Start the week with a biblical riddle - why not? It’s Monday, the weather is grim, The Today Programme reckons we’re all doomed, where better to turn for solace than the Bible?

I turned to the bottle, a bottle of Tate & Lyle golden syrup, that is, with pancakes, for breakfast, and as I was eating, staring out to sea, my eye lit upon the famous Lyle logo.

I’ve seen this image so many times usually it barely registers, but for some reason this morning - a need for escapism perhaps - I was transported .

What a bizarre picture it is. A dead lion and a swarm of bees above a ponderous line from the Old Testament, ‘Out of the strong came forth sweetness’.

This is one of the oldest surviving examples of branding, having barely altered since 1885, yet, if you consider the associations - death, decay, the mighty fallen, the danger of beestings, the sheer weird, implausible notion that bees would build a honeycomb inside a rotting carcass - it would never get past a marketing department today.

When I was a child I would stare at that logo. It fired my imagation on lots of levels. Sweet things weren’t exactly rationed, but my parents generation had experienced rationing and parsimony was a habit with them. Sweet things were not denied - sweets for my sweet, sugar for my honey was a hit - but they were stored high up, regarded as faintly decadent and meted out with a mixed message of wonderment - such abundance in this new age! - combined with slight resentment - we never had such things when we were young - and the vague implication that we Apollo babies should somehow be grateful.

Golden syrup seemed to encompass all this. It was heavy with associations, valuable, like gold. Twisting a slow spoonful of syrup and watching it drain, forever, into my porridge… the trails were the Rivers of Babylon, melting across a lunar landscape of milk and honey. [Don't play with your food!]

I wondered about that line from the Bible, too.

‘Out of the strong came forth sweetness.’ What can it mean?

The tin was robust, I knew that because I’d dropped it a couple of times trying to reach it down from the cupboard. Or perhaps Mr stern Presbyterian Lyle was telling his employees that he might be strict, but inside he was really a sweetie.

Now I’m older, I know there are different kinds of ’strong’, and they can each be deceptive.

There’s the obvious one, physically strong: a genetic propensity to build muscle or to have stamina, being, by fate, one of life’s physical lions.

There’s emotionally strong: this can be innate, too, or can come from the weathering of experience. It’s a kind of strength which enables people to survive difficulty - and can turn them to leather. Sadly, this kind often brings forth not sweetness, but its opposite. Perhaps the line from the Book of Judges is there to encourage us to resist bitterness?

‘Out of the strong came forth sweetness’ could mean something akin to ‘in every cloud there is a surprise, a potential silver lining’.

Or it could mean ‘be generous in victory’, just a simple exhortation to use advantage well/with sweetness.

Sweetness itself can be a form of strength; it might mean that.

Who knows? I guess that’s the problem with texts, even a simple line with a picture…

Say anything often enough and it begins to lose its meaning and mess with your head. One thing’s for sure, though, it’s all a bit too allegorical for me this rainy Monday.

Last Modified : October 23rd, 2008 Filed under : comestibles Navigate : Previous post / Next post