Sweetness

Sugar plays numerous significant roles in today’s world. It grips us in the mundane tasks of everyday ‘modern’ life – grabbing a cup of coffee or eating any number of the innumerable sweetened products throughout our day – to the broader conventions of cultural – eating a birthday cake or holiday pie, etc. – to even fueling our modes of transportation (think Brazil); or even aiding in our survival – medical use and food aid to malnourished/starving people the world over. Sugar, in short, permeates our contemporary lives. Mintz’s Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern history traces (to a degree) the development of this behemoth modern commodity; demonstrating along the way that sugar, in essence, acted as a vehicle of tremendous change the world over. Whether it proved the driver, however, remains a bit fluid in my thinking.

As Mintz notes, by the turn of the 20^th century “sugar in the form of processed sucrose had become an essential ingredient” in western diets – expanding the scope and range of consumables (187). This point cannot be understated in its implications. Without sugar as a sweetening agent, bitter and exotic foods more than likely would never have taken hold (I know, terrible unprovable assertion!). Further, it contributed, along with other spices and flavoring elements, to the emergence of gastronomy. To call on a favorite, an examination of French Enlightenment texts (Diderot and d’Alembert’s Encyclopedie for example) yields that the development of food for food’s sake neatly coincides with the rise of these flavor enhancers. More than simply creating more pleasant eating experiences, however, these developments fundamentally altered the way people interacted with one another and went about their lives; a point, I think, Mintz addresses well enough. In that sense, this work and its subject offer a compelling examination of the effects commodities – tangible and intangible – have on people and society.

Obviously, as pretty much everyone has thus noted, the stories of cultural development and economy are inexorably linked. I know it comes down to personal taste (see what I did there?) but I think the cultural lens (that is to say examining how peoples’ interactions and conventions evolved) is quite interesting and informative; and commodities prove to be an invaluable mechanism for such studies. And not to get too Joan Scottian, but I wonder how far commodities can go in demonstrating power relationships – especially with regards to class. As Mintz and everyone would agree, sugar is no longer rare (necessarily), but ‘quality’ sugar, I think, certainly enjoys a degree of ‘rarity’ about it. That is to say, everyone can buy a donut at Giant or Kroger, but markets exist for gourmet donuts and what have you. Or to get more sugary – think of the more expensive ‘raw,’ ‘unprocessed,’ ‘organic,’ etc. sugars and their associated costs (think Starbucks vs. DD), and what they speak to in our own society.