• Brief history of honey
• Honey an health
• Honey and cooking

HONEY AND COOKING

• Honey is, of course, a natural sweetener with the added bonus of being totally fat-free, cholesterol-free and it contains fewer calories than sugar. Indeed, up until the 15th century honey was the only sweetening agent known to mankind before the discovery of sugar. Sugar is obviously the dominant sweetener today and has been since the start of the 20th century but it was a luxury in the past due to the hazardous travelling involved in its acquisition.



• In the main, sugar has replaced honey as a sweetener for food and drink due to its popularity, low production/purchase costs and availability. Nevertheless this doesn’t mean that you can’t use honey in your cooking. Honey is sweeter than sugar so you would need to use less but, if you are experimenting for the first time, try and follow recipes that have been especially developed for using it.



• If you want to substitute sugar for honey in your chosen recipes it would be wise to begin with halving the amount of sugar and replacing it with some honey. With careful experimentation you would then be able to completely remove the sugar from the recipe and swap it with honey.



• Try and remember that honey is one-fifth water and, as such, you would have to reduce any liquid content in the recipe by the same amount. Honey is hygroscopic, which means that it draws water to it. This makes honey ideal for use in baking cakes because the moisture will be retained for a greater amount of time.



• Honey should ideally be stored at room temperature and not in the fridge because cooling will increase the crystallisation process (i.e. when the honey becomes ‘cloudy’), which is the natural way that liquid honey solidifies. This is perfectly harmless and can be remedied by placing the jar of honey in some warm water and then stirring to remove the crystals. Alternatively, pop it in the microwave oven for several 30-second bursts and stirring until the crystals dissolve. Be wary of boiling or scorching the honey, as this will ruin it.



• Honey must not be fed to babies who are under the age of 12 months. This is due to the fact that honey can contain spores of bacteria that could trigger Infant Botulism, which is a rare but dangerous disease that attacks a baby’s nervous system. These spores do not affect adults and children over the age of one year.



• Honey is used in many different ways for cooking. It helps in tenderising meat when incorporated as a marinade and instils a noticeable barbecue flavour to food when it caramelises during cooking. Honey works well in stir-fried food, desserts, tea, coffee, sauces, dressings and barbecued food.



• For thousands of years, honey has been used as the basis for a range of alcoholic beverages. A variety of honey beers/ales have been enjoyed by many down the ages but the most highly regarded honey-based alcoholic drink is a honey wine ­ more commonly known as mead.



• Mead (‘Nectar of the Gods’ according to the Greeks) was immensely popular amongst the Elizabethans and is still served in several pubs in the southernmost parts of England.



• Mead is made with a light honey and brewed together with spices such as cinnamon and nutmeg. The fermentation process lasts for a minimum of twelve months before the mead is ready to drink.



• The Welsh used to enjoy a honey-based liqueur called metheglin, which was also flavoured with herbs and said to be very potent!