Throughout the ages, man has recognized the virtues of honey. In ancient civilizations, honey was hailed as the "nectar of the gods", the "elixir of life" and the "milk of Paradise". Even in the Bible, King Solomon's advice has been immortalized, "Eat honey, my son, for it is good for you."
In medieval Europe, physicians consulting eleventh century leechbooks would have prescribed a treatment of honey for medical complaints, including the plague, burns, and amputations. Things would not have been terribly different in Egypt or Sumeria in 2000 B.C. where injuries and illnesses were treated in much the same way.
While the miracle food went a long way to make lives and diets more comfortable, it played an equally significant part in death. Honey was there to cure the ancients, and it was also there to embalm them. In the "Odysseys", the body Archilles was buried "in the clothing of the gods, in lavish unguents and sweet honey." Alexander the great was also sent off to the "other world", placed in honey in a golden coffin. In ancient Egypt, honey was widely used to mummify corpses, being the best known preservative at the time.
To ensure that life was sweet and that Paradise would be even better, offerings had to be made to please the gods. King Ramses III of Egypt must have made quite an impact on the Nile god with his offering of 20 ons of honey. As this sweet ambrosia was universally believed to be part of the Divine Diet, it was widely offered to other gods as well including Artemis, Aphrodite and Dionysus, all of whom were associated with fertility and the abundance of nature.
Made from the nectar of flowers, this natural sweetener is made by bees as food for their larvae and stored in the hive during the winter months. After the nectar has been collected and brought back to the hive, the bees convert it into honey by fanning it with their wings to reduce the moisture content; natural enzymes are added to it as well as part of the process.
For every pound of honey, bees would have had to travel as far as forty thousand miles to collect nectar from two million flower. And in every one-twelfth of a tablespoon of honey is the lifetime's toil of a worker bee.
Each floral source bestow a distintive, different flavour and colour to the honey it produces. The colour of honey can range from water white to dark amber. Generally, the darker the honey, the stronger its flavour, and the lighter the honey, the milder it is.
Of the different kinds of honey available on the supermarket shelves, clover honey is the common, characterized by its delicate flavour and heavy body. One of the purest clover honey is produced in the Canterbury, Otago and Southland provinces of New Zealand where the expanses of land yield few other nectar sources. The fine flavour of alfalfa honey makes a perfect table honey, although the dark coloured tulip poplar honey is more of a favourite in many Arab countries. For those attempting self-improvement, sage honey might be an option worth exploring as its floral source is said to possess the power to make man wise by improving his memory. Sage honey, along with the mild flavoured tupelo honey, is known never to granulate.
The distinct, sharp flavour of manuka honey, produced from the manuka and kanuka trees native to New Zealand, is unique for its antibacterial property. The Maoris and early European settlers used the plant for medicinal purposes: its leaves were boiled and used for intestinal complaints and as a mouthwash, its sap treated burns and scalds and the seed capsules were used to treat open wounds.
The list of over three hundred floral varieties of honey goes on forever with the white-coloured orange blossom honey, buckwheat honey-popular with those who are health conscious-the sharp tasting honey made from thyme, and other exotic varieties such as vipers bugloss, nodding thistle and kamahi.
Today, almost 90 percent of the honey produced ends up in our breakfast menu as table honey. In our busy lifestyle, it serves as a quick energy booster as its sugars-fructose and glucose-are absorbed directly into the blood. Certainly a healthier option than caffeine, or mixing honey with opium to achieve a temporary high as the Chinese did in 600 A.D. At the same time, honey achieves the same sweetness as sugar but with less calories (64 calories per tablespoon).
Probably the most universal way of using honey is baking. A natural sweetener, it retains moisture in cakes and increases their storage life at the same time, and generally lends a richer flavour. Mild honey is more suitable for baking except in the case of fruit cakes when a stronger taste is required.
The taste of honey also blends well with other flavours. Used in marinades, it brings out the other aromas, adding an extra dimension to meat, chicken and sides dishes.
Honey also works well with sauces, ensuring greater body and enhanced flavour. Used during roating, it is able to penetrate the meat, something dry sugar cannot do. To get the distinct taste of honey in meat or confectionery, a more full-bodied, darker variety of honey should be used. Mild honey, usually of a lighter colour, teases the palate with a subtle, underlying hint of flavour. The coupling of honey and tea has long been an item in the western world just as milk and honey, and lemon and honey have been as a means to soothe the system.
One problem with honey is that when it is stored over a period of time, it tends to ferment. While processing honey, yeast, which causes fermentation, is killed by heating. This, in turn, injures the honey if the temperature is too high. In general, darker varieties of honey spoil faster through heating than lighter ones. Still, fermented honey has not always been distasteful. Mead, an alcoholic drink mae from fermented honey, has been popular since antiquity. Residues from mead were found in a Bronze Age grave, medieval poems spoke of mead drinking parties and records gave evidence that 24 tons of mead were used in 1590 to celebrate the wedding of the princess.
Should table honey begin to ferment, it can still be used for baking and in the sweetening of fruits. To ensure that honey is properly stored, it should be kept at 11 degrees C and at 60 percent relative humidity. Granulation occurs when the sugar crystallizes. To dissolve the crystals, stand the jar in fairly hot water for about an hour. If granulated honey is required, some honey which has already granulated can be added as nuclei in the formation of more crystals.
In the hunt for honey at the supermarket, the different forms in which it is available can be confusing. The most common is liquid honey with which we are most familiar. When honey is sold still in the honey comb, it is lebelled comb, or cut-comb honey. In this case, the honey comb is edible. In "organic" honey, neither chemicals nor heat were used during production and processing, and the bees were not fed with sugar to aid in the honey production. Creamed honey is probably the purest honey. A product made entirely of honey, it is processed based on honey's natural tendency to crystallize.
While honey may pale in comparison with other glamorous foods, the world of Pliny the Elder might be mentioned: "Whether it is that this liquid is the sweet of the heavens or whether a saliva emanating from the stars,....it comes to us pure, limpid and genuine.