Cunningham's Encyclopedia of Wicca in the Kitchen - Scott Cunningham 1990

Honey, Sugar, Chocolate, Carob, & Maple Syrup
The magic of food

You may try to eat right. You may be a vegetarian, avoid processed foods, and never darken a fast-food restaurant’s doors. But sweets still haunt you. A bit of honeyed herbal tea. A dish of ice cream made with real sugar. Even—horrors!—that chocolate bar that you’ve been craving for several weeks.

The full story of the religious and magical uses of these substances down through the ages would fill several volumes. In this chapter we’ll discuss honey, sugar, chocolate, carob, and maple syrup—and the ways in which you can gleefully utilize them with moderation in your magical diet.

Honey

(product of Apis mellifera)

Planet: Sun

Element: Air

Energies: Purification, health, love, sex, happiness, spirituality, wisdom, weight loss

Lore: The world’s first sweetener, honey has been gathered since humans lived in European caves some 10,000 years ago. Ancient rock paintings depict humans gathering honey from hives.⁷¹

All early honey-using cultures attached myths and legends to the divine substance. Most employed it for magical and ritual purposes as well as for food.

According to one Egyptian myth, the god Ra wept. The tears that dripped from His eye turned into the bees that produced the first honey.²³ Honey was a favorite offering to Min, the Egyptian god usually depicted with an erection, who oversaw—among other things—human fertility.²³ The Egyptians also used honey in medicine; indeed it is both antiseptic and antibiotic.⁵⁰

Honey’s high cost in earlier times probably contributed to its divine status. In Egypt, Sumer, Babylon, Greece, and Rome, honey was used in offerings to the goddesses and gods. Assyrians dripped honey on to foundation stones and walls of temples as they were being built.⁸⁴ Honey was offered to Anu, Ea, Shamash, Marduk, Adad, Kittu, and almost every other Babylonian and Sumerian deity.²⁴

The Greeks used honey as an elixir to restore and maintain youth. Aristotle called it “dew distilled from the stars and the rainbow.”⁸⁴ Honey cakes were made and offered to sacred snakes in the Acropolis in Athens. Honey was also offered to the dead.⁷¹

The Romans believed honey was a magical substance that endowed those who ate it with poetry and eloquence. Pliny instructed his readers to eat it every day for good health and long life.⁸⁴

In ancient Rome, a special drink was created at the completion of the harvest. It was made of honey, milk, and poppy juice. This was said to induce euphoria, happiness, and dizzy optimism. Not surprisingly, sleep usually followed.⁸⁴

Throughout Europe, honey was associated with the Great Mother, who was also the provider of milk. Demeter, Artemis, Rhea, and Persephone are just a few of the goddesses associated with honey.^{71, 78} These two substances—honey and milk—are the only two items in our diet that are specifically created for food.²⁹

The Indian love-god Kama’s bowstring was purportedly made of very cooperative bees. In India, a newborn child’s tongue is smeared with honey. Also in that country, milk and honey is presented to guests and to the bridegroom during wedding ceremonies. Hindu novices often fasted from honey (among other foods) because of its supposed aphrodisiac properties.⁸¹

In Central America and Mexico, honey was deemed sacred. The Maya so highly esteemed this substance that they made offerings of corn meal when removing honey from the hives.¹⁰⁹

Throughout Europe and in many other parts of the world, honey was made into mead, an alcoholic beverage that is still enjoyed by many. Mead is a favorite drink among some Wiccan groups.

Honey may have been so honored because it is produced by bees, which is rather miraculous in itself. It can be eaten as food, used as medicine, or distilled into an intoxicating brew. A substance with so many properties must surely be divine.²²

In the Middle Ages, when sugar was still unavailable, honey continued to be used for sweetening and for medicine. It was prescribed for “grumbling guts” and used to cleanse wounds.¹⁰⁴

As previously mentioned in this book, Pagan Germanic tribes baked and ate honey cakes on the night of the winter solstice. The mystic power of honey was probably consumed to lend energy and strength to the celebrants for the hard winter months ahead.

