Goodies by Dansun Dana Hwang

sugar

goodies

vol. one

subtlety

ÂŠ2014 goodies magazine

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Publication Design, Cover Photograph by Dansun Hwang

sugar

goodies

Table of Contents A Subtlety

Sugar In The M

Oyatsumura K

Dia De Los Mu

Market

uertos

In closed sugar factory, African American women artist, Kara Walker, has a exhbition. It talk about sugar slavery.

by Dansun Hwang

Added sugar is the single worst ingredient in the modern diet. It provides calories with no added nutrients and can damage your metabolism in the long run.

by Benjamin Martin

It might not surprise you then that one of Okinawaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s local treats is a kind of Black Sugar candy made directly from the juice of sugar cane plants...

by Liza Barnes It might not surprise you then that one of Okinawaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s local treSugar skull is originated from mexican festival called day of the dead. Traditionaly, skull is bad symbol...

Kokuto

by Katherine Brooks

goodies

A Subtlety

Sugar In The M

Oyatsumura K

Dia De Los Mu

uertos

by Dansun Hwang Added sugar is the single worst ingredient in the modern diet. It provides calories with no added nutrients and can damage your metabolism in the long run.

by Benjamin Martin It might not surprise you then that one of Okinawaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s local treats is a kind of Black Sugar candy made directly from the juice of sugar cane plants...

51 07

Kokuto

In closed sugar factory, African American women artist, Kara Walker, has a exhbition. It talk about sugar slavery.

subtlety

Market

by Katherine Brooks

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01 Domino sugar factory in Brooklyn, NY phtograph by Scott Galaba

subtlety 09

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01 The “Subtlety” enterance in Brooklyngh, NY phtograph by Sharon Farrell

subtlety

Artist Kara Walker Draws Us Into Bitter History With Something Sweet

Kara Walker was barely out of art school when she won a MacArthur Foundation “genius” grant, in 1997. Back then, her early work shocked audiences in part because her murals looked so charming from a distance. Black paper shadow portraits of colonial figures seemed to dance on white gallery walls; but lean in and you’d find your nose pressed up against images of slavery’s horrors — mammies, masters, lynchings and sexual violence. In other words, Walker is used to filling a room. But this spring she was asked to fill a warehouse — the abandoned Domino Sugar factory in New York. It’s about to be leveled to make way for condos and offices, but before it goes, Walker was asked to use this cavernous, urban ruin for something special. Walker took me on a tour of the show a day before it opened. The factory is covered in sugar — it almost looks like insulation or burned cotton candy.

I was so busy trying not to get molasses on my shoes that when I turned the corner, I was stunned. There in the middle of this dark hall was a bright, white sphinx. The effect is the opposite of those white-walled galleries; a dark space and a towering white sculpture made of — what else? — sugar.

“What we’re seeing, for lack of a better term, is the head of a woman who has very African, black features.”

Walker has dreamed up a “subtlety” — that’s what sugar sculptures were called in medieval times. They were a luxury confectioners created for special occasions. To understand where all this is going, you need look no further than Walker’s teasingly long title for the show:

“A Subtlety or the Marvelous Sugar Baby an Homage to the unpaid and overworked Artisans who have refined our Sweet tastes from the cane fields to the Kitchens of the New World on the Occasion of the demolition of the Domino Sugar Refining Plant.” it’s a mouthful. But Walker has this wide smile and as she sweeps her hands around in broad gestures, white tides of sugar dust ripple at the edge of her feet — and she sells it.

“It was very fun and childlike to, you know, have your hands in a bucket full of sugar, or a 50-pound bag of sugar, throwing it out onto the floor.”

011

“It’s a little bit sticky in some areas ...There’s sugar caked up in the rafters.”

She sits somewhere in between the kind of mammy figure of old and something a little bit more recognizable — recognizably human. ... [She has] very full lips; high cheekbones; eyes that have no eyes, [that] seem to be either looking out or closed; and a kerchief on her head. She’s positioned with her arms flat out across the ground and large breasts that are staring at you.

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01 Inside of Domino sugar factory in Brooklyn, NY phtograph by Scott Galaba

subtlety

She’s doing what she does best: drawing you in with something sweet, something almost charming, before you realize you’ve admired something disturbing. In this case, that’s the horror-riddled Caribbean slave trade that helped fuel the industrial gains of the 18th and 19th centuries; a slave trade built to profit from an insatiable Western market for refined sugar treats and rum.

“Basically, it was blood sugar. Like we talk about blood diamonds today, there were pamphlets saying this sugar has blood on its hands.” She explains that to make the sugar, the cane had to be fed into large mills by hand. It was a dangerous process: Slaves lost hands, arms, limbs and lives.

“I’ve been kind of back and forth with my reverence for sugar. Like, how we’re all kind of invested in its production without really realizing just what goes into it; how much chemistry goes into extracting whiteness from the sugar cane.”

