenty-five years, all but forgotten. Other diets and regimes have followed Atkins’ flash in the pan but there are still millions and millions of obese people in the world and the American fast food chains have not gone out of business as may have been reasonably expected. On the contrary they flourish even more than in the Atkins era.

I believe it is in the caves of Altamira that about forty thousand years ago, one of our ancestors painted a picture of a man trying to harvest a beehive with angry bees flying around while he wears some kind of mask to protect his face. It shows that mankind since immemorial times has had a sweet tooth, although sugar was unknown to the Europeans of those days. There is plenty of evidence that the ancients in Mesopotamia cultivated the date palm as well as the fig, both fruits with a high sugar content, to sweeten their food, but refined sugar as such was not known yet.

When that intrepid young conqueror Alexander the Great reached India in the fourth century BC, one of his generals, Nearchus reported that the locals cultivated a reed that produced a sweet crystal, like salt, which was as sweet as honey. Some scholars doubt that this was sugar but others say that the sugar production in India and adjacent lands was already advanced in those days. The granulated crystallised sugar we know was not produced until hundreds of years later. Unrefined, not crystallised sugar is difficult to transport because it ferments easily.

The Romans mentioned sugar in their chronicles, although it seems doubtful that they had tasted it or even seen it themselves. With the Islamic conquest it spread around the Mediterranean, it was commercially produced in Egypt in the tenth century and was introduced by the Moors into Spain when they invaded that country. The crusaders learned to enjoy it while defending their faith in southern Europe and the Middle East. Those who returned introduced it to their loved ones and soon there came a demand for the sweetener in Western Europe. Honey was the main sweetener used up to that point but it was unsuitable to make sugar sculptures and other carvings.

As with the spice trade, the Venetian traders soon found a way to monopolise the sugar trade to the north. It was brought in from Consantinople, sold with a profit to the traders who went over the Alps to the north and once it reached Antwerp, Amsterdam and London, it had become prohibitively expensive. Only the very rich could afford it and commoners kept on using verjuice (a sweet and sour fruit juice) as well as honey in their cooking. Sugar was so rare in thirteen century England that Henry III requested somebody to send him – if possible – three pounds of sugar as a special favour.

In sixteenth century England it was customary among the well to-do to have a beautifully carved or otherwise decorated box with sugar stand on their living room table. This was not to sprinkle over their desserts etc., but to add to their wine as people were convinced that sweetened wine was less intoxicating. Columbus took the sugar cane to the Americas on his second voyage and as soon as the sugar plantations started to produce, the price of the commodity came down considerably and the monopoly of the sugar trade by the Venetians was broken.

The Dutch and other European colonisers started their sugar plantations in Brazil and the Caribbean and also in Indonesia. The American sugar trade was very profitable. Ships brought molasses from the Caribbean and South American estates to the American East Coast. There it was processed and the molasses was made into rum. The rum was exported to Europe and the West Coast of Africa and there bartered for slaves. These unfortunates were fed peanuts (an indigenous American crop introduced to Africa for this very purpose) and transported to the American plantations and there sold for cash or bartered for sugar and molasses. Then they sailed for the East Coast to finish the full trade circle and sell their wares to highest bidder.

People "in the sugar", as it was called, made enormous fortunes until the financial malaise of the twenties and thirties. Our Dutch expression "A Suiker Oompje or Sugar Uncle" means a very rich member of the family who made his money in the sugar plantations in the colonies and who is prepared to help you financially when in trouble. He will eventually leave you the bulk of his fortune if you behave. The English expression "Sugar Daddy" – a rich old man who spends his money on a young female – may have the same origin as the Dutch version. My Webster dictionary dates the use of it as from 1926 onwards, which was at the height of the sugar boom in the world.

For the development of the European sugar beet industry we have to thank Napoleon Bonaparte. During the continental blockade by the British, the sugar supply stopped and Napoleon offered prices to find ways to make sugar from the sweet sugar beet. When a German inventor came up with a good process he was bombarded a Baron and sugar factories started to operate in several parts of occupied Europe. Once Napoleon was dispatched to Elba and later to St. Helene, cane sugar was imported again and several of the beet sugar factories went bankrupt. Later, with the increasing demand for sugar, they reopened and according to one source of mine, at the end of the nineteenth century the consumption of beet sugar in Europe was twice as that of cane sugar.

Nowadays the sugar industry has become so powerful that it reminds one of the tobacco league. When diabetics and other people, who for some reason did not want to use sugar in their food and drinks, turned to artificial sweeteners, and soft drinks companies turned out more and more diet drinks, the sugar industry did something about it. They managed to get substances like cyclamates and saccharin banned by the Food and Drug administration by feeding laboratory mice with so much artificial sweeteners that some of them developed cancer. This was their proof that these substances are bad for us. Rumours are that the amount used to give these poor creatures cancer was so grotesque, that they had probably died when given the same amount of granulated cane or beet sugar as well.

Dear Hillary,
I have only been in Pattaya a few days. The other day I went out with some friends who wanted to show me around. We went into a nice restaurant/pub and before long a Thai woman started up a conversation with me. She told me she only likes elderly men, for they are more reliable than younger ones. She also told me she already liked me a lot and asked if she could come with me to my hotel.

I told her that I was there with my friends and it would be very impolite to leave them alone, never mind taking a girl with me in front of them. I also told her that I am indeed looking for a girlfriend, not only for one night but for a long time. She told me that she has that in mind as well and right now she feels very lonesome and all she wishes for is a good man to take care of her. I gave her the address of my hotel and the telephone number and she promised to call me. What do you think I should do in case she calls me? Do you believe she could be the one I am looking for?

Seeking a Girlfriend.

Dear Seeking,
Honestly, I cannot believe that you would even consider thinking of her as your future girlfriend. You must be aware that she would have talked to anyone the same way, just trying to make business for the day. Of course, if you told her that you are looking for a long-term partnership, it would be even better for her since she wouldn’t be forced to do so every day of her life. I can understand her when she says she’d be more than happy to have a nice man taking care of her. Any of those girls would want that, to have a happy future and an easy life without any money problems. Do you really want a woman like this? Do you really believe a woman who tells you that she really likes you after you’ve met her only ten minutes ago? How old are you?

My advice would be not to think of a life together with her. You can only do that with somebody you really know and trust and love. Maybe after a longer while, you’ll find out she is the person you would like to share your life with. But be careful, you wouldn’t be the first Farang in Pattaya getting rid of his heart first and than of all his money, only to be thrown out after a successful transfer.

  Thai Idiom: Na Ma
‘Horse-Face’

‘They know my mother-in-law?’
‘I’ve only heard idioms concerning the other end of the horse.’

Actually, this idiom doesn’t have to do with horses. A Na-Ma is a person employed as a decoy to entice others into gambling or buying merchandise in a shop.

A jewellery store will often employ people to walk into the shop, praise the quality of the merchandise and pretend to buy in order to induce possible customers in the shop to buy.

In American slang, this person is called a ‘shill’.

The tones are falling and high.

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