WHAT THE STUARTS ATE PART THREE

In Stuart times, salt, sugar, currents, raisins, dates, figs and apricots were all called Spices. These were very important, being used to flavour food  but also for medicines and perfumes. Because they came from distant lands, and took a long sea journey to bring back, Spices were very expensive.

Sugar colonies were established in the Caribbean. From the 1640s, the English, along with the Dutch and French, began establishing sugar colonies in the Caribbean Islands. The sugar was harvested and a syrup extracted that was shipped in casks from the West Indies and refined in England. It was boiled until it reached the point of crystallisation, cooled and poured into clay cone-shaped moulds. Sugar became very popular in food and drink. Cane sugar farming was so profitable that the plantation owners referred to sugar as "white gold."  The rich were becoming used to the flavour of white sugar crystals in their tea and coffee, and bought silver sugar spoons, boxes, sieves and tongs. By the 18th Century, the West Indian sugar industry was supplying the whole of the Western world and fabulous fortunes were made.

In the 1650s, coffee became widely drunk in England for the first time. Coffee was imported from the East. So popular did this drink become that, in the later 17th Century, many "Coffee Houses" sprung up in the towns. By 1675, there were over 3,000 coffee houses in England. Merchants and professional men met in the new coffee houses, to read newspapers, talk politics, do business and gossip.

Tea also became popular in England in the late 17th Century. Tea was discovered by the Chinese in ancient times, but only reached Europe in the 17th Century. It was made popular by Catherine of Baganza, the wife of King Charles II. She made tea-drinking fashionable in England among the wealthy.