These extraordinary records of the uses of honey point to the high regard in which it has been held. In earlier times, sweet foods in general were rare, and for many millennia honey was the most widely used sweetener. Though India had sugar cane, the ancient peoples who lived there seemed to prefer honey. In the Middle East, date syrup, fig syrup, and grape juice were all used to sweeten foods, but honey was the most favored.¹⁰⁴

Surprisingly, the first inhabitants of the United States didn’t eat honey, for the native bees produced only a vile-tasting, unhealthy variety. It wasn’t until after the introduction of the honey bee by the colonists in 1625 that honey became a popular sweetening agent in the United States.⁷⁴

We still cling to at least one vestige of honey’s fabled history in our own culture. Honey has long been used at weddings, and the honeymoon honors two ancient traditions. Its purity was thought to protect the couple from evil,⁸⁴ and honey was also symbolic of love and wisdom—certainly two welcome attributes at marriages.

The term “honeymoon” refers to the old European custom in which a newly married couple drank mead (honey wine) for one lunar month following their wedding. The honeymoon was originally the period in which mead was shared by the newlyweds.³¹

Magical uses: Here’s a quick list of some of the magical uses of honey. If you’ve decided to substitute honey for sugar, a wealth of opportunities await you.

Purification

Health and healing

Love

Sexuality (the French may have thought that bee stings were powerful aphrodisiacs, but eating honey is simpler and far less painful)

Happiness (especially during weddings)

Spirituality (especially related to Goddess worship)

Wisdom

Weight loss (use in place of sugar)

Honey isn’t habit forming. Easily assimilated by the body, it doesn’t give the same rush and subsequent drop that sugar produces. We’ve been eating honey for thousands of years. Haven’t we known something?

Sugar

(product of Saccharum officinarum)

Planet: Venus

Element: Water

Energies: Love

Lore: As we’ve seen, honey was worshipped in the past. Many humans of today are likewise devoted to sugar, the most popular sweetener in the world.

Sugar originated in either New Guinea⁶ or on the Indian subcontinent.¹⁰⁴ It was grown in gardens in India as early as 1400 B.C.E., and the stalks were used in medicine and for chewing.⁶ The peoples of India may have first produced crudely refined sugar in about 500 B.C.E.⁷¹ China had the knowledge and raw materials to refine sugar around 100 B.C.E.²³

An admiral of the fleet of Alexander the Great, after a historic voyage to India, brought sugar back to Rome.⁸¹ Pliny, who described the substance as “a kind of honey that collects in reeds,” wrote that it was “used only for medicine” in ancient Rome.⁸⁶

Though we’re not quite sure how the Polynesians first came into contact with sugar, they spread the plant throughout the Pacific Ocean during the migrations from island group to island group.⁶ Sugar was widely cultivated throughout the Pacific islands.

In Tahiti, sugar cane was thought to have been formed from the human spine, probably due to the appearance of its stiff, jointed stems.⁷⁷ The origin of human beings was also ascribed to this miraculous plant. In the Solomon Islands, a stalk of sugar cane produced two knots. When these burst open, a man and a woman stepped out of them. They were the parents of all who came after them.⁷⁷

Many of us associate sugar with Hawaii, due to the aggressive advertising of C & H products. It seems certain that the Hawaiians brought sugar cane plants with them when they migrated to those volcanic islands.⁶ Soon, the Hawaiians were hybridizing sugar, producing at least forty distinct varieties.⁷⁷ Sugar there was used for food, religion, medicine, and magic.

A myth states that Kane (pronounced KAH-nay), a benevolent agricultural deity worshipped throughout the Pacific, brought sugar cane to Hawaii. The plant was not only sacred to Him but was also a physical manifestation of the god.⁴⁷ A certain species of sugar, manulele (flying bird), was chewed in Hawaiian rituals to renew a wife’s love for her husband.⁷⁷

As recently as five hundred years ago, sugar was still a costly substance in Europe. Only the extremely wealthy could afford it. Courtiers offered small lumps of plain sugar, housed in silver boxes, to favored women. We continue the custom by giving presents of candy.¹⁰⁴

About 1580, sugar came into more general use in Europe. We wouldn’t recognize this early version, which was poorly refined, almost black, and smelled of molasses.⁸¹ After the discovery that fruit and flowers could be preserved in sugar, much of it was used for these purposes.¹⁰⁴ Jam was probably first made in the 1700s.¹⁰⁴

Sugar was severely rationed on the home front during World War II. Many Europeans and Americans dreamed of the days when it could be purchased in quantities and used for everything from canning to pickling to preserving.

