Sugar: a Stimulant That Made the Modern World
Chasing that sugar high
This is part two of a series on the stimulants that got the modern world moving. You can check out last week’s post on tea here:
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I keep my sugar in an old plastic canister in my pantry, part of a mismatched set of containers with various flours and other baking ingredients. I have never once wanted to display my sugar to guests. I don’t think they’d be impressed that I own up to four pounds of the stuff at any given time, purchased at the luxury price of $1.99.
But if I lived a few centuries ago, I might do things differently. Sugar, to Europeans in the early modern period, wasn’t just an ingredient in desserts; it was both a luxury good and an important medicine. When it first made its way into Europe from Asia, sugar was far more valuable and …
