Sweet!

Today's class combined a lecture on sugars followed by a laboratory.  There were cane sugars, date sugars, palm sugars, agave sugars, maple tree sugars, beet sugar, sorghum sugars, malted cereal sugars, refined sugars, unrefined sugars, sugars from India, China, Thailand, Columbia, Mexico, and other places, bee sugars from flower sugars, and not really sugars (Stevia rebaudiana).  The most surprising one was a sugary woody root named appropriately enough Glycyrrhiza glabra, literally sugar root.  Most of my students could not get the flavor even though they all know it.  Liquorice.  Short lengths of these woody roots were the original liquorice sticks and they were chewed to extract the sweet liquorice flavor.  Today's liquorice fans have it all too easy eating those gummy ones.