On Food and Cooking

the predecessor of modern-day high-tech corn
syrups. Along with honey, malt syrup was the
primary sweetener in China for 2,000 years,
until around 1000 CE; it’s still made in both
China and Korea. Malt syrup had the
advantage that it could be made in households
from readily available and easily stored
materials, the same whole grains that were
grown as staple foods, including wheat, rice,
and sorghum. It was therefore a far more
affordable sweetener than cane sugar.
There are three stages to making malt
syrup. First a portion of whole grain is malted:
soaked in water and allowed to germinate
partly, then dried again by means of carefully
controlled heating (p. 744). The germinating
embryo produces enzymes that will digest the
grain’s starch into sugars to fuel its growth;
barley is preferred in malting because it
produces unusually copious and active
enzymes. Drying preserves these enzymes,
and also develops color and flavor by means