The boys are cute and applecheeked, but they’re also kind of scary — some of the melted candy looks a lot like blood.

“I knew that the candy ones wouldn’t last. That was part of the point was that they were going to be in this non-climatecontrolled space, slowly melting away and disintegrating. But what’s happened is we lost two of these guys in the last two days happened is we lost two of these

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Walker went down a rabbit hole of sugar history, at one point stumbling on some black figurines online — the type of racial tchotchkes that turn up in a sea of mammy cookie jars. They were ceramic, brown-skinned boys carrying baskets. Those were the size of dolls, but Walker’s are 5 feet high, some made entirely of molasses-colored candy. Fifteen of them are posed throughout the factory floor, leading the way to her sugar sphinx.

014

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01 Kara Walker’s “ A Subtlety “ at the Dominos sugar factory in Brooklyn, NY by Emilio Santacoloma

guys in the last two days or so.” Losing those figures in service of the sugar is the slave trade in a nutshell.

subtlety

“Also in a nutshell, and maybe a little bit hammer over the head, is that some of the pieces of the broken boys I threw into the baskets of the unbroken boys.” OK, that’s not so subtle, but it’s also not unusual for Kara Walker. She’s dressed in a shiny, oversize baseball jacket emblazoned with the gold face of King Tut on it. I ask her if at a certain point she worries about doing work that is seen as being just about race.

“I don’t really see it as just about race. I mean, I think that my work is about trying to get a grasp on history. I mean, I guess it’s just kind of a trap, in a way, that I decided to set my foot into early on, which is the trap of race — to say that it’s about race when it’s kind of about this larger concern about being.” I tell her it’s almost impossible to talk about our history without talking about race. the type of racial tchotchkes that turn up in a sea of mammy cookie jars.

015

“There [are] scholarly conversations about race and then there’s the kind of meaty, unresolved, mucky blood lust of talking about race where I always feel like the conversation is inconclusive.”

01 This photo is shoot by somethig blablabla caption plcace holder

01 Domino sugar factory in Brooklyn, NY phtograph by Scott Galaba

02 This photo is shoot by somethig blablabla caption plcace holder

Losing those figures in service of the sugar is the slave trade in a nutshell.

01 A melting basket boys in front of Sugar Sphix

01 “Candy Boys” part of “A Subtlety” or “The Marvelous Sugar Baby” by the artist Kara Walker is displayed in the former Domino Sugar Factory in Williamsburg, Brooklyn in New York

02 Walker puts the broken boys in the baskets

A little bit hammer-over-the-head, is that some of the pieces of the broken boys I threw into the baskets of the unbroken boys. The centerpiece and conclusion of a “A Subtlety” is a massive sphinx, crafted from white sugar, with the head of a mammy and the intensely sexualized body of a black woman as she might be visualized by one of the slave masters in Walker’s paper cutout exhibits. She looms over the exhibit, which also includes refining equipment, a peephole onto the river and a number of figures of small children carrying baskets on their backs and in their arms.

03 The candy sculptures have been disintegrating so fast that Walker began throwing pieces of the broken boys into the baskets of the ones that are still standing.

04 Walker’s candy boy sculptures started melting fast in the non-climate-controlled factory, and the result looks a lot like blood.

01 Viewers of Walker’s A Subtlety described the sculpture as “beautiful” and “the American sphinx She is so exposed and she’s so vulnerable, but at the same time she has some grace that is completely unapproachable.”

02 A Subtlety, or the Marvelous Sugar Baby, an Homage to the unpaid and overworked Artisans

A looming 35 feet tall, Sugar Baby is ensconced toward the back of an enormous warehouse, built in the late 19th century, that Domino once used for storing raw sugar cane as it arrived by boat from the Caribbean for refinement and packaging. Once a luxury — subtleties were sugar sculptures made for the rich as edible table-decorations — sugar became more widely available due in large part to slave labor. No wonder its journey north may bring to mind the Middle Passage endured by Africans forced across the Atlantic. Sugar Baby fills the space between two rows of steel columns. Evoking an Egyptian temple, the columns also cage her: the scene of King Kong arriving in New York in the hold of a ship comes to mind. And yet, this creature is a power image, a colossal goddess of the future awaiting veneration. With blank eyes, she might also be a blind diviner who knows that the American future is much less white, racially, than its past. Adding to her scale, the blocks of polystyrene from which she was built show through the sugar coating like seams of

03 Sugar sphinx is sugar-coated — with an estimated 40 tons of sugar —

quarried stone. The long approach to her is dotted by 13 molasses-colored boys — underage blackamoors — made of cast resin or cast sugar, who introduced further dichotomies of light and dark, raw and cooked. Carrying either big baskets or bunches of bananas, they are enlarged from small cheap ceramic figurines still made in China. They could be pilgrims bringing offerings or workers returning from the cane fields. As you approach, Sugar Baby’s extra-large hands create a foreshortening that makes her seem to loom all the more powerfully. Her left hand is clenched in the ancient “fig” fist, of thumb through first two fingers. It is variously an obscene gesture, a protection against the evil eye and, furthest back in time, a fertility symbol. Like I said, multiple meanings.

