{"id":95222,"date":"2016-03-03T17:02:42","date_gmt":"2016-03-03T22:02:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=95222"},"modified":"2016-03-03T17:35:24","modified_gmt":"2016-03-03T22:35:24","slug":"queen-bee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/03\/03\/queen-bee\/","title":{"rendered":"Queen Bee"},"content":{"rendered":"
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An ad for French honey.<\/p><\/div>\n

Yesterday I had one of those moments of everyday wonder that helps tint a life. I\u2019m still not sure where it came from, exactly. I was getting a stirrer for my tea at a downtown coffee shop\u2014no place fancy or very expensive\u2014and there alongside the sugar and the milk and the napkins were the little packets of honey. Packets of honey! Suddenly I thought, Wow! Honey is made by bees! It was found in the pharaohs\u2019 tombs! And here it is being given away for the price of a cup of water<\/em>.\u00a0I realize strict vegans\u00a0must\u00a0think about this all the time, and maybe it\u2019s no more extraordinary than the ready availability of salt and pepper, once prized and fought over; or sugar, with its fraught\u00a0history; or, for that matter, water itself. And yet, it was the honey that struck me. You never know what will jump out for you. (Somehow the fax machine has always remained the most wondrous piece of technology to me, more like Wonka Vision than anything more modern.)\u00a0<\/p>\n

In some ways, honey\u2019s rise seems more improbable, more like a triumph of marketing. Indeed, it gives all those current-day Stevia manufacturers reason to hope. Because at some point honey lost its reputation as\u00a0a specialty ingredient. It became the only sweetening option available to Utah settlers. It became Pooh\u2019s drug of choice; a crank\u2019s hippie sweetener; and then, at last, a ubiquitous plastic bear available on every supermarket shelf for a few dollars, even though it proverbially lasts for eons. Here is a glamorous 1960s Bit-O-Honey commercial extolling its social virtues:<\/p>\n