On 2/7/08, Gautam John <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Feb 8, 2008 9:05 AM, Deepa Mohan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > No...gur is called "vellam"...and palm sugar is "panam kalkandu". > > There is also this liquid palm sugar syrup, in Kerala, that is called "paani". > > :-) Sugar daddy wants to inject some noise here.
There are various byeproducts, and products of sugarcane (not including the bagasse, which was called Khali) that are referenced in literature - mostly in sanskrit but adapted in other indic languages too: phanita - thickened sugarcane juice (now called rab?) guda - jaggery or brown sugar khand - large indian sugar faceted crystals (kalkhandu is a tamilized version of khand, meaning 'stone'khand - which is a very apt description - does 'khandsari' ring a bell in the context of sugar mills?) sharkara - brown sugar or bura which is actually gud crystals, thorougly drained of molasses, but not refined in anyway matsyandhika - crystalline sugar (fish egg like) (I was rather pleasantly surprised to see this along with handpounded rice etc, in RelianceFresh, of all places in Bangalore - but it was plainly labeled 'white sugar!' bah!) misri or chini - white crystalline sugar It would be of interest to note that, of all the above products, misri or white crystalline sugar is a very late entrant to the scene of Indian cuisine in a major way and has quickly become predominant. I very seriously wonder whether it has something to do with the common indian fixation on melanin(actually the lack of it). May be gud (actually too gud), unpolished rice and small grains (such as millets etc) have fallen by the wayside because they are antithetical to the 'fair and lowly' aspirations? hmmm... __r. -- http://www.qsl.net/vu2sro/ "Mathematics has given economics rigor, but alas, also mortis." -- Robert Heilbroner
