Desserts · Plate IV

Sugarcane

Saccharum officinarum

A giant grass, in the same family as cereals, that grows in clumps of thick, unbranched stalks. The stalks are divided into joints, and at each one grow a long, narrow, arching leaf and a bud that can sprout a new cane.

It stores sugar in the fibrous pith of the stalk, which is pressed for its sweet juice. Its flower, which growers call the “arrow”, is a feathery plume of silky hairs; once the cane flowers it may store less sugar, so it is usually cut before then.

It was domesticated in New Guinea some 8,000 years ago, and from there it travelled with seafarers across Asia and the Pacific. The word sugar comes, through Arabic and Persian, from the Sanskrit śarkarā, which also meant “gravel”.

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