Revised Post: The Social Construction of Taste and Sugar

The Social Construction of Taste and Sugar

Inspiration: Sweetness and Power

By Sidney w. Mintz

       Much of what we find tasteful and desirable to eat has been shaped by society over the past 800 year through a process of social construction. It is often hard to wrap your mind around the idea that taste is socially constructed. Intuitively, there is resistance to such an idea that harkens back to high school biology classes, where it seemed that taste was purely biological. Our tongue responded with sensory perceptions that told our brain how something tasted. If it was bitter or sour, we avoided it and this served to keep us from eating poisonous or rotting items that could kill us---end of a relatively simple story. However, the story isn’t over. In fact, the story has evolved dramatically, as have our tastes.

       Modern society has had a profound influence in the social construction of our tastes. While we have touched on this issue in our class discussions, we have not reached a consensus in accepting the extension of social influence to include our tastes. Many of us find it disconcerting to think of our response to a food substance as a construction of society rather than biology. Still, some in our class were able to offer examples where liking for a certain taste developed and grew as they matured, while other taste preferences diminished and disappeared. Was this evidence of biological maturing or taste preferences developed as a social construction?

       The majority of the evidence suggests that our tastes today are the products of social construction. Nowhere is this clearer than with our taste for sugar. In his book, Sweetness and Power, Sidney Mintz provides a history of sugar that documents its changing uses over time and illustrates the its social construction in our modern tastes. Beginning in England around the twelfth century and continuing until around 1650, Mintz notes that the English diet was still trying to gain stability with adequate amounts of starch, although its level of nutrition was similar to others elsewhere in the world. The introduction of sugar into the English diet resulted in an increased usage that exceed biological responsiveness and emphasized the strong influence of social construction.

       Sugar had been recognized and used across the Mediterranean and North Africa as a medicine and a spice before it spread to Europe. When it was introduced to England in the twelfth century, sugar was categorized as a spice. In view of the plain and barely adequate English diet, it is no surprise that the royalty and wealthy found it useful as a spice, a preservative, and a digestive aid. Although it was very expensive to purchase even small amounts, the wealthy quickly began to import increasing amounts of sugar. Because of its cost, it remained a luxury that few could afford. Sugar’s use as a spice peaked around the sixteenth century, after which it became more often used as a preservative, a form of decoration, and a sweetener. While the price of sugar remained out of reach for most individuals, it became heavily used by the royals and the powerful of England and Europe. Edible productions of animals and objects appeared at feasts and royal events despite the cost and the large quantities of sugar required. These sweet edible items became associated with privilege and power, giving sugar increased social value in English life. With this recognized prestige associated with sugar, the social construction of sugar had begun.

       Beginning around the time of the mid-seventeen hundreds and moving forward, the use of sugar began a downward and outward spread as cost began to drop and availability expanded. As availability spread beyond the wealthy elite, individuals who could afford it brought sugar into their homes. In turn, this shift created profits for the merchants who traded and sold sugar. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the British colonies in the West Indies developed sugar cane plantations. These plantations because a major source of sugar and molasses production for England and America making sugar even more available in homes. The role of the slave trade cannot be overlooked in the social construction of sugar. Kidnapped from their African lands, slaves taken to the West Indies worked in the cane fields and refineries to produce the white sugar, molasses, and rum that had become so popular, desirable, and profitable. Merchants, ship builders, and land owners profited from the free labor and the increasing demand. During this time frame, written recipes began to call for sugar and cookbooks were published. No longer a spice, sugar had changed its role in the social life of the culture. The good cook and the good housewife cooked with sugar. It was a social norm. The increased use of tea and coffee to be sweetened with sugar integrated it further into everyday life. Sugar was now part of what any home should have, solidifying the social construction of sugar as a necessity of society.

       During the twentieth century, sugar became even more ingrained into culture with its prominent role in sweet desserts that accompanied almost any meal. Additionally, sugar was the ingredient in the growing soft drink business in Europe and America. Advertising paired sugary drinks and foods with fun. Beyond its social usefulness, the sweetness of sugar became conditioned in the taste buds and body of those who consumed it frequently adding a rewarding classical condition paradigm to create a public socially and now physically addicted to sugar. This social construction of sugar as connected to power and wealth that brought it into nearly every home worldwide has produced a psychological and physical addiction that remains extremely lucrative.

       Those who will argue against the idea of a social construction say that sugar is craved simply for its sweet taste. However, a review of history suggests that the “craving” for the sweet taste of sugar is an artifact (a conditioned secondary response) of the social construction of sugar as a part of a normal life. While humans have never avoided sweet tastes, the current cultural obsession with sugar is the result of our cultural conditioning to find sugar rewarding on social, political and power levels and to associate our needs for those feeling of control in our lives with its sweet taste.