Rapadura: Information from Answers.com

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Rapadura is the Portuguese name for a form of sugarcane juice, used as a sweetener or as a candy, common in Latin American countries such as Brazil and Venezuela (where it is known as papelón) and the Caribbean. See also panela. It is dried sugarcane juice, in the form of a brick, and is largely produced on site at sugarcane plantations in the very warm tropical regions. It was originally created as an easier way to transport sugar. In Venezuela it is an essential ingredient for many typical recipes, and in some parts of the country, it is used in place of refined sugar as a more accessible, cheaper and healthier sweetener.

Claimed to be the world's largest rapadura, on display on a farm south-east of Fortaleza, Ceara. It took 19,800 kilograms of sugar cane to produce this block, which is more than 10 square meters and 1,811 kilograms of pure sweetness.

In Panama it is also called raspadura, thought to derive from the words "raspar" (to scrape) and "duro" (hard), a reference to the way the hard sugar brick is shaven to produce usable shards for cooking. The local dialect often drops the letter "s", resulting in the word we hear as "ra'padura".

In Costa Rica it is called Tapa dulce because it is usually formed as a cup.

When mixed with other ingredients such as peanuts, condensed milk, coconut, or white sugar, it produces a good number of locally marketed and consumed delicacies.

Rapadura is very rich in dietary iron.

Controversy

Despite the fact that rapadura is a very old foodstuff, predating even the colonization of Brazil, a German company called Rapunzel has registered the name as a German trade mark DE 1143537, an event that has greatly angered Brazilians, as they see the name as a generic all-purpose word, like "lemonade" or "sandwich". Given the fact that there is a precedent (when Japanese Asahi Foods registered the name of the Brazilian fruit Cupuaçu as a trade mark) the Brazilian government is taking measures to prevent what it understands as theft of the Brazilian identity by pirate entrepreneurs (the term has not been used yet by the government but is commonplace even in the most moderate press, such as Jornal do Brasil). Such measures would include registering brands that previously had not been considered for registering, such as "feijoada", "jabuticaba" or "churrasco". Some Brazilian individuals and companies are also attempting to counter these moves by registering brands from the "offending" countries, such as Sake and Shoyu (from Japan) or Sauerkraut (from Germany) in order to point out the absurdity of accepting generic foods as trademarks.

As of February 2009, Rapunzel has removed the Rapadura name from their unrefined and unbleached whole cane sugar product sold in health food stores, though their website has not yet been updated to reflect this.