04 The installation, Walker’s largest and most ambitious work to date, offers a complex commentary on the history of plantation workers and blue-collar laborers in America.

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01 A melting basket boys in front of Sugar Sphix

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02 a melting sugar boy is leaning against the wall

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The result looks a lot like bleeding blood in exhibition

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I didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t know that the purpose of refining sugar is to turn it from brown to white

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-Kara Walker

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subtlety

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A Subtlety

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Sugar In The M

Oyatsumura K

Dia De Los Mu

$7.49

Market

uertos

In closed sugar factory, African American women artist, Kara Walker, has a exhbition. It talk about sugar slavery.

by Dansun Hwang

Added sugar is the single worst ingredient in the modern diet. It provides calories with no added nutrients and can damage your metabolism in the long run.

by Benjamin Martin It might not surprise you then that one of Okinawaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s local treats is a kind of Black Sugar candy made directly from the juice of sugar cane plants...

51 031

Kokuto

by Katherine Brooks

goodies 032

Got a late afternoon craving? You could satisfy it with so many sugar alternative that comes with an added perkâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;like the power to lower your cholesterol, or a potent dose of iron. Hereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the hint which one is you should look up, first.

sugar in the store

In recent years, as politicians have tried to deal with high gas prices, concerns about global warming, and America’s dependence on opec, a new savior has been found: ethanol. Ethanol has all sorts of virtues. When it’s blended with gasoline, it reduces greenhouse-gas emissions. Unlike fossil fuels, it doesn’t get depleted over time, since it’s made from biomass. And sources of ethanol can be found all over the world, unlike those of oil, which are mostly in unstable or autocratic countries that are unfriendly to the U.S. So Congress has mandated that four billion gallons of ethanol annually be blended with gasoline, and it also subsidizes ethanol production with a fifty-one-cent-per-gallon tax

credit. These policies have stimulated an ethanol boom; the number of ethanol plants is set to rise by nearly fifty per cent in the next few years. Unfortunately, the ethanol produced in the U.S. comes from a less-than-ideal source: corn. Corn ethanol’s “net energy balance”—the amount of energy it yields in proportion to how much energy goes into its production—is significantly lower than that of other alternatives, and modern corn farming isn’t easy on the land. By contrast, ethanol distilled from sugarcane is much cheaper to produce and generates far more energy per unit of input—eight times more, by most estimates—than corn does. In the nineteen-seventies, Brazil embarked on a program to substitute sugar ethanol for oil. Today, every gallon of gas in Brazil is blended with at least twenty per cent of ethanol, and many cars run on ethanol alone, at half the price of gasoline. What’s stopping the U.S. from doing the same? In a word, politics. The favors granted to the sugar industry keep the price of domestic sugar so high that it’s not cost-effective to use it for ethanol. And the tariffs and quotas for imported sugar mean that no one can afford to import foreign sugar and turn it into ethanol, the way that oil refiners import crude from the Middle East to make gasoline. Americans now import eighty per cent less sugar than they did thirty years ago. So the prospects for a domestic-sugar ethanol industry are dim at best.

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America has one heck of a sweet tooth. We consume more sweeteners per capita than any other country, and close to ten million tons of sugar every year. But American sugar producers aren’t satisfied with supplying the most sweet-hungry population in the world. They’ve relentlessly sought—and received—special favors from the federal government, turning the industry into one of the most cosseted in America today. The government guarantees producers a fixed price for domestic sugar and sets strict quotas and tariffs for foreign sugar. Economically speaking, this has many obvious bad results. It keeps sugar prices in the U.S. at least twice as high as the world average. It makes it harder for companies that use lots of sugar to do business here—in the past decade, an exodus of candy manufacturers from the U.S. has eliminated thousands of jobs. And import restrictions make Third World countries poorer than they’d otherwise be. But protecting sugar also has a surprising consequence: it’s hurting America’s efforts to become more energy-efficient.

MUSCOVADO

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Low Calorie Low Sodium

034

Low Fat

$7.49

sugar in the store

While you can use dark muscovado in barbeque sauce or other savory dishes with excellent results, I usually like to use it in recipes that highlight its complex, but subtle, flavors. Ginger cookies and ice cream are a good choice, as well as

simple buttercakes. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s fantastic in gingerbread or even sprinkled over yogurt with fresh strawberries. It pairs well with chocolate and can be stirred into coffee, too.

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TIP FOR THE GOODIES

BROWN SUGAR

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Low Calorie Low Sodium

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Low Fat

$7.49

WHITE SUGAR

Low Sodium Low Fat

sugar in the store

Low Calorie

INDIA TREE BROWN SUGAR CUBES

$7.49

These luscious cubes of unrefined brown sugar are imported from Mauritius, where 90% of the land devoted to agriculture is planted with sugar cane. Enjoy them

every day with coffee and tea. Serve them on special occasions. Show them off in a clear glass bowl.

