Friday, June 26, 2020

A truly "sweet" vintage photo

As National Iced Tea Month comes to a close, I thought about the fact that I haven't yet made my more-or-less annual pitcher of simple syrup, a concoction that lives up to its name by being so simple that it really does require only a cup of sugar and a cup of water, combined and boiled until the sugar crystals disappear. Other than that yearly indulgence, I don't sweeten my iced tea, and I only rarely sweeten my hot tea, but when I do, I enjoy having a box of sugar cubes from Domino Sugar on hand. Have you ever thought about how they pack those cubes? I had not until I came across this photo from the Library of Congress.

The old stereograph is from 1912, copyrighted by the American Sugar Refining Company, and "shows women packing sugar cubes in boxes on scales."

And this YouTube video shows how sugar cubes are produced today!





4 comments:

  1. Wow! I had never thought about how those cubes were packed. Interesting photo, a good reminder of how things "used to be."

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  2. Funny you mentioned this....I am amazed at how they are packed so tight I can't get them out of their package! ��love this post Angela. Donna z

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  3. That's a very interesting stereograph photo from 1912. The current process of making sugar cubes has considerably less charm and a lot more noise! When I ran out of sugar cubes during the pandemic, I really missed them, since my local grocery didn't have them any more. I finally ended up ordering them on line, since using loose sugar in my hot tea just wasn't the same. I love using my little sugar tongs and have several nice ones, including one with a real amber insert which I bought in Lithuania, and a vintage Russian one I found in an antique shop in Helsinki.

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  4. Very interesting. So much is done by machines these days we often forget how they were done in the past.

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