Demerara
Yes, it's another one of those 'How to tell the difference between a British person and a Pole' articles. Now unless you work in a coffee shop, did you recognise the title of this article? No? That's not surprising because there is no reason why you should. However, ask someone in the street in Britain and they'll almost definitely know what it is.
Demerara is a type of brown sugar. I was in my local supermarket last week and I saw a packet on the shelf. A few years ago there were only one or two places in the city that sold it. It's more expensive than white sugar, but the price difference is bigger in Poland than in Britain.
Every day boats carry thousands of tonnes of sugar cane across the seas and up the river Thames. This cane, which looks a bit like very thick bamboo, only grows in tropical countries. It is taken to a refinery and boiled in enormous vats (containers). Then the thick, dark, sweet liquid is refined. The same thing happens to oil to produce petrol in oil refineries. At different temperatures you get a different substance. The most popular is the white, almost tasteless stuff people put in their tea and coffee. At a different temperature you get this darker colour with a bit more taste but that is a bit sticky. You can't pour it from a little glass jar because it would block up the spout.
Why doesn't Poland produce its own brown sugar? Because you get all yours from sugar beet, which you grow here. The only type of sugar you get from beet is this almost tasteless white stuff. Of course, the white stuff is cheaper because you don't import it, but in the UK brown sugar is a by-product of something we import anyway so there's not that much extra cost involved. In Poland, brown sugar has to be shipped over separately.
That's not all you miss out on. Have you heard of treacle? If not, see if you can track down a tin in an expensive shop somewhere. Stick a spoonful of this thick, black, gooey substance in some porridge and you'll see why it's so popular in the UK. Then look at the price you paid. In Britain we scrape this up from the bottom of the vat and then sell it for almost nothing. Here you pay for someone to drive it halfway across Europe.
Incidentally, now that we are part of the EU, you are going to hear a lot more of this in the world of politics. Stay tuned…
Glossary
sugar cane trzcina cukrowa
a refinery rafineria
a vat kadź
sticky lepki
a spout dziobek
sugar beet burak cukrowy
gooey brejowaty
Crossword
Down
1. These are what most very young children in Britain spend their pocket money on. The word means anything small and sweet.
2. You can make this by boiling sugar and butter together. It's chewy or brittle (i.e. it can break easily).
3. This is what you get when you boil sugar, butter and cream together. It's soft and very sweet.
4. You might think this is made of stone but it is actually a hard, sweet tube which you can buy at the seaside. It usually has the name of the seaside town written all the way through it.
6. This is a type of sugar and the one which you normally see in energy drinks. Other types include dextrose and fructose.
Across
5. It's made of sugar and looks like a small cloud on a stick. It's popular at fairgrounds.
KEY
Down:
1 sweets
2 toffee
3 fudge
4 rock
6 glucose
Across:
5 candy floss
Saccharin is a popular artificial sweetener. What does it have in common with the microwave oven, vulcanised rubber and the glue on Post-It notes?
KEY
They were discovered by accident.
Did you know?
In the time of Queen Elizabeth I, sugar was only for the rich. Elizabeth lost all her teeth because of it!