Treacle
From Free net encyclopedia
- Treacle is an obsolete pharmaceutical term for a medicinal salve, usually given for snakebites, poisons, and various diseases. In the Middle Ages, wells that were believed to contain curative water were known as "treacle wells".
- See also treacle mining.
- Treacle is another word for molasses.
Treacle, starting around the 17th century, means molasses in English usage. Originally in England it referred to a medicinal antidote composed of many ingredients, including honey. Treacle and honey were used as medicines and to sweeten medicines before refined white sugar made from sugar cane made its way to England for the first time in the 13th century.
When sugar first arrived it was scarce and expensive. It slowly became more widely available and affordable to all people. Sugar then began to replace treacle in medicinal usages and by the 17th century it was a European food. Sugar also replaced honey in other uses such as a food preservative. It became easier and cheaper to use sugar to pack meat and sugar was also better at the task. Sugar was also easier to find than treacle and less work had to be done by the consumer to transport and maintain sugar.
This information is from the essay "Time, Sugar, and Sweetness" by Sidney W. Mintz.
Also see Pop Goes the Weasel for a humorous reference to treacle.