Agria 23. (Az Egri Múzeum Évkönyve - Annales Musei Agriensis, 1987)

Kisbán Eszter: „Köleskását hoztam, mégpedig cukrozva…” (A cukor bevezetése a parasztoknál Magyarországon)

Eszter Kisbán Introduction of sugar amongst the peasantry in Hungary From the early modern period up to the development of the beet-sugar industry Hungary was far away from the European sugar ports and centres of sugar refining. Its nearest important supplier was Hamburg. This situation kept the level of consumption lower at every social level than in the better supplied regions. Home beet-sugar production started in 1831 and export became possibleJn the 1860s. The development of the average sugar consumption is to be seen on page (246). Peasants regarded sugar as a luxury up to 1900 and it still had a high prestige with them until after the Second World War. The earliest reference to the use of sugar among the peasants appears in the late 18th century. During the 17th century artisans at gild feasts and even poor city dwellers on great occasions used some sugar on milk-rice. The introduction of sugar among the peasantry has undergone 3 subsequent stages. In terms of time these overlap by a few years because of unequal development in different regions. The first phase certainly began earlier than the first data, surviving from the 1790s, would indicate. At this stage, sugar was added to some foods - millet-pap, milk-rice, kinds of doughnut and pie - which themselves had for long been common on the peasants' table. Sugar marked great occasions of hospitality only, such as the wedding feast or carnival time. It was added to the food preferably in a visible way to fulfil the prestige function. Parallel with sugar the older use of honey under the same conditions also survived until the early 1900s. The main and most symbolic item of early sugared food, millet-pap or milk-rice, disappeared from the wedding feast by 1910. The second stage is marked by the introduction of new, sugar-based cake and pastry preparations and to a lesser degree by the drinking of sweet coffee. The early modern ways of preparing upper class cakes (Hung, torta) were in a state of transition during the 18th century. The modern type of cake with butter-based mousse filling did not emerge before 1850. Isolated early peasant experiments with cakes for the wedding table or the private sphere in the 1840s did not have any immediate follow up as yet. A second wave of the use of wedding cakes in 1890 marks the beginning of a quick diffusion at that date. The most popular kind of cake with the peasants became the one that was covered or even fully made of brittle (- burnt) sugar, showing the sugar used for it most effectively. This brittle cake can be regarded as the main item of the second phase of using sugar. Whatever the cake was, only one came onto the table at the beginning, and it was the job of the bride to divide it among the guests. After a belated start among the peasantry in Hungary in 1850, coffee penetrated the forms of hospitality at great feasts only before 1900. In this drink, it was the coffee and not the sugar that really was accentuated, and in spite of several initiatives at weddings, coffee had not as yet become widely integrated into the peasant culture. At the third stage, sugar gradually became a daily necessity. Between 1900 and 1914 the average consumption of sugar rose from 4 kg to 8 kg a head. It was during these years that peasant families started to buy sugar regularly throughout the year. Sweet pastry came on the menu of more minor festivals and small amounts of sugar were used for the Sunday dinner. The 1920s were a great time of learning middle class preparations of small pastries. Instead of one, there soon came dozens and even hundreds of cakes on the wedding table. The boiling of jam with sugar, and the preparation of bottled fruit were all new exercises. Women and children drank morning coffee more and more. 263