Your pantry's sweetest ingredient has an extremely bitter history. The sap-producing grass known as sugarcane has been grown and enjoyed by humans for at least 10,000 years, but it was only relatively recently that it went from a luxury to an everyday ingredient—a change that also triggered genocide, slavery, and the invention of modern racism. In this episode, how the Crusades got Europeans addicted to the sweet stuff, and how that appetite deforested southern Europe and kicked off the trade in enslaved Africans, before decimating indigenous populations in the New World and codifying racism into law. It's a dark story that involves Christopher Columbus' mistress, the early human rights advocate whose campaign to save indigenous people encouraged the horrors of the transatlantic slave trade, and a trip to southern Louisiana, where we met Black sugarcane farmers to explore sugar's troubling legacy there. No sugar coating here: join us for the fascinating and horrifying history of this household staple. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Island kids all love that cane.
It grows so clean and sweet.
They eat it when it's freshly cut.
And then that's quite a treat.
Neat imperial sugar is quick dissolving.
Imperial sugar is fine grain.
Imperial sugar is 100% game pure cane.
Imperial peanut commercials from the 1960s advertising sugarcane are super cheery and fun and they make me think that everything about sugar is unicorns and rainbows.
That's good because you're listening to gastropod, the show that is all about unicorns and rainbows or, you know, food through the lens of science and history.
Im Nicola Twilley and Im Cynthia Graeber and you listeners probably wont be surprised that you shouldnt believe everything you hear on a tv ad.
Sugar is sweet, but its history really is not.
This episode were telling the story of sugars dark side and although you might think youre familiar with some of the issues around sugar, this is a story you probably havent heard.
It involves the Knights Templar and their crusades, Christopher Columbus mistress and one of the worlds first internationally famous human rights advocates.
Just before we dive into the story of sugar, I have some exciting personal news for you.
My refrigeration book, which longtime listeners will know I have been working on for literally years, is coming out next month and I am beyond excited for you all to read it.
It's called how refrigeration changed our food, our planet and ourselves.
And if you love gastropod, you'll love it.
Pre ordering a book is pretty much the most helpful thing you can do to support an author, so please consider doing that if you can.
And here's the even more exciting news that you can use.
You can enter for a chance to get a free copy of the book early before anyone else.