Today, sugar is a firmly established part of our lives. Though nutritionists warn of its dangers, the artificial sweeteners that food scientists have created to replace it are usually more hazardous than sugar itself. Honey is the sole healthy alternative.

Magical uses: Ruled by Venus and by the element of water, sugar is a natural love-inducing food. Sweets of all kinds can be ritually prepared and eaten with visualization to bring love.

Don’t misunderstand. While eating small amounts of sugar-sweetened foods can be an important part of love diets, sugar binges aren’t magical. Control the amount of sweets that you eat or you’ll be so saturated with sugar energy that you’ll love only it—not yourself, not others. This isn’t the best condition in which to look for a relationship with another human being.

As we know it, sugar is in a highly refined state. Small, plastic-wrapped pieces of sugar cane, however, are sometimes sold in grocery stores. Though they’ve been processed (to pass agricultural inspection), they’re the closest available version of sugar in its natural state. To taste what the ancients knew as sugar, slice off the tough peel and chew the inner, light-brown middle of the stalk. It is sweet, but not overpoweringly so.

Today, sugar is produced from both cane and from the sugar beet. Sugar experts claim that no difference in taste between the two can be detected. It is curious that beets have long been used to promote love.

Sugar from either plant can be used with equal results, but cane sugar has a longer magical history behind its graceful, tasseled stalks.

Chocolate

(a product of Theobroma cacao)

Planet: Mars

Element: Fire

Energies: Love, money

Lore: Ahhh! Chocolate. Dark. Sweet. Dense. Chocolate cheese cake. Chocolate milk. Hot-fudge sundaes. Chocolate-covered strawberries. Chocolate two-layer cakes with chocolate frosting. Chocolate ice cream. Chocolate truffles. The plant from which these culinary wonders spring was aptly named Theobroma, meaning “food of the gods.”^{116, 120}

The trees are probably native to South America,⁷¹ and were probably brought to what is now Mexico by the Mayas prior to C.E. 600^.71 Cocoa trees were extensively cultivated by the Aztecs and the Toltecs.⁷¹

The forerunner of today’s chocolate milk was enjoyed by the Aztecs centuries ago. Then as now, cacao beans were fermented and dried for several days until they had developed the characteristic color and taste of chocolate. The beans were ground and placed in water with vanilla, chili peppers, and other flavorings. Annatto was added to produce a reddish color, and the drink was whipped with a wooden instrument made especially for this purpose. What was missing? Sugar, which was unknown to the Aztecs, as well as milk. ^{104, 120}

This beverage seems to have been drunk only by men of the upper classes, who could afford it. Women were probably forbidden to drink it, due to its legendary ability to arouse sexual desire.

Cacao beans (our word “cocoa” is actually a corruption of the word “cacao”) were highly regarded among Mesoamerican peoples. The beans were used as money. They were an accepted medium of exchange and could be traded for everything from food to slaves.^{71, 91, 120}

Among the Mazatec peoples of Oaxaca, Mexico, cacao beans represented wealth. Prior to a magical healing, the shaman bundled together a few cacao beans, an egg, some copal (a resin incense), and parrot feathers in bark cloth. The shaman then buried this package outside the home, probably as a sacrifice to the deities that had granted her or him healing powers.¹⁰⁹

Once cocoa beans were introduced into Europe, the recipe for chocolate beverages changed. It was the Spaniards who added sugar to cocoa and made the drink popular among the nobility of that country. By the late 1600s, chocolate had become a popular drink in western Europe. The clergy soon attempted to stamp out the “sinful” practice of drinking chocolate, trying to link chocolate with the “sorceries” of the Aztecs who had created it. Fortunately, they didn’t succeed.^{71, 120}

In the 1800s, the first solid chocolate was produced. This “eating chocolate,” rich, solid, and delicious, was the forerunner of the sweet substance as we know it today.¹⁰⁴

Chocolate is produced from cocoa (the ground, dry powder); cocoa butter (which is removed from the seeds during processing and then added to the cocoa); sugar (to counteract the bitterness); and several other ingredients, depending upon its intended use and country of origin. Milk, vanillan, salt, and nuts are the other major ingredients.

