what is your favorite natural sweetener?

[WoodsRoamer]

I'm curious of what natural sweeteners you guys use. By natural I mean things like honey, stevia, maple sugar not things like white/brown sugar and molasses. Thanks in advance for any info

 

[Alden]

Mrs. Butterworth's doesn't count then either I guess...

 

[jamesthomas]

I believe that brown sugar and molasses (cane syrup) are natural sweeteners, Its the white sugar that's been "fixed" aka "bleeched"?. I've used honey in my coffee before and it was hard to get it all dissolved, and I'll try some Brown sugar tomorrow, but if I remember correctly it gave my coffee a strange taste, maybe.

 

[zimmerstutzen]

Roses are red
Violets are purple
Sugar is sweet
So's maple surple

 

[TNGhost]

Leaded: Honey, love the taste, and its flexibilty makes it great for brewing and making wine (mead) and boosting ABV, as well

Unleaded: Stevia, we grow it in the garden and dry the leaves, my wife will put it in her tea, etc. She also buys the commercial crystalized type at the store.

When I worked for a company that supplied equipment to the sugar mills in S. Louisiana, it was my impression that the brown sugar you buy at the grocery store is just white sugar with molasses(a byproduct of making white sugar) added.

 

[Grumpa]

Honey, maple syrup, (which, besides pancakes, is also good on meat, and chili). Only sugar I use is turbinado. Take my coffee black, mostly, but sometimes maple syrup or turbinado.

 

[sidelock]

well all you mentioned here are natural------- so ??????? Please don't get off on the wrong foot young man. We have too many nuts running around now.

 

[Wes/Tex]

Jeeze Grumpa, putting maple syrup on chili is a hanging offense here in Texas! :wink: :rotf:

 

[WoodsRoamer]

Sorry you are guys are right about brown sugar and molasses being natural. I should have been more clear in what I was asking Bad habit of mine. By natural I meant something I could make/get on an extended trip in the woods.

 

[Loyalist Dave]

Molasses was the poor man's sweetener in the colonies (even though imported). The farther you got from a port city, the more expensive the cost of imported sugar, white or brown...so folks with a good income in what we might call a frontier situation might be using molasses while not being "poor" as it was so much cheaper... hence it's use in the base for making rum. The molasses of the 18th and early 19th century was different than the unsulfured molasses you find today... the extraction process left more sugar in the stuff back then. Original white sugar was made by crushing the cane then boiling down the syrup and extracting the stuff that we call molasses, giving a light brown sugar that had the brown portion leeched during shipping.

It's documented that they were making corn syrup in Virginia in the 18th century by boiling, crushed corn stalks. How much they made and how available it was is anybody's guess.

Honey, IF the bees were present, is the other cheap sweetener, being ready to use upon harvest. Folks think that the honey bee is native to North America, it's not, so if you got far enough away from white settlements, you might be so far that even wild, escaped honey bee queens had not reached the area and established a hive, so no honey.

Maple sugar needs sugar maple trees, AND a proper freeze/thaw cycle to get the sap to flow, then it's processed by collecting and boiling rather similar to cane sugar. Again geography will impact whether it was available or not.

So that's about it. Sweeteners were not really documented as trail food, or used on expeditions as far as my sources show. I often carry a couple of pieces of maple sugar, but it's really not "correct" for my geography. Sometimes I carry a piece of chocolate, though it would've been expensive for me.

LD

 

[Grumpa]

You are right on the "brown" sugar.

 

[TNGhost]

Kind of got a better idea of what your looking for.

Along the lines of maple syrup, the birch tree also contains significant saccharides in its sap, hence the ability to use it to make birch "beer". Mostly not as high a level of sugar as maple though, but it would be widely available in the northern tier of the country.

Fruits, wild and cultivated, have a long history of being used to add sweetness and carbohydrates to foodstuffs. Drying or boiling down (preserves) concentrates the sugars. The berries added to pemmican come to mind as an example.

Good stuff Loyalist Dave. :thumbsup: The part about the cornstalks reminds me of a reference to an old cornstalk wine recipe, wherein the farmers lined the bottom of a storage silo with ceramic jugs to collect the "sap" from the cornstalks, as they were "pressed" by the layers stacked on top of them. In the spring when the silage had been used up for the livestock, they would retrieve their jugs of cornstalk wine, which had been fermented by the naturally occurring yeast.

 

[zimmerstutzen]

The problem with Birch syrup is that the sap does not run until Late March and turns sour with the slightest warm days. According to Edible Wild Plants of Eastern North America, the Indians also used the sap of Hickory, Black Walnut and plane trees (Sycamore?) I have made syrup from the sap of Black Walnut trees (which can be collected the same time as Maple) and find it a yellower color, very buttery tasting, and quite sweet. A few old timers claim that Hickory Syrup is a much better tasting item than Maple.

According to the book, I referenced, the Indians would cut a slash on the side of the trees and allow the sap to drip and freeze into icicles. A primitive popsicle of sorts.

Maple sap, itself is a very refreshing drink tasting like pure spring water with a very slight sweet flavor. My daughter has tapped Maples just for the sap to drink. I am a bit surprised that someone hasn't marketed the sap as a high end natural alternative to bottled spring water.

 

[satx78247]

OGDEN NASH rides again. = LOL.

 

[satx78247]

Light honey for "general sweetening" (for tea, etc.) & dark honey (from crimson clover) for substitute for molasses & for topping pancakes/waffles/biscuits/etc.

