Allaine Mark

Fresh Desserts Allaine Mark

Although the predilection for sweetness is evolutionary in origin, dessert is a purely cultural phenomenon. Throughout history cultures have found in fruits many uses for dessert: dried dates, figs, and other fruits were commonly used for this purpose in the Ancient Middle East; grape juice used to be boiled down to a thick, sweet syrup for sweetening pastries. In Egypt, apiculture goes back to at least forty-five hundred years and these days the most widespread ancient sweetener is honey. Sweets were fed to the gods in Ancient Mesopotamia and continue to be the preferred sacred offering among Hindus. In the past, dessert was only available to the wealthy people; the creation of sweetmeats was always reserved for special occasions where cost was not an issue. Imperial Rome had professional sweet makers at their pastry shops. In Renaissance Venice, confectioners were also expected to be skilled sculptors, sometimes collaborating with noted artists. This caused sugar to be one of the first food ingredients to promote international commerce, after all, the heart of dessert is sugar. In Europe, sugar was a rare and expensive spice before the slave plantations of the New World made available its confectionary.