On Food and Cooking

Around the 6th century CE, both the cane and
sugar-making technology were carried
westward from the delta of the Indus River to
the head of the Persian Gulf and the delta of
the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, where the
Persians made sugar a prized ingredient in
their cooking. One modern survival of this
esteem is the sprinkling of large sugar crystals
over a dish called “jeweled rice.” Islamic
Arabs conquered Persia in the 7th century and
took the cane to northern Africa, Syria, and
eventually Spain and Sicily. Arab cooks
combined sugar with almonds to make
marzipan paste, cooked it down with sesame
seeds and other ingredients to make chewy
halvah, made great use of sugar in syrups
aromatized with rose petals and orange
blossoms, and were pioneers in confectionery
and in sugar sculpture. There are records of a
10th-century feast in Egypt that was adorned
with sugar models of trees, animals, and
castles!