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Napoleon and the Beet
BECOME A KITCHEN BOTANIST: Napoleon and the Beet 
During a meal which includes beets or swiss chard, you might add sugar to a cup of coffee. It is quite possible you are eating beets again when you sip your coffee, because that sugar may have come from a beet.
All types of beets and swiss chard, which is actually a kind of beet green, are varieties of the same species, Beta vulgaris. The red, orange or yellow beet you eat and the chard are originally from the Mediterranean region and have been cultivated since ancient times.
The sugar beet has a very different and dramatic story. Some French folk noticed in the 18th century that beets contained sugar, and the first factory to extract sugar from beets was opened in 1801. But it could not compete with cane sugar--until the Napoleonic Wars. The British Navy blockaded the French ports, so cane sugar from the West Indies couldn’t reach French tables.
Napoleon responded by encouraging the cultivation of beets, and the development of varieties with higher sugar content. A new commercial crop was born.
Sugar beets are now a major crop in northern Europe and in the temperate regions of North America. The production of sugar was a driving force for development of European colonies in the tropical regions of the Western Hemisphere. |
