Belly Lore - Sugar

Harold McGee in "On Food and Cooking"  writes, "While "honey" is almost invariably a term of praise, "sugar" is often ambivalent.  Sugary words, a sugary personality, suggest a certain calculation and artificiality.  And the idea of "sugaring over" something, the deception of hiding something distasteful in a sweet shell, would seem to be taken directly from the druggist's confections.  As early as 1400, the phrase"Gall in his breast and sugar in his face" was used, and Shakespeare has Hamlet say to Ophelia,

'Tis too much prov'd, that with devotion's visage
And pious action we do sugar o'er
the devil himself."

With all due respect to Harold and Will the Shake, I prefer to think of sugar as a natural mood booster.