There is scarcely
anything fitted for human food in the vegetable world (and our earliest
ancestors were most undoubted vegetarians) which does not contain sugar
in considerable quantities. In temperate climates (where man is but a
recent intruder), we have taken, it is true, to regarding wheaten bread
as the staff of life; but in our native tropics enormous populations
still live almost exclusively upon plantains, bananas, bread-fruit,
yams, sweet potatoes, dates, cocoanuts, melons, cassava, pine-apples,
and figs. Our nerves have been adapted to the circumstances of our early
life as a race in tropical forests; and we still retain a marked liking
for sweets of every sort. Not content with our strawberries,
raspberries, gooseberries, currants, apples, pears, cherries, plums and
other northern fruits, we ransack the world for dates, figs, raisins,
and oranges. Indeed, in spite of our acquired meat-eating propensities,
it may be fairly said that fruits and seeds (including wheat, rice,
peas, beans, and other grains and pulse) still form by far the most
important element in the food-stuffs of human populations generally.
But besides the natural sweets, we have also taken to producing
artificial ones. Has any housewife ever realised the alarming condition
of cookery in the benighted generations before the invention of sugar?
It is really almost too appalling to think about. So many things that we
now look upon as all but necessaries--cakes, puddings, made dishes,
confectionery, preserves, sweet biscuits, jellies, cooked fruits, tarts,
and so forth--were then practically quite impossible.
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