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SMOKED SUGAR

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Low Calorie Low Sodium

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Low Fat

$11.99

sugar in the store

Make it into smoky cotton candy. Use it as a dry rub for an extra outdoor flavor. Use it as a finishing sugar on fruit crisps, pies, cookies and cocktails.

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TIP OF THE GOODIES

COCONUT SUGAR

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Low Calorie Low Cholesterol Low Sodium Low Fat Low Saturated Fat

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Gluten Free

$5.49

Organic Coconut Sugar is made from sap collected from freshly cut flower buds of coconut palm trees. Coconut sugar is naturally low on the glycemic index and dissolves easily in liquids. Substitutes easily cup-for-cup for other sugars.

sugar in the store

Make it into smoky cotton candy. Use it as a dry rub for an extra outdoor flavor. Use it as a finishing sugar on fruit crisps, pies, cookies and cocktails.

041

TIP OF THE GOODIES

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Low Sodium

042

HONEY

TIP OF THE GOODIES

Low Fat

When substituting honey for sugar in baked goods:

$11.99

Reduce the liquid in the recipe by 1/4 cup for each cup of honey used.

AGAVE NECTAR

Low Fat

$10.19

When substituting agave nectar for a dry sweetener in a recipe, reduce the oven temperature by 25째F. Have patience, because the granita needs to be stirred in the freezer every 30 minutes or so.

043

TIP OF THE GOODIES

sugar in the store

Low Sodium

MAPLE SYRUP

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Low Cholesterol Low Sodium Low Fat Low Saturated Fat Added Sugar

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Youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll find many imitation or mapleflavored products on the market, but the real thing is worth the higher pricetag.

$15.99

By definition, maple syrup is syrup made by the evaporation of maple sap or by the solution of maple sugar, and contains not more than approximately 33 to 35 percent water.

Imitation maple syrup, usually sold as pancake syrup, must be labeled and generally is made of mostly corn syrup with 2 or 3 percent of pure maple syrup. Some imitations may contain only artificial maple extract. Pure maple syrup is three times as sweet as regular table sugar, whereas maple sugar is twice as sweet.

sugar in the store

Store in a cool, dark place, Freeze your syrup. if there is mold, and maple syrup does not include any preservative so keep it refrigerate after open

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TIP OF THE GOODIES

YACON SYRUP

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Low Cholesterol Low Sodium Low Fat Low Saturated Fat Added Sugar

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A Delicious Sweetener That Wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t Spike Blood Sugar Levels.

$16.99

Since Yacon syrup is a probiotic and not a true sugar, the body digests it differently. The body metabolizes Yacon as soluble fiber and we all know that adding fiber to our diets is beneficial to our health.

sugar in the store

Controlling appetite and food cravings, Feel full longer, Metabolic syndromem, High cholesterol, Diabetes ,Increased absorption of dietary minerals, Increased bone density, Lower infection risk

047

TIP OF THE GOODIES

STEVIA EXTRACT

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Low Cholesterol Low Sodium

048

Low Fat

TIP OF THE GOODIES When substituting honey for sugar in baked goods:

$8.99

Reduce the liquid in the recipe by 1/4 cup for each cup of honey used.

MOLASSES

Added Sugar

$5.89

When substituting agave nectar for a dry sweetener in a recipe, reduce the oven temperature by 25째F. Have patience, because the granita needs to be stirred in the freezer every 30 minutes or so.

049

TIP OF THE GOODIES

sugar in the store

Low Fat

goodies

A Subtlety

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Sugar In The M

Oyatsumura Ko

Dia De Los Mu

uertos

In closed sugar factory, African American women artist, Kara Walker, has a exhbition. It talk about sugar slavery.

by Dansun Hwang Added sugar is the single worst ingredient in the modern diet. It provides calories with no added nutrients and can damage your metabolism in the long run.

by Benjamin Martin

It might not surprise you then that one of Okinawaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s local treats is a kind of Black Sugar candy made directly from the juice of sugar cane plants...

051

okuto

06 kokuto

Market

by Katherine Brooks

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You could satisfy it with nutrient poor white sugar or chemical-based fake sugar. Or you could indulge in a rich, natural alternative that comes with an added perk.WWHereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the skinny on a handful of healthier sweeteners from Okiniwa, Japan.

kokuto

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ARTISAN SUGAR

It is interesting that Okinawa is famous for enjoying the greatest longevity among the entire Japanese population, and the Japanese themselves have the longest life span in the world. The consumption of pork, seaweed, tofu and pure black sugar (yes, sugar!) in the diet is believed to contribute to the healthy long life of Okinawans.

