As an author writing mainly in the Tudor period, I have long been fascinated by the significance of sugar. Its high cost meant it was something of a luxury in the 16th century; to have sugared confections was a sure sign of your wealth (as well as the resulting black teeth). It was so expensive that often it was only the woman of the house herself who was allowed to access it, from a secure place in the kitchens. She would take out a solid block and scrape off powder for the cook, before locking it away again.

Sugar was also believed to aid digestion, so the wealthy would have sweet desserts at the end of the meal – leading to our own habit of having something sweet after the main course.

The Tudor love of show and theatre also meant that sugar was used to create extravagant edible displays, such as centrepieces for the table, often made using ‘marchpane’. This was made from sugar, ground almonds, and rosewater. We still have something similar today to this; marzipan.

The sugar trade supported slavery

The high price of sugar was due mainly to the costs of importing it. English traders sourced it from the South Americas and the Caribbean, sailing back across the Atlantic with their precious cargo. But it was largely made using the labour of enslaved Africans, so while.the financial costs of production were low, the physical and emotional costs were very high.

This leads to sugar having a particular significance in historical fiction, often serving as a symbol for oppression. From the sugar plantations of the Caribbean to the refined dessert bowls of European aristocrats, sugar’s journey from the New World to the Old provides fertile ground for storytelling – serving as a strong theme of exploitation, power and colonialism.

Sugar in historical fiction novels

In Amitav Ghosh’s Sea of Poppies, sugar is used to highlight the 19th century British Empire’s exploitative practices. The novel is set during the years leading up to the Opium Wars, and while its main focus is on opium and indentured labour, sugar looms large as an industry intertwined with the British Empire’s imperial ambitions. Much of the book is set on a ship called the Ibis, a former slave vessel refitted to transport labourers from Calcutta to the sugar plantations of Mauritius.

Andrea Levy’s The Long Song also uses a sugar plantation as its setting, this time in Jamaica. Taking place during the final years of slavery, the book is written as a memoir by a woman called July, telling of her life as a slave on a plantation. The author shows how sugar production was inextricably linked to violence and exploitation, and how slavery dehumanized both the enslaved and those with power over them. July’s story offers an intimate view of the daily cruelties of plantation life, the fortitude of the workers, and the complexities of the hierarchies fostered by sugar production.

Staying in the Caribbean, Jane Harris’s Sugar Money tells of two brothers, Lucien and Emile. In the 1760s, they are sent on a dangerous mission to smuggle slaves back to Martinique. Harris shows the harrowing conditions on sugar plantations, and how the pursuit of wealth by the European merchants and plantation owners corresponded with the suffering of the slaves. Sugar production is used to symbolise greed and inhumanity; highlighting the human cost of putting such a sweet delicacy on colonial tables.

In Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys, sugar symbolises both the loss of economic power and the shifting social hierarchies in the Caribbean. The novel (a prequel to Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre) is set during the post-emancipation period when the wealth and social status of many Creole families, who had once owned prosperous sugar plantations, had begun to crumble. Antoinette, the novel’s protagonist, grows up on a dilapidated estate after her family fortunes have declined after the end of slavery. Here, sugar is used not only as an economic force but also as a marker of status and identity. The book provides a strong criticism of the legacy of the sugar trade. It shows how its collapse leads to an identity crisis for Antoinette and others like her. They are left adrift in a post-emancipation world.

Identity is also a theme in Laura Esquivel’s Like Water for Chocolate. Tita, the main character, is the youngest daughter, and must therefore take care of her mother rather than marry her love, Pedro. She can only express her true self through cooking – and this includes the preparation of sugared sweets to symbolise family ties and cultural identity. Esquivel uses sugar as a metaphor for the joys and burdens of family tradition, romantic longing, and cultural continuity.

Anything but sweet

In historical fiction, sugar is far more than a simple ingredient—it is a powerful symbol of global exploitation, cultural transformation and human struggle. Authors have used it to create narratives across the themes of empire, economics and identity, showing how the luxury of sugar has been built on the oppression of slavery. For something that we now take for granted, the history of sugar has been anything but commonplace, and has proved a rich vein of deeply emotional stories for historical fiction writers.

I am definitely going to consider sprinkling some sugar symbolism into my next Tudor novel!