Molasses--A Sticky Situation

Most school children know that tea played an important part in the events that led up to the American Revolution. How many know that molasses was an equally valuable food commodity to American colonials?

Molasses was the foundation of a commercial arrangement known as the "triangular trade." New England distilled massive quantities of rum, which required a great deal of molasses to create. Ships carried rum to West Africa where it was traded for slaves. The ships then returned to the West Indies and traded the slaves for molasses, which was transported to New England. While most of the molasses was used for rum, some was sold as "poor man's sugar" (for decades, molasses was the primary sweetener for Americans).

This arrangement began when the French forbade their West Indian colonies to sell molasses to the home country. This was to prevent the rum industry from ruining the French brandy market. Sugar planters in the West Indies sought a new market for their molasses and sold it at cut-rate prices to the American colonies. Sugar growers living in the British West Indies loudly protested this arrangement and forced the English parliament to pass the Molasses Act of 1733, which placed a high duty on molasses imported from the French West Indies. The colonists openly flouted the law. Although the duty was eventually reduced in 1764, duties on sugar imports were increased. Thus, another case of "taxation without representation" was added to America's list of grievances against England.

What is molasses? During the refining of sugar cane and sugar beets, the juice squeezed from these plants is boiled to a syrupy mixture and the sugar crystals are extracted. The remaining brownish-black liquid is molasses. Light molasses comes from the first boiling of the sugar syrup and is lighter in both flavor and color. It is often used as a pancake and waffle syrup. Dark molasses comes from a second boiling and is darker, thicker and less sweet than light molasses. It is generally used as a flavoring in American classics, such as gingerbread. Blackstrap molasses comes from the third boiling and is what amounts to the dregs of the barrel. It can be very thick, dark and somewhat bitter. Though popular with health-food followers, it is more commonly used as food for cattle.

Molasses also was the cause of a terrible--and quirky--tragedy that occurred on January 15, 1919 in parts of Boston, Massachusetts. The "Great Molasses Flood" was the result of a large storage tank located in Boston's north end

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