054

Black sugar is a common ingredient in Asian cooking, but when I show black sugar to my Western guests. They very often ask “is that brown sugar?” One day I was preparing a typical noodle broth, using the finest quality kelp and flavorful artisan-made shoyu, and about to add the required sugar, when I stopped and stared at the snowy granules. Why was I not using a wholesome counterpart of the same quality as the other ingredients? I recalled the black sugar, made in Okinawa Prefecture, that my sister in Tokyo once sent me. Black sugar is healthier and more tasty than white processed sugar; brown sugar has a few of the benefits of black sugar, but really isn’t as good. It can look quite similar to brown sugar, but black sugar is even darker almost black. Black sugar is popular in Taiwan. Compared to processed sugar, which has a very flat, characterless taste, black sugar is ‘round’, with a lot more flavor. This sugar had an unforgettable, mellow sweetness along with a particular molasses taste and surprising traces of the very qualities it ameliorates. The 200-gram packet held about 30 compacted, irregularly shaped, thumb-size pieces. The taste was so delightful that I could not keep from snacking on a piece day after day until they were all gone. I never did use this sugar much in cooking, and I couldn’t buy it then in the United States. (It is sold in some stores here now and available online at www.mitsuwa.com.) I stopped making my broth and went to the grocery store and brought back several kinds of brown sugar made in America and other parts of the world. But none offered the same exciting flavor as the Okinawa sugar.

Unlike common American brown sugar, produced by adding molasses back to refined white sugar, the Okinawa black sugar is made simply by slowly cooking down pure sugarcane juice. During the last 15 years, throughout Japan kokuto has attracted an audience thanks to its health benefits and its distinctive, complex, sweet flavor. The black sugar contains molasses, plus potassium, iron, calcium and other minerals. Many Western women like to eat chocolate for comfort during their period, but Japanese women like to eat black sugar. For Taiwanese women, eating black sugar during their period is also a very common custom, probably because Taiwan is a former colony of Japan. They really eat pieces of sugar like it’s candy. Actually, the minerals like iron and calcium do help ease the tension and discomfort of a woman’s period. Of course the calories of the black sugar do produce a lot of energy for this difficult time too. Compare it to a cup of hot chocolate on a winter’s day. Ginger and black sugar tea is a popular drink in almost every part of China. Apart from warming up the body, ginger tea also helps to cure colds. Similar to sea salt or rock salt, black sugar is also a relatively alkaline ingredient. Instead of using processed salt or sugar, it will give our health more nutritional benefits. Kokuto was first made at the beginning of the 17th century, when it was all consumed by the small local population. Today, taking advantage of kokuto’s boom in popularity, some companies purporting to make the real thing are using inferior imported black sugar or adding caramel color and chemical flavors to a blend of processed white and brown sugars. To protect the quality of kokuto, in 1975 the Okinawa Prefecture Brown Sugar Industry Council began to award a recognizable mark only to the companies that produce the true, high-quality brown sugar. Okinawa Prefecture, situated south of the southernmost main Japanese island of Kyushu, consists of over 160 islands, only 48 of which are inhabited. Just seven of those make sugar. I am so fascinated by kokuto’s characteristics that I went to Okinawa to see for myself how it is made. After landing at the airport in Naha, the capital, I transferred to an airplane accommodating only nine passengers and the pilot, and took the 20-minute, 60-kilometer flight to Aguni Island.

01 This photo is shoot by somethig blablabla caption plcace holder

kokuto 055

ARTISAN SUGAR

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We use only the pure, best part of the cane juice that has been extracted from twice-pressed sugarcane, Other factories press the fibers more times to extract more juice. During this process water is sprayed over the sugarcane for maximum extraction of the juice. This produces a greater volume of liquid, but the diluted juice produces poor quality brown sugar.

01 left_Kokuto san stir the huge bowl of molasses to generate sugar chunk

056

02 down _ to harden cane juice by heat and cut it down

kokuto

Okinawan Black Sugar Kokuto Kokuto was first made at the beginning of the 17th century, when it was all consumed by the small local population. Today, taking advantage of kokutoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s boom in popularity, some companies purporting to make the real thing are using inferior imported black sugar or adding caramel color and chemical flavors to a blend of processed white and brown sugars. To protect the quality of kokuto, in 1975 the Okinawa Prefecture Brown Sugar Industry Council began to award a recognizable mark only to the companies that produce the true, high-quality brown sugar.

