Sugar cones

[huntdaw]

I was wondering if someone could tell me how to make a good sugar cone. We were issued these at TAG and it got me thinking I would like to make some for future personal use or as part of an issue at a future event. Is there a form that is used? How is the sugar held together - through simple compression or is there something that is used as an "adhesive"?

Thanks

[John of the Skulkers Mess]

HuntDaw,

I am of no use on this subject, but that never stopped me from speaking up...

The cones from TAG were a delight compared to the ones I've gotten at Wal-Mart in the past. The Wal-mart versions were very sturdy (rock hard) and located in the veg/fruit section. End caps with other 'ethnic food' items.


Later,
John Pillers

[Clark Badgett]

If you know anyone that works with wood, or even aluminum, you could have them make a mold for you to your specs. Seems to me all it would take would be some brown sugar that has been moistened slightly packed firmly into a mold of this type. If you don't want to go to all this trouble, buy them from a Walmart, usually located in the Mexican food section.

[Hank Trent]

If anyone is using/recommending cones made of brown sugar for your Civil War impression, I'd like to see your documentation that sugar loaves (cones) in the U.S. in the 1860s were made of brown sugar instead of white.

I don't think they were, but rather than repost the lengthy stuff necessary to attempt to prove a negative, how about y'all make it simple and just post the documentation that they were?

Hank Trent
hanktrent@voyager.net

[Clark Badgett]

Hank, sorry I ruffled your feathers a bit. I have no idea if they were brown or white sugar. I have a pard that remains convinced they were brown, but if you got evidence otherwise I would be more than happy to see it.

[Spinster]

Mr. Comer,

We've had good success with using a period sugar mold (the young folks lucked up in a junk shop and recognized it for what it was), slighty moistened commerical white sugar, and a bit of tamping down. Sometimes a typically humid Deep South August afternoon is all that is necessary. I do prefer a coarse ground sugar to a fine one, as it seems to hold moisture in the manner that brown sugar does, and thus packs more easily.

Besides, I've gone after those brown sugar cones found in the Mexican food with a hammer and chisel, and STILL couldn't chip off enough for my coffee

[Foggy Bottom Jim]

I had always heard, probably on this forum some time in the past, that the Turbinado sugar now found in grocery stores is period correct. It is somewhat coarse, has a brownish color but tastes basically like white sugar; definitely not brown sugar. If you've seen those "sugar in the raw" packets in the coffee shops, that's it.
Jim Reynolds
Sykes' Regulars

[huntdaw]

Many thanks for the info so far. I do have a box of turbinado and might see if I can devise a form. I have never seen those cones at Wally World but it sounds like something I'd rather avoid.

[Hank Trent]

Hank, sorry I ruffled your feathers a bit. I have no idea if they were brown or white sugar. I have a pard that remains convinced they were brown, but if you got evidence otherwise I would be more than happy to see it.

It's not about me and my feathers, it's about documenting what was done in the 1860s, rather than passing along reenactor lore. That's what we're all here for, right?

I've been looking in vain for documentation of brown sugar cones in the U.S. in the 1860s, and since there's an expectation that the things recommended on this forum are supported with evidence, what better place to find people who can share evidence for brown sugar cones?

Your friend must have some solid information if he's convinced cones were brown. Why not get it from him and post it? I'd like to see it.

I had always heard, probably on this forum some time in the past, that the Turbinado sugar now found in grocery stores is period correct.

Brown sugar in various stages of refinement *is* period correct, but my question is, can reenactors document it being formed into a cone shape instead of, for example, random chunks as if it was dug out of a barrel?

Unfortunately, I only have a copy of a follow-up post I made on the subject, so it kind of starts in mid-stream, but the major information is there. My previous (missing) post included this quote from "Sugar--Its Culture and Consumption in the World, Debow's Review, August 1855: "The different species of commercial sugar usually met with in this country are four, viz: brown, or muscovado sugar, (commonly called moist sugar,) clayed sugar, refined or loaf sugar, and sugar candy; these varieties are altogether dependent on the difference in the methods employed in their manufacture."

Here's a repost of my earlier follow-up post:

