Treacle

Recently we went to New Sagaya grocery store.  It is a good place to go for armchair travel as they specialize in stocking items from around the world for the large immigrant population here and maybe for adventurous locals.  We enjoy seeing products that we can't find anyplace else and we always have fun trying to figure out what the products are that are wrapped in colorful packaging or frozen into shapeless balls.  Some of it is quite alien to a Western stomach.

The lad was quite pleased to see whole pigs' heads in the frozen section.  That reminds me of Little House on the Prairie and Farmer Boy, I think it was. Both books detail the dissection and use of each particle of meat/fat/bone/gristle, right down to the stomach which Laura's pa blew up and gave to the girls to play with.  Anyway, if we ever feel like making head cheese, we know where to go although I know quite well the Irish would much rather raise and slaughter his own pig.

It is nearly time to bake the Christmas cake and this particular visit's list included black treacle which was out of stock.  That tells us there are others in Anchorage who make Christmas cakes.

Treacle is any syrup made during the refining of sugar and is defined as "uncrystallized syrup produced in refining sugar". Treacle is used chiefly in cooking as a form of sweetener or condiment.
The most common forms of treacle are the pale syrup that is also known as golden syrup and the darker syrup that is usually referred to as dark treacle or black treacle. Dark treacle has a distinctively strong flavour, slightly bitter, and a richer colour than golden syrup, yet not as dark as molasses.
Treacle is made from syrups that remain after sugar is removed in its refining process. Raw sugars are first treated in a process called affination so that, when dissolved thereafter, the resulting liquor contains the minimum of dissolved non-sugars to be removed by treatment with activated carbon or bone char. The dark-coloured washings are treated separately, without carbon or bone char. They are boiled to grain (i.e. until sugar crystals precipitate out) in a vacuum pan, forming a low-grade massecuite (boiled mass) which is centrifuged, yielding a brown sugar and a liquid by-product—treacle.

The making of it sounds quite dark.  Here are a few references to treacle; some unfamiliar. Funny, how I never thought about the meaning of the word before.
In chapter 7 of Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, the Dormouse tells a story of Elsie, Lacie and Tillie living at the bottom of a well, which confuses Alice, who interrupts to ask. "The Dormouse again took a minute or two to think about it, and then said, 'It was a treacle-well.'" When Alice remonstrated, she was stopped by the Mad Hatter's analogy: "You can draw water out of a water-well, so I should think you could draw treacle out of a treacle-well." Alice said very humbly, "I won't interrupt you again. I dare say there may be one." This is an allusion to the so-called "treacle well", the curative St. Margaret's Well at Binsey, Oxfordshire.

In Series 3 episode 6 of Jeeves and Wooster, Bertie Wooster attempts to use treacle and brown paper to muffle the sound of broken glass while trying to make off with an unsightly painting. He is foiled, however, by the treacle's stickiness.

Harry Potter often eats treacle tart in the Harry Potter book series by J.K Rowling.
Treacle tart is also mentioned in Agatha Christie's murder mystery novel, 4.50 from Paddington, as young Alexander Eastley's favourite dessert.

In the film Around the World in 80 Days (1956 film), Phileas Fogg tells the steward on the RMS Mongolia from Suez to India that his Thursday mid-day meal "has always been, and will always be, hot soup, fried sole, roast beef and Yorkshire Pudding, baked potato, suet pudding and treacle".

In the film Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, the "Child Catcher" uses the promise of free Treacle Tarts as one of the lures to capture the Potts children. When Jeremy Potts hears "Treacle Tarts" among the list of treats promised, he exclaims "Treacle Tarts!"

In the Rev. W. Awdry's book Tramway Engines, part of The Railway Series, a harbor crane drops a crate of treacle and is "upset" all over Percy. This happens in the story Wooly Bear.

In Hugh Lofting's book The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle it was mentioned by Tommy Stubbins that treacle tart is one of Doctor John Dolittle's favourite dishes. They also took with them "20 pounds of treacle" on their voyage to Spider-Monkey Island.

A treacle mine features in the novels Reaper Man  (1987) and Night Watch (2002) by Terry Pratchett.
In the fictional Discworld city of Ankh-Morpork there is a street named Treacle Mine Road, with the current watch house (analogous to a police station) found in the building formerly housing the entrance to a treacle mine.

The third verse of the children's nursery rhyme Pop Goes the Weasel refers to "Half a pound of treacle."

Treacle is mentioned in the second verse of the song 'Cups And Cakes', by the  parody fictional heavy metal band Spinal Tap: "The china's so dear and the treacle so clear."

'Treacle' is a term of endearment, from Cockney rhyming slang: sweetheart  = treacle tart.   In the BBC soap opera Eastenders, former character Pete Beale often addressed Sharon Watts as 'treacle'.

Arctic Monkeys,  English indie rock band have a song named 'Black Treacle'. It is the second song, on their fourth studio album Suck It and See. During the song there are references to the properties of treacle. "Now its getting dark, and the sky looks sticky. More like black treacle than tar."

Somehow, dark karo syrup or molasses just won't be the same.