Unlike American brown sugar most of which is produced by adding molasses to refined, processed white sugar, OKINAWA KOKUTO is made only from 100% pure sugar cane juice. All of the rich mineral and vitamin content of the cane remains in this highest quality product. The production of OKINAWA KOKUTO begins with the harvest of one and half year old sugar cane. The stalks are pushed through a pressing machine producing delightfully aromatic cane juice. This juice is then transferred to a huge cooking pot and is cooked down for two and half hours until the liquid becomes syrupy. During this process the hot sugar liquid travels from the large pot to smaller pots in three steps as the volume of liquid continues to shrink. At the end of the process very hot syrup is finally transferred to a shallow iron container, raked for several minutes, and then crystallized and dried. Finally the brown sugar is cut into cubes for packaging. Unlike refined white sugar, OKINAWA KOKUTO contains small but balanced quantities of beneficial minerals such as calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium and zinc. These trace elements give OKINAWA KOKUTO its unique extremely flavorful taste characterized by sweetness gently wrapped

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Okinawa Prefecture, situated south of the southernmost main Japanese island of Kyushu, consists of over 160 islands, only 48 of which are inhabited. Just seven of those make sugar. I am so fascinated by kokutoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s characteristics that I went to Okinawa to see for myself how it is made. After landing at the airport in Naha, the capital, I transferred to an airplane accommodating only nine passengers and the pilot, and took the 20-minute, 60-kilometer flight to Aguni Island. studded green seas. Aguni, a mere 763 square kilometers, or about the size of Manhattan, has a population of about 900. Unlike other islands in the region, with resort developments and overrun by tropical-climate-seeking and water-sportsloving tourists, Aguni remains untouched and untainted. Its airport is surrounded by an extensive field of sugarcane. Five minutes away is Okinawa Prefecture Aguni Brown Sugar Co-operative Industry, founded in 1958. The slender, tanned factory chief, Kobashigawa-san, noted that I was lucky to be there in mid-March and not a few weeks later; I hadnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t known that brown sugar production runs only from January 7 to the end of March.

It is interesting that Okinawa is famous for enjoying the greatest longevity among the entire Japanese population, and the Japanese themselves have the longest life span in the world. The consumption of pure black sugar along with plenty seaweed, tofu and pork (yes, pork!) in the diet is believed to contribute to the healthy long life of Okinawans.

ARTISAN SUGAR

058

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01 Kokuto san stir the huge bowl of molasses to generate sugar chunk

kokuto

059

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ARTISAN SUGAR

kokuto

During that period, starting around five o’clock every morning, sugarcane farmers, including Kobashigawasan, harvest one-and-a-half-year-old canes, cutting them, which range from six-and-a-half to ten feet tall, one after another by hand with a sickle The process of making the sugar candy is interesting in its subtle complexity. Essentially, the candy is a distillation of the sugarcane juice, but in practice, a lot more goes into it. I was invited to a local factory to observe the creation of some of this delicious sugar candy.

A factory worker checks the cane for sugar content. That decides the purchase price (the more sugar, the higher the price the farmer receives), promotes easy, proper production, and assures the quality of the product. Kobashigawa-san was very pleased that day. The sugar measurements were all over 20 degrees Brix. “Satisfactory! It’s thanks to sufficient rain last year. When the figure is lower than 18, it takes a long time to cook the cane juice.”

Since the sugarcane juice is acidic, bases are used to bring the liquid up to a ph that is more readily consumable. Afterwards, the solution is left to condense over the flames for around 5 hours. As the liquid condenses, it is moved to one pot. In the last hour, the liquid is stirred as it begins to coagulate into a cross between sugar and molasses. The dark liquid bubbles and is stirred and checked for the right consistency. When the workers determine that the process is finished, they transfer the liquid to nabe (large pots) to cool. The liquid is stirred vigorously to introduce air into the cooling sugar candy so that it will not be too hard. Once the liquid is nearly cool it is transferred to pans to rest. Just before they become completely hard, the cooling kokuto is scored so that it will be easier to create blocks later. The most delicious kokuto is said to be the thin wafers of kokuto that cool on the sides of the nabe. Since they are the most aerated and are layered from the stirring of the liquid they are indeed delicious. Most large scale operations will involve more steps, chemicals, and more uniform results. The process I describe here is the local method on a small island in Okinawa. The Oyatsumura factory and shop started out making kokuto in the garden for family and friends and developed over ten years to the still small but popular operation it is today. The hand made black sugar candy is delicious and special. You can order by calling the number listed on the Ultimate English Guide page, or stop by Kumejima to try some yourself!

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The locals create batches of kokuto twice a week during sugarcane season (January through April). During that period, starting around five o’clock every morning, sugarcane farmers, including Kobashigawa-san, harvest oneand-a-half-year-old canes, cutting them, which range from six-and-a-half to ten feet tall, one after another by hand with a sickle. This is time-consuming and labor-intensive, but is necessary because the canes do not grow straight and become tangled during harvesting. To prevent oxidation and maintain the quality of the sugar, the cane must be processed that same day. Waiting outside the factory building were many large mesh bags delivered by farmers and packed with kibi, sugarcane.

The sugarcane juice is extracted by a large rolling press. The stalks yield around 400 liters of juice that are then placed in large pots over a fire to boil.

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Black sugar is healthier and more tasty than white processed sugar; brown sugar has a few of the benefits of black sugar, but really isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t as good. Similar to sea salt or rock salt, black sugar is also a relatively alkaline ingredient.