Let's see if we can figure out how each of the four types of sugar mentioned in the previous quote is made.
1) brown or muscovado
2) clayed
3) refined or loaf
4) sugar candy
The Emerson quote said that sugar candy is loaf sugar "dissolved in water and allowed to evaporate and harden." So let's look at the other three.
1) brown or muscovado
After the cane is crushed and boiled... "When cool, the contents, now a dark brown mixture of sugar and molasses, are put into casks with perforated bottoms, through which the molasses drains away. After thirty days of this discipline the sugar is considered as sufficiently pure for shipment, and the casks are closed up. Sugar thus prepared is known to the trade as 'muscovado.'" ("The Cultivation and Manufacture of Sugar," Debow's Review, 1867)
So that sounds like the darkest brown sugar could be sold wholesale in casks, not necessarily molded.
2) Clayed
The same article continues to describe a further process that creates clayed sugar. But note the sizes of cones it's produced in--80 to 120 lbs each. These are clearly bigger than the 10"-12" tall household-size loaves of refined white sugar.
"Another and better class is known by the name of 'clayed,' and with this a different process is adopted in the latter stages of the manufacture. Instead of being put into the cooling trough , the juice is at once turned into cone-shaped moulds of metal or earthenware, holding from eighty to a hundred and twenty pounds each. These are turned upside down, and a mixture of clay and mortar spread over the base of each. The molasses drains away through the apex, and the water dripping from the clay percolates through the sugar and helps to carry away much of the impure and colored matter, which is considerably more soluble than sugar itself. The object of mixing clay with the water is to make the passage of the latter more gradual, and so diminish the otherwise enormous waste."
As you [someone in a previous thread] said, this would produce a sugar that was lighter in color than muscovado, but still raw and not refined.
3) Refined or Loaf
The article quoted above is talking about sugar that's imported from the West Indies into England, rather than the U.S., but says that most of the sugar is imported as muscovado or clayed, and that refining is usually done after it arrives. "The process commences on the top story of the refinery, where the raw sugar is first collected in heaps and then shovelled into a rectangular iron vessel capable of holding a thousand or more gallons, called the 'blow-up cistern.' Water is turned on at the same time, and the whole rapidly heated to boiling point by the passage of a current of steam. 'Blowing up' causes a great deal of scum to rise to the surface, especially when, as is the case with all but the very purest sugars, bullock's blood, or as the refiners term it, 'spice,' is added to the mixture. This scum is removed by filtration, the liquid being turned from the cistern into a shallow tank, whence it passes through a series of canvas bags, and when perfectly bright, is allowed to flow on a bed of animal charcoal. It is now of the colour of old port wine, but some hours later, when, it reappears below the charcoal, it has become as colourless as water. It is then ready for boiling, which takes place by means of a vacuum pan at a lower degree of heat, and consequently with less injury to the sugar, than would be necessary under ordinary atmospheric pressure. When the boiling has gone on long enough, a valve in the lower part of the pan is opened, and the whole mass falls into a heated vessel on the floor below, where it remains 'until the crystals have become large enough and hard enough to please the operator.' The concluding processes closely resemble those in the corresponding stage of the raw materials. The sugar is poured into moulds , and all the moisture allowed to drain away. Even then, however, it is still colored, and the last trace of impurity is not removed until the cones have been 'clayed,' the clay, in this instance, however, consisting only of a solution of sugar and water, which sinks through the sugar-loaf and leaves it in that state of whiteness with which we are familiar in the sugar-basin. The drippings of this final purification are saved to be made into an inferior sugar; 'THEIR drippings, boiled, drained and cleared, become pieces; the drippings of pieces similarly treated are bastards; and the drippings of bastards are treacle.'"
Another article describing the same process, "Manufacture of Sugar," 1851, mentions that at the end of the process, the cone is smoothed, the "small amount of dark-colored sugar" at the tip of the cone is removed, and the cones are dried and wrapped for shipment. "If, instead of loaves, the manufacturer desired to obtain the material known as crushed lump, the contents of the moulds would never be stoved at all; but when sufficiently dry, they would be taken out, and struck with a mallet, until reduced to a mass of disaggregated crystals."

My conclusion is that the normal household-size loaves (cones) are created as a step in the refining process, and thus by definition would be white, since there's no need to go through that step unless the sugar is being refined. An original loaf on display in its purplish paper wrapper at Roscoe Village in Ohio is white, and I've not seen or mentioned any reference to brown ones.

Since making that post, I *have* found evidence of the Walmart-style sugar cones in the period, in Mexico, on the way to the refinery. So if you're reenacting something in Mexico, they're period correct, and it's funny (and maybe significant) that they're still regionally associated even today. However, the fact that the U.S. author commented on them seems to add weight to the fact that they're not something he was used to seeing in the U.S.

"The sugar here is made into pilensi (little sugar-loaves) resembling maple-sugar, which are transported on mules to the large cities to be refined. [Dec. 27, on Rio Mecca or Rio de la Purificacion, near town of Hidalgos]" (From Life and Correspondence of John A. Quitman ... Governor of the State of Mississippi, By John Francis Hamtramck Claiborne, 1860)

And another quote I found later, implying that crude brown sugar was not found in loaves:

There was no cut nor granulated nor pulverized sugar, to be turned from the grocer's bag onto the scales. All sugar except the crude brown, direct from plantations, was in cone-shaped loaves as hard as a stone and weighing several pounds each. These well-wrapped loaves were kept hung (like hams in a smokehouse) from the closet ceiling. They had to be cut into chips by aid of carving knife and hammer, then pounded and rolled until reduced to powder, before that necessary ingredient was ready for use. (From Social Life in Old New Orleans, by Eliza Ripley (1832-1912), published 1912.)

So that's the best I can do to document that sugar loaves were typically made of white, refined sugar.

My tentative conclusion about why this belief is so widespread despite the fact that I can find no evidence, is that it's a combination of two things "everybody knows"--that old-timey sugar came in loaves, and that people used a lot of crude brown sugar back then instead of so much of this modern refined stuff. Each fact taken separately is correct, but somehow they've become combined in reenactor lore into the inaccurate belief that period brown sugar came in cones.

How would you document the fact that some (most? all?) sugar loaves in the 1860s U.S. were brown?

Hank Trent
hanktrent@voyager.net

[John of the Skulkers Mess]

You have improved the hobby (see Sinks.)


Two gems today, this and info on 'Little Rock' CS dress coats,
John Pillers
TSM