Sweetening the deal
2009-02-13 08:48
Colleen Figg
Things must be very hard these days; the dreaded credit crunch, economic meltdown, financial straits, call it what you will is making its presence felt in the most unexpected places.
I noticed, for instance, that sugar manufacturing companies seem to think they have to stay on the cutting edge of marketing and as such, one company has got about five reasons on the back of its pack of sugar explaining why we are lucky to be using the product.
Their extra refined sugar, they explained, dissolves first time, so one need not add more sugar to one's drink before the original lot has dissolved. This is not a problem I have ever encountered before, I must admit. Normally I put my sugar in my tea, stir it and drink it down.
I find I don't have to hover about anxiously staring at the clock waiting for a certain period to have lapsed (shall we call it the soluble minute?) before sampling the tea and finding, to my disappointment, that I have to add another spoon because the first two simply did not play the game and dissolve.
Similarly we are reassured that - owing to the sugar being so refined - we will never end up with the nasty problem of un-dissolved (as they put it) sugar crystals lurking at the bottom of our cups once we have consumed the unsatisfactorily sweetened tea other sugars would offer.
Again, I've not really ever blamed the sugar itself for not dissolving properly if I have landed up with crystals in my cup, but rather my own lack of follow through with the stirring process. I'm relieved to find out after all these years that I have not been lazy, instead the sugar has been recalcitrant. It's all good.
Resistance
The blissful baking bloggers on the Food24 blogs will be relieved to hear that this particular sugar will cost far less in terms of elbow grease when they cream it together with butter. The tiny grains offer less resistance to the butter (a teeny science lesson flung in for anyone interested) and instead of them having to haul in various family members to take over when their arms have seized up, the ladies themselves can finish the job with no sweat.
All the marvellous reasons why we should love this pack of sugar are summed up at the end when they tell us that we, the women of South Africa, are very lucky to have this particular, superior sugar and should be grateful to the manufacturers. I take it we should show this gratitude by buying more of this wonder product.
In a world driven and shaped by the immediate gratification needs of the consumer I'm very happy to have discovered instant sugar. The laborious business of endless stirring, embarrassing moments at teatime when your visitor goes away less than happy with the levels of crystals in her cup are over.
Pour some sugar on me!
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