The chocolate bar wasn’t introduced until about 1910. During World War II, millions of Hershey’s chocolate bars were packed into D-rations. The familiar brown bar reminded the soldiers and sailors of home and sustained them through days of continuous fighting. ⁷¹

Today, chocolate is known and loved around the world. We all know “chocoholics,” those people who can’t seem to get through the day without eating their favorite food. Recently, psychiatrists have speculated that many people, particularly women, eat large amounts of chocolate in an attempt to heal themselves from the effects of emotional trauma. Chocolate contains phenylethylamine, a substance that lifts us from depression and that produces effects similar to those of amphetamines.⁷¹ (This is why chocolate should never be eaten at night by those who suffer from insomnia.)

Magical uses: When summing up the historical, magical, emotional, and scientific information concerning chocolate, its role in magical diets becomes clear. Chocolate foods, in any form, can be used to increase our ability to give and to receive love. Chocolate is also suitable for increased money and prosperity.

Use this potent food with visualization. As you cook, do so with visualization. Spoon or slice with visualization. Eat with visualization. Limit your daily intake of chocolate for the best magical results.

Today, chocolate is a multibillion-dollar business. Whole magazines and books are devoted to the subject. Cocoa futures are a popular item in the commodities markets. We’re deluged with advertising singing the wonders of chocolate. Chocolate-scented pencils, erasers, and even perfumes are available.

Many of our peers see chocolate as an indulgence or, to use a Christian term, even a sin. To the food magician, chocolate is but one of many tools that we can use to improve our lives. A delicious one, true, but simply one among hundreds of others.

Some people don’t eat chocolate, and these words aren’t meant to convince them to begin consuming the food of the gods. If you enjoy chocolate, however, isn’t it pleasant to realize that every delicious bite can be a union of energies, and that a slice of chocolate cake can be an effective partner in a private magical ritual?

Carob

(Ceratonia siliqua)

Planet: Venus

Element: Water

Energies: Love, money

Lore: Carob, a chocolate substitute that has found favor among health-food aficionados, isn’t new. Its pods were used to produce a sweet beer in ancient Egypt.⁶⁹ Carob seeds, which are remarkably uniform in size, are said to have once been used as a standard unit of weight. The jeweler’s “carat” (as in a one-carat diamond) may have originally been the weight of one carob seed.^{29, 64, 90}

In American and European folk magic, carob (also known as St. John’s bread) was used to attract money and to guard health.

Magical uses: Carob doesn’t taste much like chocolate. True, when the powdered pods (minus the seeds) are ground and made into various dishes, the foods look much like chocolate, but its taste will give carob away. However, carob is much more nutritious than chocolate, has less fat, and doesn’t contain caffeine.⁹⁰

Those who enjoy carob’s intensely sweet flavor can use it in love-attracting diets. Eat carob-flavored foods with proper visualization.

Carob can also be consumed to draw additional money. Look in health-food stores for carob powder and many carob-flavored foods.

Maple Syrup

(Acer saccharum)

Planet: Jupiter

Element: Earth

Energies: Money, love

Lore: Maple trees are native to both Europe and America, but the Europeans never tapped the sweet sap of the tree or used it as a sweetener.¹²⁴

Things were different here. Long before Christopher Columbus arrived on our shores, many American Indian tribes, including the Ojibway, the Iroquois, and the Algonquin, possessed myths concerning the maple tree and its sweet syrup.⁷¹ Lacking honey, Native Americans used maple sugar and, where the maples don’t grow, fruit juice for sweetening foods.

By the 1700s, the settlers were using maple syrup as a medicine, particularly for colds and rheumatism.¹¹¹ Thomas Jefferson so liked maple syrup that he planted a grove of the trees and used no other sweetener.¹¹¹

Magical uses: Maple syrup and maple sugar are now more expensive than sugar. Two hundred years ago, sugar was the more costly. Most maple syrup is still produced by hand in the United States and Canada.

Both maple syrup and maple sugar are fine sweeteners for use in money-attracting diets. Before adding the syrup to a recipe (or putting it on to your morning cereal), pour it on to a clean place in the shape of a dollar sign, while visualizing. Scrape it off with a spatula and then enjoy your food.

Maple sugar and syrup are also powerful love-stimulants.

There are many “maple” syrups on the market today. Most of these contain less than 10 percent maple syrup and all are artificially preserved. For true maple magic, use genuine, 100 percent pure maple syrup. This is sold in small bottles at fairly high prices. Maple sugar (available in health-food stores) can also be used.