On Food and Cooking

The Development of Beet Sugar The severest
blow to West Indian sugar was the
development of an alternative to the sugar
cane that could grow in northern climates. In
1747, a Prussian chemist, Andreas Marggraf,
showed that by using brandy to extract the
juice of the white beet (Beta vulgaris, var.
altissima), a common European vegetable, he
could isolate crystals that were identical to
those purified from sugar cane, and in
comparable quantities. Marggraf foresaw a
kind of cottage industry by which individual
farmers could satisfy their own needs for
sugar, but this never came about, and many
years passed before the idea escaped the
laboratory. In 1811, the Emperor Napoleon
officially set the goal of freeing France from
dependence on the English colonies for
various commodities, and in 1812 personally
awarded a medal to Benjamin Delessert, who
had developed a working sugar-beet factory.
In the next year, 300 such factories sprang up.