Sweetness and Light

It has come to my attention that at least one loyal reader, in perusing my recipe for gluten-free Banana Pudding with Butterscotch Sauce, came across an heretofore unknown ingredient: Lyle's Golden Syrup.  I am happy to provide more details about this British delicacy and sing its praises. It's awesome stuff.

I will start with what it is not, which is corn syrup - although it shares many characteristics with this all-American ingredient. Golden Syrup is indeed sweet-sweet and sticky, but as its name would imply, it is a rich honey color; tawny, thick and clear in the morning sunlight. Strictly speaking, it is an invert sugar syrup, produced as a by-product of sugar-cane refining. It can be found in shops and kitchens all over the former Empire: South Africa, Australia, Singapore and India each have their own thriving markets for the elixir, together with anthropologically appropriate uses and recipes. You can't make treacle tart, Anzac cookies, parkin, wildebeeskastaiings, or nian gao without it.

It used to be very difficult to find in my corner of Pennsylvania and I often resorted to smuggling tins of it home, just like biltong, unpasteurized cheese, and macarons from Dalloyau. That is not to say it isn't a common ingredient in other parts of the continent, however: Wikipedia reliably informs me that it is widely used in Cajun cooking, for example, and a quick bit of internet research confirms that the syrup is often employed as a sweet glaze for protein in that part of the world. Fortunately, my local supermarket now carries jars (not the groovy green tins, sadly) next to the corn syrup and molasses, and for that I am deeply thankful.

Lyle's famous label has not changed, I believe, in over a hundred years. Note the rather unusual logo of a lion's carcass covered with swarming bees and the slogan, 'Out of the strong, came forth sweetness.' This is an allusion, as all Biblical scholars are well aware, to the story of Samson in the Book of Judges. I am unable at the moment to call to mind any similarly historical reference related to syrups or sugar products on this side of the Pond.

Sir (or was it Alan Rickman in Die Hard?) often points to such an unexpected occurrence of cultural literacy as 'one of the many benefits of a classical education'. I just know it's fantastic syrup.