Was the beet sugar vs. cane sugar dessert tasting a blind taste test? Did each taster prefer all three of one sample to all three of the other sample? Was there “palate cleansing” in between?
I tried doing blind taste-testing of (Canadian) Smarties (testing the theory that the different colours have slightly different tastes), but after the first couple, they all tasted exactly like chocolate. :smack:
It was for the first one, but there was such a profound and consistent difference between the cane and beet sugar desserts we made that it clearly overweighed anything else, and we didn’t bother later (plus we knew very well that our test was extremely limited in scope, controls, sample size, participants, etc. and was not meant to represent any sort of broad-scale analysis).
It was a serious surprise to us, especially myself - I was very biased towards there being no difference, and I fully expected to report back to Cecil “it’s bunk, we didn’t notice any difference.” In fact I would have bet $50 there would be no difference, and yet, in our very small and limited test there was a big difference.
yaddi yadda include a link blah blah know for next time etc etc
I thought IG Farben manufactured Zyklon B? Or was Dessauer etc. and/or Degussa one of the child corps?
Interesting. I would’ve also put money on “not much difference in a blind taste test”.
Tastes in sugar certainly vary, though; I generally prefer “table syrup” to maple syrup, for instance.
IG Farben held the patent for Zyklon B and supplied some of the ingredients, but didn’t technically produce Zyklon B itself.
The entire German chemical industry was I. G. Farben. History textbooks used to name IGF, but in more recent years it has been more fashionable to name the individual operating units, most of which were independent companies that had been swallowed up by IGF, and many of which were re-established as separate organizations by the Allies after the war. BASF, Bayer (no connection until recently with the US company of the same name) and Hoechst (now Celanese) were the big three, but there were plenty of others.
Yeah; it’s called “beet sugar.”
There wasn’t a US company of the same name. In 1918, in the US and Canada, Bayer was stripped of its trademarks. In 1920, Sterling Drugs entered into a contract with Bayer to allow it to sell aspirin under the Bayer name. (in 1923, Sterling and Bayer became equal partners in a joint subsidiary, Winthrop Chemical Company). But there was never an American pharmaceutical company called Bayer distinct from the German Bayer.
Una, I know you know this, but its worth emphasizing:
I think it’s important to point out that the evidentiary value of such a small test is very very close to zero. Without a proper sample size and apprpriate double-blind procedures, the creme brulee experiment is at best an anecdote – I wouldn’t be surprised if there are subtle differences that are detectable, but there’s been no real evidence presented either way.
I can taste the difference between beet sugar and cane sugar. I dislike beet sugar, and won’t buy it. (Don’t like beets either.) I must have cane sugar.
You might detect a taste difference. But it’s not scientific evidence, it’s just anecdotal. People like you and me are notoriously terrible at this sort of thing.
Now don’t get me wrong, I am not saying I don’t believe you. What I am saying is that your ability to taste the difference is highly suspect unless the tests were carried out in properly scientific way.
Yes I do know it, and I expected that people would criticize the test. We have no possible way to do a major broad-scale laboratory-controlled peer-reviewed test, so it is an anecdote - and a way to add fun and texture to the column.
We did consider enlisting the Teeming Millions on here for a general cook-off/test, but then that really didn’t give a better scientific validity, since there would be no commonality of control across the dozens or scores who might do their test, and there would be no way to ensure no tampering with the results. The plural of anecdote is sometimes evidence, but very often not.
Another thing to consider is that while sweetness can be measured in a laboratory, how something tastes has a large component of personal chemical reaction and mental perception that makes each case, well, personal. If I had found a major peer-reviewed study that said “in 1,000 trials there was no statistically significant difference” it would have mattered not in terms of which I preferred and which I would cook with in the future, because for both of us the the unexpected difference in taste was so profound. So I personally believe there is value in each person trying it themselves and seeing what they like best.
I know that Cecil would like to hear posts or mail from anyone who tries their own tests, just to see what people think - keeping in mind that as I said earlier, the plural of anecdote, etc.
If we are going to use creme brulee as the tasting standard, the plural of anecdote will be love handles!! 
On the one hand, of course I agree.
But at some point, common sense takes over. If I blindfold you and give you something that tastes like a marshmallow and I ask you if it tastes like horseradish, would your answer be “not enough data”? Sometimes differences are indeed obvious enough to make a blind taste test rather silly.
Absolutely. But in the case of two chemical compounds differing in only a few hundredths of a percent of trace impurities, filtered through the impressions of a falliable human tester, I think this is one that is particularly susceptible to bias, as in the case of mp3 vs CD or HFCS soda compared to sugar soda, not to mention that there is quite a lot of advertising whose sole purpose is to increase that bias 
A more meaningful anecdote would be if you had ten sugar samples of an unknown type, in front of you, and you were able to place all the cane sugars in the cane sugar bin and all the beet sugars in the beet sugar bin.
Which I will try to do in the very near future, and I will report the results.
Well, usually it’s me biting into a cookie, trying to hide my “ugh” reaction, and asking my friend’s mom what kind of sugar she used. Each time, she’d name a beet sugar. (ETA: I mean a brand that is beet sugar, not cane sugar.) The Mr. made the mistake of buying beet sugar for me just once. We had to give it away to the neighbors. It tastes “beet-y” to me.
Oh, and yes, I did just quietly eat the cookie and thank the nice lady. But, I also learned to avoid beet sugar like the plague. I can tell when the cookies weren’t made with cane sugar. It took a bit to figure out that it really was beet sugar making the difference in the taste, a few times biting into a cookie that just tasted different. One time she told me directly she used beet sugar, and it registered that the sweetness in the cookie was “beet-y” somehow. (ETA: Sugar cookies would probably be a good way to test this, that’s how I figured it out.)
I’m on a 1000-calorie a day diet. That testing for Cecil blew that out of the water. So much creme brulee…
The plague avoids beet sugar? We could be onto a revolution in medical science here!
<cue rim shot>
Oh, I just slay me.
In a slightly more on-topic question, if we were to try to perform a more controlled test, what would be a good dish to create? I have a difficult time making cookies that are consistent from batch to batch using the same ingredients. Are there any baked goods where the sugar is added near the end? This might allow us to make a big, uniform batch of dough (or whatever) that can then be halved, sweetened, and baked.
RR