Mower County transcript. [volume] (Lansing, Minn.) 1868-1915, 1885-02-04
Life Without Sugar.

From Cornhill aga1ine.)
Besides the natural sweets we have
taken to producing artificial ones. Has
any housewife ever realized the alarm.
ing condition of cookery in the benight-
ed generations before the invention of
sugar? tits really almost too appalling
to think about. So many things that
We now look upon as all but necesaries
cakes, puddings, made dishes, con-
fectionery, preserves, sweet biscuits, jel-
lies, cooked fruits, etc., were then prac-
tically quite impossible. Fancy at
tempting nowadays to live single day
without sugar; no tea, no coffee, no
jam, no pudding, no cake, no sweets, no
hot toddy before one goes to bed;
the bare idea is too terrible. And vet
that was really the abject condition OF
all the civilized world up to the middle
of the middle ages. Horaces punch
was sugarless and lemonless; the gentle
Virgil never tasted the congenial cup
of afternoon tea; and Socrates went
from his cradle to his grave without
ever knowing the flavor of peppermint
bull's-eyes. How the children managed
to spend their Saturday as, or their
weekly obolus, isa profound mystery;
to be sure, people had honey; but hon
ey is rare, dear, and scanty; it can
never have filed one quarter the place
that sugar fills in our modern affections
Try for q moment to realize drinking
honey with ones whisky and water, OF
doing the years preserving with pot
Of best Narborine, and you get at once
common measure of the difference be-
tween the two as practical sweeteners.
Nowadays we get sugar from cane and
beet-root in abundance, while sugar
naples and palm-trees of various SORTS
afford considerable supply to remoter
countries. But the childhood of the
little Greeks and Romans must have
been absolutely unlighted by q single
ray of JOY from chocolate creams or Ev-
erton coffee. The consequence of this
excessive production of sweets in mod
ern times is, of course, that We have be
gun to distrust the indications afforded
US by the sense of taste in this particu.
lar as to the wholesomeness of various
objects. We can mix sugar with any.
thing We like, whether it had sugar in il
to begin wirh or otherwise, and by
sweetening and flavoring We can give q
false palatableness to even the worst
and most indigestible rubbish, such q
plaster of paris, largely sold under the
name of sugared almonds to the ingen.
uous youth Of two hemispheres. But
in untouched nature the test rarely OF
never fails. As long as fruits are -un.
ripe or unfit for human food they are
green and sour; as soon q they ripeu
they become soft and sweet, and usually
acquire some bright color a q sort ol
advertisement Of their edibiity. In the
main, bar the accidents of civilization
whatever il sweet is good to eat,-nay
more, is meant to be eaten; it is only
our own perverse folly that makes a,
sometimes think all nice things bad TO,
us, and Ill wholesome things nasty. II
. state OF nature the exact opposite il
really the case. One may observe, too
that children, who are iterally young
savages in moro senses than one, stand
nearer to the primitive feeling in thi,
respect than grown-up people. The,
unahectedly Ike sweets; adults VIII
have grown more accustomed to the n
tificial meat diet don't, - . rule, car
much for puddings, cakes, and madI
dishes.
NAY 1 venture parenthetcally K
add, any appearance to the oontraz.
Notwithstanding, that am not . vege
tartan, and that I am far from desirinf
to bring down upon my devoted heai
the imprecaSion pronounced against tn.
rash person who would rob poor MAJ
Of his beer. Il il quite possible to be
heve that vegetaxianism was the staRt
ing point Of tho raoe, without wishing
to consider it also % the goal; Just -
IL quite possible 10 regard clothes q
purely artificial products Of civilization
without desiring personally 70 return 4
the charming simplicity Of the Gazde1
Of Edan.)