I have a taste for sugar. I know, I know, it’s the Evil Enemy these days, especially with low-carb diets, but I’m never going to give it up for an imitation. Sugar is beautiful. It tastes good. All by itself, it isn’t terribly high in calories (15 calories per teaspoon). I have a friend who once threatened to put my sugar habits in a book, they were so stylized and precise. Since then, I’ve cut way back, but I still love the real thing, especially turbinado or raw sugar, all grainy and sparkly and brown. It adds such great flavor to a cup of coffee.
Which is why I’m happy to point you to a post on Paris Breakfasts. She’s posted some fantastic photos of sugar presentations in Paris, along with a link to Can a suc, (sorry, can’t figure out how to put the accent in), which is such a treat you really just have to go see it for yourself. It’s in French, but that doesn’t matter.
I feel a bestseller coming on…
The Lovely Sugars
By Barbara Samuel
🙂
Those are amazing!
Oh, I love these people! I have their green and pink sugars–and I use them, though I almost hate to. Love going to Galeries Lafayette’s home store and just looking at them all in a row. Such a treat.
Ironically, I’m writing a piece on carbs right now for a client. Did you know that 1/2 cup of potato contains 3x the amount of carb as a single teaspoon of sugar? So don’t feel too bad about indulging every once in a while. 😉
Gorgeous pics. I loved looking at them, thank you.
I immediatly thought of a description in a Mary Stewart book about stirring a flat oblong of sugar into a coffee and watching it dissolve. I think it was Madam Will You Talk.
Either that, or it’s something out of Elizabeth David.
But I think the anti-sugar thing has gone too far. If you asked me which is better for your health, sugar, a natural, slightly processed product of the sugar cane plant, or a bunch of chemicals dreamed up in a lab to taste like sugar and have no calories, I’d go for the natural product every time.
Agreed, Anne! Sure, too much sugar is bad for you but they’re already starting to see the effects of those chemicals, and how they’re suspected to hasten up the ageing process. Besides, are any of those chemicals anywhere near as pretty as those sugars? Hmm? No, didn’t think so.
Organic and natural are always the best words, IMO. Butter is better than margarine, sugar better than sweetners, honey from the hive best of all, probably.
Beauty counts for a lot, in food as in so many things.