LXXIV 
NO SUGAR FOR SHAKESPEARE 
I SN’T IT ODD that the Greeks and Romans, Charle¬ 
magne in his glory, the Knights of King Arthur’s 
Court, even Shakespeare and the intellectuals of his time, 
were entirely unacquainted with sugar, or, perhaps, 
tasted it only now and then! 
Sugar has become such a common article to modern 
people that it is hard to conceive of a time when civilized 
man did not have it on his table. Yet it has not been a 
part of the human diet very long. In Greek and Biblical 
times honey was the one thing mentioned in talking of 
sweetness. 
Sugar originated in India. There sugar cane was called 
the honey-bearing reed and spoken of as the plant that 
had escaped from Paradise. It thrived about the Indian 
Ocean and worked its way westward, finding a home along 
the River Jordan and in Arabia. 
The soldiers of Alexander the Great were the first Eu¬ 
ropeans to taste sugar. It came to be made at the eastern 
end of the Mediterranean and was encountered by the 
Crusaders when they went on their pilgrimages. 
The Moors brought sugar-cane to Spain, and Columbus 
planted it in the West Indies. Here it found a natural 
home. The world was just awakening to its delights. 
The anxiety of European nations for West Indian posses¬ 
sions was largely due to their desire for a source of sugar. 
At that time no method of making sugar from plants 
148 
