Does anyone make them anymore? Typically we let kids give horses pieces of carrot for “treats” after a ride. Someone asked recently “Do you ever give them sugar cubes?” I said, “No, I’ve never even seen any.” (At least, not since my polio vaccine.) Have you seen any lately, and if so, where? (Not that it’s a big deal. Carrots are readily available, and probably cheaper.)
Go directly to the baking aisle of your local grocery.
See all those bags of white and brown sugar?
Now look down and to either side, I promise they are right there. In fact, I use them all the time!
Mj, you’ve got to eat in a better class of restaurant. (Smilie here)
Sure they still make them, and finer eateries and hotels use them all the time. I’ll bet Eve won’t drink her afternoon tea with anything else.
It’s true, and she much prefers to take her LSD that way, too.
She just HATES the blotter stuff.
I saw some yesterday at a local coffeehouse. They make a slightly smaller mess than sugar in paper packets.
Robin
Yesterday. Got a whole big bag of 'em at work. Threw me a bit, though, when I saw them.
I still buy them sometimes. There is a Russian store near my apartment that sells Russian sugar cubes and they are twice as big as the usual type. They are perfect for a quick sugar fix and less messy than a spoonful of sugar.
FWIW, I too have noticed that they do exist in the supermarkets, but elsewhere they are much less common than 20-30 years ago.
My WAG is that in recent decades we’ve got much more sanitary and get grossed out by a pile of cubes that other people might have touched.
Also there’s a trade-off: Packets are harder to open than cubes, but cubes are harder to dissolve.
I still see them often in restaurants/cafés in Switzerland. I imagine other european countries use them in public venues also.
A woman at my barn gives her horse a sugar cube when she bridles, so they must not be THAT hard to find (regular Domino brand and al). Personally, I perfer peppermints for your non-rotting horse treat.
Yup. In Norway, coffee is sweetened with sugar cubes, tea with granulated sugar. Any decent cafe will offer both.
Of course, this is backwards, logically speaking; tea is properly made with hotter water than good coffee, so the cubes would dissolve more easily in tea. But certain traditions are not to be trifled with.
I have a box of sugar cubes in my kitchen cupboard as we speak. I picked 'em up because, apart from sweetening coffee, the only thing I use sugar for is baking, and for that I keep a large bin of sugar. I’d rather not drag the bin out for a tablespoonful, and there’s no point in leaving a sugar bowl out on the counter, so cubes it is.
Besides, like Cecil said, there’s just something about crunching 'em…
http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a2_038.html
I had some recently too–pilfered by friends from a chi-chi Italian bakery/restaurant, they were wrapped in pretty paper.
I saw some today on the table in the very nice restaurant where I had lunch today.
Tuesday, maybe Wednesday.
Martha Stewart used them as bricks to make tiny, little houses.
Very festive.
Bought some last week to build a Mexican pyramid for my kid’s school project. I highly recommend this. It’s a blast.
Since it hasn’t been done yet, but must. . .
I saw Bjork in a movie trailer for “Dancing in the Dark” a couple of weeks ago. . .
<Sigh> Ahh, childhood. Gramma was from Poland. The Old Country, as she said. I’d never SEEN sugar cubes till I got to her apartment. She lived at 56 7th Ave in NYC. For those of you who are Chelsea dwellers, you know how great that immense pre-war building is. She’d make her cup of tea, then sit the teabag on a saucer to use again later. ( After all, who has such money that they use a new teabag each time? The Tzars? Feh !). Then, she’d hold a cube of sugar in her teeth,and suck the tea down. God help me, I miss her. Never had the guts to try that trick though. I assume it was just about as sweet as it could be with that approach.
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