1920’s Sugar Etiquette

A Second Début Article from 2019

Observing proprieties has become a national obsession. Everybody’s doing it. Etiquette used to be confined to paper-covered hand books. Now it is applied to everything—even sugar.

New Rules for Housewives in Latest Sugar  Etiquette 

Observing proprieties has become a national obsession. Everybody’s doing it. Etiquette used to be confined to paper-covered hand books. Now it is applied to everything—even sugar. There are distinct rules for the use of sugar and the careful housewife is going to see that they are obeyed. ‘‘But it really is not proper” will floor all disputants who are tempted to use sugar the wrong way.

Take granulated sugar for example. It should be used for baking, cooking, sweetening and candy-making, but it certainly should not be used for iced beverages or for coffee, yet lots of women do not understand this. As a matter of fact, powdered sugar is the proper sweetening for iced beverages, and powdered sugar should also be used on fruits and cereals and for dusting pies and cookies.

There seems to be considerable common sense in sugar etiquette after all.

As for hot coffee and tea and cocoa and chocolate, that is where tablet sugar comes in. One really ought to make a table of sugar rules and hang it in a convenient spot on the kitchen wall. It would keep the housewife posted on what sugar to use in her cooking and also what kinds to put on the dining room table and when. 

It would be convenient to consult the rules when making an icing and learn that confectioners sugar was proper for that and for fondants, or it would be just as convenient to glance at the rules and discover that brown sugar was for baked beans, ginger bread, candied sweet potatoes, all kinds of tarts and cakes and for sprinkling on the children’s bread. There seems to be considerable common sense in sugar etiquette after all. – Calexico Chronicle, 1922

🍽Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia