Chapter SUCLÁT to SUGAR of S by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

next best after the muccara …

“Zucchero Bambillonia is the best next after the best caffettino.

“Zucchero musciatto is the best after that of Bambillonia.

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“Zucchero chandi, the bigger the pieces are, and the whiter, and the brighter, so much is it the better and finer, and there should not be too much small stuff.

“Powdered sugars are of many kinds, as of Cyprus, of Rhodes, of the Cranco of Monreale, and of Alexandria; and they are all made originally in entire loaves; but as they are not so thoroughly done, as the other sugars that keep their loaf shape … the loaves tumble to pieces, and return to powder, and so it is called powdered sugar …” (and a great deal more).—Ibid. 362–365. We cannot interpret most of the names in the preceding extract. Bambillonia is ‘Sugar of Babylon,’ i.e. of Cairo, and Dommaschino of Damascus. Mucchera (see CANDY (SUGAR), the second quotation), Caffettino, and Musciatto, no doubt all represent Arabic terms used in the trade at Alexandria, but we cannot identify them.

c. 1345.—“J’ai vu vendre dans le Bengale … un rithl (rottle) de sucre (al- sukkar), poids de Dihly, pour quatre drachmes.”—Ibn Batuta, iv. 211.

1516.—“Moreover they make in this city (Bengala, i.e. probably Chittagong) much and good white cane sugar (açuquere branco de canas), but they do not know how to consolidate it and make loaves of it, so they wrap up the powder in certain wrappers of raw hide, very well stitched up; and make great loads of it, which are despatched for sale to many parts, for it is a great traffic.”—Barbosa, Lisbon ed. 362.

[1630.—“Let us have a word or two of the prices of suger and suger candy.”—Forrest, Bombay Letters, i. 5.]

1807.—“Chacun sait que par effet des regards de Farid, des monceaux de terre se changeaient en sucre. Tel est le motif du surnom de Schakar ganj, ‘tresor de sucre’ qui lui a été donné.”—Araish-i-Mahfil, quoted by Garcin de Tassy, Rel. Mus. 95. (This is the saint, Farid-uddin Shakarganj (d. A.D. 1268) whose shrine is at Pak Pattan in the Punjab.) [See Crooke, Popular Religion, &c. i. 214 seqq.]

1810.—“Although the sugar cane is supposed by many to be indigenous in India, yet it has only been within the last 50 years that it has been cultivated to any great extent. … Strange to say, the only sugar-candy used until that time” (20 years before the date of the book) “was received from China; latterly, however, many gentlemen have speculated deeply in the manufacture. We now see sugar-candy of the first quality manufactured in various places of Bengal, and I believe that it is at least admitted that the raw sugars from that quarter are eminently good.”—Williamson, V.M. ii. 133.

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