ANTH 2 Lecture Notes - Lecture 15: Saccharum Spontaneum, Sidney Mintz, English Cuisine
Document Summary
The commodity study can help us understand relationships between: Sugar has been cultivated since prehistoric times. Until colonization of the americas, it was used sparingly in europe as a spice or medicine. Sucrose, this favored child of capitalism" epitomized the transition from one kind of society to another. - mintz 1985: 214. From luxury spice to staple food (1650>) Sugar and tea = proletarian hunger killers. By 1900 sugar made up 20% of calories in english diet. Sugar production in the caribbean colonies and industrial production in england were inextricably linked - they fueled each other and the emergence of a global market. This shaped the daily lives - the material conditions and habits of people living in both the americans and in europe. Commodities can shape much about life - the way we eat, the way we celebrate, even the shape of our bodies.
