The Princess and The Brown Sugar
Woe is me, I'm living in a fairy tale entitled The Princess and The Brown Sugar. I've raised someone who can detect when brown sugar is substituted for white cane sugar in her tea. I know her grandmother writes cookbooks but hadn't realized that such food sensitivity was genetic.
My uncouth palate was curtly dismissed with a hand wave. But it's all just sugar to me. Let's be frank, can you really tell the difference? Let alone after said sugar is dissolved in tea? Ebei, there's some African electronics at work, Nyame dua.
Or perhaps I should turn to her grandfather, a materials scientist, for pointers on aqueous processing of sugar. Could it really be that brown sugar crystals are processed differently by the tongue? Enough to make a difference in taste? Another book project...
The Princess and The Honey, a playlist
A soundtrack for this anecdote (spotify version)
- Princesse Nubienne by Les Nubians
- Sugar You Want by Beres Hammond
- Brown Sugar by D'Angelo
- Being a Girl by Van Hunt
- It Makes No Difference Now by Ray Charles
- I Want A Little Sugar In My Bowl by Nina Simone
Further reading
- Food Culture in Sub-Saharan Africa by Fran Osseo-Asare
- The Ghana Cookbook by Fran Osseo-Asare and Barbara Baëta
Backstory
The initial feedback to this note was ferocious, I was told that there was a indeed a difference in taste and texture, and that I had a wholly indiscriminate palate. I was even deemed to be shameless for drinking tea with brown sugar, a culinary affront. Moreover there were fears that I might even have the rona or be covidiously afflicted if I couldn't even pass such a taste test. The Wife's testimony in my defence didn't make a difference, almost every one sided with the princess. I've come to realize that I am definitely in a minority in this business so much so that I've decided that, as I am indeed living in a fairy tale, I needed to add some beasts to the prevailing soundtrack:
(Ducks)
This folktale is part of a series: In a covidious time
File under: humour, taste, food, music, parenthood, whimsy, culture, family, life, folktale, covidious, toli
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