The Brookhaven leader., 1885-04-09
LIFE WITHOUT SUGAR.
One OF the Most Severe Deprivations that
the AncIents Suffered.

the AncIents Suffered.
[Cornhill Magazine.l
Has any housewife ever realized the
alarming condition Of cookery in the
benighted generations before the inven-
ton of sugar. 1t is really almost too
appalling to think about. SO many
things that we now look upon as all but
necessities = cakes, puddings, made
dishes, confectionery, preserves, sweet
biscuits, jellies, cooked fruits, etc., were
then practically quite impossible.
Fancy attempting nowadays to live a
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 yet that is the ab,ect condition of
all the civilized world up to the middle
of the middle a, es. Horace's punch wa
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 bulls
eyes. How the children managed to
spend their Saturday as" or their
weekly ''oL olus," is profound mystery;
to be sure, people had honey, but honey
is rare, dear, and scanty: it can never
have fiji ed one-quarter the place that
sugar fills in our modern affections. Try
for moment to realize drinking honey
with one whisky and water, or doing
the years preserving with pot of best
NarDorine, and you get at once a COM
mon measure of the difference between
the two as practical sweeteners-
Nfl f.an
beet-root in aLundan e, while sugar
naples and palm trees OF various sorts
afford q considerable supply to remoter
countries. But the childhood of the lit
tie Greeks and Romans must have been
absolutely unlighted by single ray of
JOY from chocolate creams or EyertOn
tofee. The consequence of this exces-
sive production of sweets IN modern
times Is, of course, that We have begun
to distrust the indications afforded us by
the sense of taste in this particular as to
the WhOesomeness of various objects.
We can mix sugar with any thing we
like, whether it had sugar in it to begin
with or otherwise, aud by sweetening
and fiavoring We can give false palat-
ableneSs to even the worst and most in
digestible rubbish, such as plaster of
Paris, largely sold under the name of
sugared almonds to the ingenious youth
of two hemiSpheres.
But in untouched nature the test
rarely or never fails. AS long as fruits
are unripe or unfit for human food they
are green and sour; as soOn as they ripen
they become soft and sweet, and usually
acquire some bright color as sort of
advertisement OF their edibility. In the
main, bar the accidents of civilization,
whatever is sweet is good to eat-nay,
more, is meant to be eaten; it is only
our own perverse folly that makes US
sometim think all nice things bad for
US, and all wholesome things nasty. In
state OF nature the exact opposite is
really the case. One may observe, too,
that children, who are literally young
savagcs in more senses than one, stand
nearer to the primitive feeling in this
respect than grown-up poorle. They
unatfectedly like sweets, adults who
have grown more accustomed to the ar
titicial meat diet don t, as rule, care
much for puddings, cakes ami made
dishes.