Chapter 512 Conjuring Sugar from the Air
Encountering a rare good weather, Perficott also made an exception and set up a dining table in the garden of his lord's mansion and drank afternoon tea.
She does not have this habit on weekdays. After all, for the nobles of Victoria, afternoon tea is equal to social entertainment, and not many people drink afternoon tea alone.
Although the formation of this habit has a lot to do with Victoria's eating habits after entering the industrial age, for Purficott, she does not have this habit.
In the past, people in Viktoria generally had two meals a day, a hearty breakfast and a formal dinner to ensure they had enough energy for the day.
However, with the advent of the industrial age, the abundance of materials and the increase in people's production and life, the long period of fasting between breakfast and dinner has become an intolerable problem for nobles and even common people.
Ordinary civilians don’t have that much spare money, so it doesn’t matter if they endure it, but those workers who need to work choose fish and chips as fast food.
Eat a few simple bites to fill your stomach, so that you can still be in good working condition when you work in the afternoon.
But this is a bit inelegant for the nobles. Although their ancestors were all barbarians who drew knives to open slices, with the development of society, the nobles prided themselves on being civilized, and they began to pay attention to many things.
At first, it might just be asking the servants to prepare some ordinary snacks for themselves. However, as this habit continued to develop and the nobles became more and more particular, it evolved into the custom of drinking afternoon tea. .
Today, at the tables of aristocrats like Purficott, afternoon tea has developed into specially crafted, sweet and cloying cakes and snacks, as well as imported high-quality black tea.
The original world, because of the development of sugar making technology in the world, especially the emergence of fructose syrup, sweetness and sugar seem to have become a very common and common thing in daily life.
But in fact, before the emergence of fructose syrup, sugar was an out-and-out luxury product and an important strategic material. In cold areas, sugar was even linked to survival necessities.
It sounds outrageous and difficult to understand, isn’t it just sugar? Is it that exaggerated?
In fact, before the invention of fructose syrup, the status of sugar was so important and exaggerated that the most important reason why Europeans in the original world carried out colonial movements was to build plantations to grow sugar cane in the colonies. Produce sugar.
Even in Japan during the Tokugawa period, the famous Satsuma feudal lord in the southwest relied on the trade method of smuggling sugar to pay off the huge debt of one million taels of gold accumulated over the past dynasties. At the same time, it also accumulated the necessary resources to complete modernization reforms. The funds needed finally realized the political goal of overthrowing the shogunate.
So the value of sugar is self-evident.
Especially in the era of underdeveloped industry, growing sugar crops meant competing for land with food crops, so sugar became an out-and-out luxury.
The role of sugar also determines the importance of this sweet thing to humans.
First of all, sweetness can make humans feel happy. This may be some kind of subconscious or nervous system specialization accumulated by humans in the ancient biological evolution process, but eating it Sweet foods really make you feel better.
Secondly, sugar is a very high-energy food. Eating sweets can very effectively replenish energy consumption. This is also an important reason why people who are addicted to sweets tend to gain weight. If there is too much energy that cannot be consumed, it can only be converted into fat and stored. From this point of view, it is easy to understand that sugar will become an important strategic material and even a necessity for survival in cold areas.
Eating sweets can indeed quickly replenish energy for the body in cold areas, thereby resisting the energy consumption caused by the cold.
Of course, with the development of modern industry, sugar is also an important raw material for making various explosives. The so-called need to issue a certificate to buy sugar is not unreasonable, but sugar can really be used to make explosives. And the explosives that can be made from sugar are quite powerful.
Because of this, sugar was a very important strategic resource in the original world until World War II.
It wasn't until the invention of fructose syrup that this sweet substance that could be efficiently extracted from corn starch by industrial means quickly replaced the original status of sucrose as a food additive, making sweets suddenly popular in the original world, making people want to eat it. Eating sweets no longer becomes a luxury.
Of course, there are still some differences between fructose syrup and sucrose. These differences also lead to the fact that fructose syrup still cannot truly replace sucrose.
For Purficott in this world, sugar is not something that is difficult for her to obtain. Even in the current environment where the apocalypse is about to come, it is impossible to shorten her use. .
Not to mention that for a dignified alchemist, if eating candy is a problem, then there will really be a big problem.
Although Purficott is not so extravagant as to use the Philosopher's Stone to use fantasy alchemy to create sugar out of thin air, he designs an alchemy ritual to convert carbon dioxide in the air into starch, and then uses starch to make sugar. Making sugar is still easy.
This is even a science and technology that can already be realized in the original world. Perficott just replaced the catalyst and invertase parts with alchemy.
After all, if alchemy is not included, the current level of science and technology in this world is roughly equivalent to the level during the first industrial revolution. Biology and chemistry are both in the ascendant and are basically still in the process of being established. The stage of a complete scientific system.
Now let’s talk about the technical issues that have only been solved in the original world since the 21st century. This is somewhat difficult for the scientists of this world.
Of course, it is completely different with alchemy, especially fantasy alchemy, which is really just a matter of clapping your hands and shouting.
However, sugar-making technology has not become popular at the moment, because this is something that Purficott only remembered when she ate a dessert while fishing a few days ago, so she spent a day or two to complete it. The entire alchemical ritual process of harvesting carbon dioxide from the air to make sugar was intended to be popularized.
And today's afternoon tea can be regarded as a kind of promotion. At least you have to tell others that you have sugar-making technology, so that you can attract people to invest, right?
Perficott does not intend to fully disclose this technology. After all, sweets are good, but eating too much can cause various serious problems. Purficott does not want his people to They are all the kind of fat people who can drip two kilograms of oil while walking on the road.
So, it is enough for her to recruit some people in a small circle to participate in the sugar production project and ensure that enough sugar can flow into the market.
And this can also win over the aristocratic group, right? Although Purficott doesn't care much about this, she still won't refuse to do things that follow the trend.
(End of this chapter)