BLACK SUGAR RECIPES

LOGAN CAKE 02

Ingredients: ½ cup of whole milk 180 g of pure black sugar blocks

Preheat the oven on 375ºF/190ºC.

Combine milk and black sugar in a sauce pot and set it over low heat. Simmer until the sugar has completely dissolved. The milk may start to curdle but DON’T panic. Let the milk cool down slightly, then whisk in the yogurt and it will come together again. Let the mixture cool down to room temperature.

85 g (approx ½ cup) of dried longan 1/4 cup of dark rum

2 tbsp of granulated sugar 2 large eggs

Sift flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt together (I like to do this onto a parchment paper so I can easily pour it into the mixer later). In a mixer with a fitted pedal, cream the butter and granulated sugar for 5 min until pale and fluffy. Add the eggs 1 at a time. Don’t add the 2nd one until the 1st one is completed whipped into the butter. Then add ¼ of the flour mixture, and mix for 5 sec. Then ½ of the milk mixture, and mix for another 5 sec. Then another ¼ of the flour mixture, followed by the last ½ of the milk mixture, and finally the last ¼ of the flour mixture (usually described as “mixing the dry and wet ingredient alternately in 3 batches, starting and ending with dry ingredients). Mix for 5 seconds in between and every time you stop, scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl so everything is mixed evenly. Add the soaked longan and rum, mix until just combined.

Line a round cake pan with parchment paper, and pour the batter into the pan. Smooth the top with a spatula and bake in the 375ºF/190ºC oven for 25 min. Then lower the temperature down to 350ºF/175ºC, and bake for another 25 min or until an inserted cake tester comes out clean. Let the cake cool on a rack and make the icing.

1 tsp of baking powder 1 tsp of baking soda 1½ tsp of salt Browned butter icing: from Martha Stewart 4 tbsp (57 g) of unsalted butter

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Combine the dried longan and rum in a bowl, and heat it in the microwave for 40 sec. Mix well and let the longan soak and plump up in the hot rum for 20 min.

2 (250 g) cups of all-purpose flour

1 cup of black sugar 1 tsp of vanilla extract 1~2 tbsp of milk

Black sugar is a regional specialty from Okinawa and Taiwan, and usually comes in blocks instead of granules. You could find them in major Asian/Japanese market. I suspect to be very similar on Amazon. If you really can’t find any of it, then use dark brown sugar.

1½ cup of plain yogurt

113 (1 stick) of unsalted butter,

Melt 4 tbsp of unsalted butter in a pot over medium heat. Let the butter sizzle and bubble. When the sizzling sound starts to subside, you’ll see the milk solids nicely browned and the butter turns dark and nutty, approx 5~7 min. Strain the browned butter through a fine sieve into a bowl. Add the powder sugar and whisk, then gradually add in the milk until it reaches a desired consistency. Add the vanilla extract and whisk until smooth. Smear the icing on top of the cake. Serve slightly warm or as I suspect, when it gets even better the next day.

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ARTISTS WHO LOVE SWEETS

WAYNE THIEBAUD Wayne Thiebaud loves food, especially desserts. Not only does he enjoy eating cakes, pies, and cupcakes, he also paints pictures of them. The word that best describes his art is ... “DELICIOUS.” Wayne paints these pictures from his memories, mostly from childhood. He remembers family picnics with tables piled high with homemade food. His mother, Alice, was a wonderful cook and baker. On rainy days she set up art projects for Wayne and his younger sister, Marjory Jean. Sometimes their uncle Jess, a cartoonist, came over and drew funny pictures for them. Wayne decided he wanted to be a cartoonist, too. He never dreamed that one day he would become one of the best-known American painters of the twentieth century. Wayne grew up in the American West. He was born on November 15, 1920, in Mesa, Arizona. When he was one year old, the family moved to Long Beach, California.

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“Delicious: The Life and Art of Wayne Thiebaud,” is the story of a happy man known for his happy paintings of cakes and pies. It turns out he also has many happy things to say about painting. For example: “I love art history” and “I was a spoiled child. I had a great life, so about the only thing I can do is to paint happy pictures.” The writing in “Delicious” is untroubled and straightforward, which is, apparently, like the man and the life it describes. There is no struggle in it at all. The story goes steadily from subject to verb, rung to rung, up the ladder of life and good fortune. “Wayne grew up in the American West,” we learn. “His mother, Alice, was a wonderful cook and baker.” His Uncle Jess was a cartoonist. When he was a kid, he wanted to be a cartoonist too, and he did become one for a while.

