7/5/2023 0 Comments Black cake a novel![]() ![]() ![]() For the most part, Europeans sweetened their food with fruit or honey, and most did not consume sweetened foods at all except on very rare occasions. By the time Spain and Portugal began their exploration and colonization of the Americas in the late 15 th century, sugar was still a rare commodity, mostly consumed by royalty and the very wealthy. ![]() The expansion of the Arab world in the Mediterranean, and the Moorish conquest of Spain, brought sugar to some parts of Europe in 8-9 th centuries, and during the Crusades in the 11 th century, European soldiers started learning how to process and refine sugar in the Middle East. The sugarcane plant, which is a variety of grass, was first refined in India around 500 BCE, and then sugar refining spread to China and the Middle East, with a slow migration and cultivation of sugarcane through several centuries, from Asia and the Middle East and then to the Mediterranean and Atlantic. This pursuit of sweetness would change the trajectory of four continents between the 16 th and 19 th centuries. ![]()
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