Sugar Cane in Indian Festive Cooking

November 29, 2022

At the time of writing, India is currently the world’s second largest producer and exporter of sugar cane, just behind Brazil. India has a long history with sugar cane as, unlike Brazil, it is a native plant that was introduced overseas to the Americas and Caribbean in the 19th century. Records go as far back to the time of ancient Greece, and describe the surprise of the Greek travellers who had discovered a much sweeter alternative to the honey or figs of the Mediterranean.

Obviously the cane is used to make sugar but it is also often chewed or sucked and may be served as part of a second course to a meal. In order to make sugar, the juice was extracted by placing the canes in a large vice and collecting the liquid to be further refined into brown muscovado sugar or even further into something approaching white sugar. Historically, the plant was considered to be more nutritional than its extracted juice (which was a popular drink when spiced with ginger).

While it was common to use the juice for sugar it was also collected to be boiled, thickened and, finally, poured into moulds where it could set. This produced a block of jaggery which was a cheap sweetening agent used in many dishes. For example, laddu, a mixtures of rice, pulses and roasted seeds bound together with jaggery paste and (this is a Goan specialty), yams are often baked in jaggery. Pōli, are flatbreads stuffed with lentils and sweet jaggery while Sakkarai pongol is a sweet rice dish which takes its brown colour from jaggery.