BORN

November 15, 1920 (age 93) Mesa, Arizona

KNOWN FOR

Painting, Printmaking

MOVEMENT

Pop Art, New Realism, Bay Area Figurative Movement

AWARDS

National Medal of Arts (1994)

by Cathleen McGuigan

Events that other people might have found trying turn out to be nothing more than fine challenges: “Wayne broke his back playing football in his junior year of high school,” and “kept himself busy by drawing.” While still in school he got a job in the animation department at Walt Disney Studios, where he drew Goofy, Pinocchio and Jiminy Cricket. During World War II, Thiebaud wanted to be a pilot, but instead became an Army artist, creating a comic strip called “Aleck.” After the war, when his career as a cartoonist didn’t pan out, he became an art director for the Rexall Drug Company and studied Michelangelo and Rubens. He kept drawing: “The more I drew, the more I improved.” In the 1950s Thiebaud showed his early paintings at a drive-in theater in Sacramento, but he aimed for New York and, after a while, made it there. Thiebaud hung out with painters and became friends with Willem de Kooning. He painted pictures of pinball machines and gumball machines and topped them off with a layer of what he calls “arty strokes.” By the 1960s Thiebaud got rid of the abstract expressionist glaze and replaced it with frosting — thick, slick strokes. He also found his subject: pies, candy and cakes. “Cakes, they are glorious, they are like toys.” His first painting of a row of pies made him laugh. But those paintings did not sell. A critic called him “the hungriest artist in California.” So Thiebaud looked for a gallery in New York. “His last stop” — isn’t it always the last stop? — “late one afternoon was the Allan Stone Gallery.” He and Stone became friends, and in April 1962 Thiebaud got a one-man show. Everything sold. And the rest is art history. Landscapes followed lollipops and portraits followed popsicles. The story of Wayne Thiebaud’s steady march to art stardom is not, however, all icing. The author of “Delicious,” Susan Goldman Rubin, who has also written books for young readers on Andy Warhol, Margaret Bourke-White and Edgar Degas, dives under the surface to examine Thiebaud’s pictures and his thoughts. She discusses his love of creating a “spatial tension” between repeated forms (not all drum majorettes or candy apples look alike); his feelings about pop art (he does “not want to be lumped with Warhol,” whose work he finds “flat” and “mechanical”); his trouble conveying in a realistic mode “the scary feeling” of San Francisco’s plunging intersections; his penchant for outlining cupcakes in blue and green.

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A Subtlety

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Oyatsumura K

Dia De Los Mue

Market

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ertos

by Katherine Brooks

In closed sugar factory, African American women artist, Kara Walker, has a exhbition. It talk about sugar slavery.

by Dansun Hwang Added sugar is the single worst ingredient in the modern diet. It provides calories with no added nutrients and can damage your metabolism in the long run.

by Benjamin Martin It might not surprise you then that one of Okinawaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s local treats is a kind of Black Sugar candy made directly from the juice of sugar cane plants...

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Lately, Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve noticed the growing popularity of skulls and sugar skulls in Western culture â&#x20AC;&#x201C; you can find them in all shapes and sizes plastered all over places. But have you ever though about the origins of sugar skulls or what exactly do they represent? Credit Randee M Ketzel

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Sugar skullâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s origin is from Day of the Dead, Mexican holiday celebrated throughout Mexico and around the world in other cultures. The holiday focuses on gatherings of family and friends to pray for and remember friends and family members who have died. It is particularly celebrated in Mexico where the day is a bank holiday.

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03 right _ Lynnonna sugar skull credit by Alejandro

02 right _ Lynnonna sugar skull credit by Alejandro

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01 left_ Gonzalesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ofrendas, photo credit by AngĂŠlica Portales

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Ofrendas are built inside the homes of the believers of Day of the Dead in Central and Southern Mexico. While there are regional differences in styles of the ofrendas due to income or custom, there are many altar mainstays to greet the weary spirits when they arrive. The children return on November first and the adults join their families on November 2.

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At midnight on October 31, the gates of heaven are believed to open so that the spirits of deceased children may reunite with their families for one day. Altars are decorated with toys, candy, chocolate, little glasses of milk and small sugar skull the altars were so colorful and full of food that it took away the scariness

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The skull symbolizes death but in a positive manner. For the Aztecs skulls were a positive symbol, not only of death but also of rebirth.

Supposedly the symbolism of a sugar skull is rooted in the decoration around the eyes. Flowers are meant to symbolize life, while cob webs symbolize death. Burning candles set inside the eyes are a sign of remembrance. These items can also be used in combination to personalize the main focus of the skull as well. So there you have it folks! Now you know where the origin of sugar skulls lies and you understand a little bit more about their meaning. Decorated with feathers, colored beads, foils and icing. These sugar skulls are very colorful and whimsical, not scary at all. The name of the deceased relative could be written on the skullâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s forehead and then put on the altar,

accompanied by marigolds (the marigold is perceived as the flower of the dead), candles and maybe even the deceasedâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s favorite food and beverage in order to encourage and guide him back to earth. Smaller skulls are placed on the offrenda (altar) on November 1st, representing the children who have passed away. Larger, more detailed ones would then replace them on the 2nd November, which represent the adults. The departed are believed to return home to enjoy the offerings on the altar.

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01 Left _ This photo is shoot by Calaveras de Azucar

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