As some of you know here, I do a lot of baking & often use natural/unfiltered honey for most sweetening when cooking.
(I'm quite lucky to have easy access to the natural products of the TX Beekeeper's Assn. = NICE folks to deal with!!!)

yours, satx

 

[George]

Sweeteners were not really documented as trail food, or used on expeditions as far as my sources show.

Scarce, but there are a few.

_Travels in Pensilvania and Canada_ by John Bartram, published 1751, concerning a trip undertaken in 1743:

"We moved forward to our first cabin, where we dined on parched meal, which is some of the best Indian traveling provision. We had of it 2 bags, each a gallon, from the Indians at Onondago, the preparation of it is thus. They take the corn and parch it in hot ashes, till it becomes brown, then clean it, pound it in a mortar and sift it; this powder is mixed with sugar. About 1 qr. of a pint, diluted in a pint of water, is a hearty traveling dinner, when 100 miles from any inhabitants;..."

In “The Life and Times of Gen. Sam Dale, the Mississippi partisan”, by John Francis Hamtramck Claiborne, Gen. Dale is quoted describing the gear carried by a Georgia militia troop”
"Our accoutrements were a coonskin cap, bearskin vest, short hunting shirt and trowsers of homespun stuff, buckskin leggings, a blanket tied behind our saddles, a wallet for parched corn, coal flour or other chance provision, a long rifle and hunting knife."

What the heck does he mean by “coal flour? Then, in “Notes taken during the expedition commanded by Capt. R.B. Marcy, U.S.A., through unexplored Texas, in the summer and fall of 1854” , W. B. Parker wrote in 1856:

“Cold flour is a preparation of corn. It is first parched, then pounded and according to taste, a little sugar mixed with it. A handful of this will make a pint of gruel, upon which a man can subsist for twenty-four hours.”

I don't understand what either name means, but it seems reasonable that cold flour is the same as coal flour”¦.

Spence

 

[TNGhost]

Light honey for "general sweetening" (for tea, etc.) & dark honey (from crimson clover) for substitute for molasses & for topping pancakes/waffles/biscuits/etc.

As some of you know here, I do a lot of baking & often use natural/unfiltered honey for most sweetening when cooking.
(I'm quite lucky to have easy access to the natural products of the TX Beekeeper's Assn. = NICE folks to deal with!!!)

yours, satx

Given the news coming from that way these days, Texas is fortunate to have such an eloquent spokesman. :wink:

I was lucky enough to have a good bit of Texas honey at one time, very good stuff, it made some excellent mead and mead ale. :thumbsup:

 

[Loyalist Dave]

Coal flour is pounded parched corn, as the first and third reference mention... it's the same in Kephart's Woodcraft and Camping though that was written in the first decade of the 20th century. Sugar is not necessarily an ingredient to it, but does often make a better product. Rock-a-hominy is another name for it.

TNGhost wrote:

Along the lines of maple syrup, the birch tree also containes significant saccharides in its sap, hence the ability to make birch "beer"

Have you ever had actual "birch beer"? :haha: Birch trees, especially black birch, will give you a sweet sap that may be boiled down and then fermented... but you end up with a mug of fermented wintergreen ale, like drinking a cup of diluted Ben Gay ointment. :barf: Only a little bit better than freshly fermented spruce beer. :shocked2:

LD

 

[Rick Boylan]

Jeeze Grumpa, putting maple syrup on chili is a hanging offense here in Texas! :wink: :rotf:

Guess you guys wouldn't like the fact I put crackers and ketchup on my chili. Have since I was a child.

 

[TNGhost]

Coal flour is pounded parched corn, as the first and third reference mention... it's the same in Kephart's Woodcraft and Camping though that was written in the first decade of the 20th century. Sugar is not necessarily an ingredient to it, but does often make a better product. Rock-a-hominy is another name for it.

TNGhost wrote:

Along the lines of maple syrup, the birch tree also containes significant saccharides in its sap, hence the ability to make birch "beer"

Have you ever had actual "birch beer"? :haha: Birch trees, especially black birch, will give you a sweet sap that may be boiled down and then fermented... but you end up with a mug of fermented wintergreen ale, like drinking a cup of diluted Ben Gay ointment. :barf: Only a little bit better than freshly fermented spruce beer. :shocked2:

LD

I agree, birch "beer" is a misnomer. The only birch beer I have ever had, other than the extract flavored soda variety, is some I tried making from sap I got from a local "organic" enthusiast. Birch wine is probably a better description, at least of the batch I made, as I couldn't get it to carbonate well at all(likely my doing and not the fault of the birch sap or the yeast that dropped in to help out :grin. Just tried it for the heck of it to see, maybe, what the oldtimers had going. Perhaps one day I'll try it again, maybe blending with some malt will help.

On the other hand spruce beer isn't the same animal, at least in the recipes I've used. The spruce merely replaces or enhances the flavoring/bitterness, normally provided by the hops, while the body of the beer remains malted barley. I've used both the liquid concentrate and fresh spruce tips and found both varieties much more to my liking than birch beer, mine or the soda.

At any rate the birch idea was in response to the "sweeteners available in the wild" theme of the OPs original question. Did bring up another point though, malted barley has certainly been available for centuries. When it became available as a sweetener in syrup and dried form I'm not sure, but it is used in baking I think. The only personal experience I have with it is in brewing, or in a milkshake :haha: .