OCTOBER 2019 | taste of the south 72
ON A COOL AU T U MN MOR N ING, the swish of a machete—its curved blade
cracking fi brous cane stalks—signals the beginning of harvest season. Soon,
truckloads of sugarcane will be chopped, stripped, and squeezed of sweet,
green-tinted juice that will soon be boiled in giant cast-iron cauldrons—the
kind you might picture witches standing over with their leather-bound book of
spells. But no “double, double toil and trouble” here. These worn kettles brew
a diff erent kind of magic: thick, golden cane syrup.
In the South, cane syrup is drizzled over cornbread or buttermilk
biscuits and combined into cakes for an added depth of sweetness. It’s
sweeter and milder than molasses and less earthy and sour than sorghum. In
generations past, the caramelized concoction was a pantry staple and often
took the place of granulated sugar in dishes begging for a hint of sweetness.
Today, cane syrup is seldom made, known, and used, but in certain parts of
the country that depend on yearly sugarcane crops, the tradition lives on.
Sugarcane is a perennial grass that was fi rst domesticated around
8000 BC in Papua New Guinea (an islandic country northeast of Australia).
Knowledge of the plant slowly spread to southeast Asia and China before
landing in India, where the fi rst sugar refi nement (or production of
crystallized, granulated sugar) likely took place during fi rst century AD.
At the time, sugar was so luxurious it was often locked up in a safe. Both
sugarcane agriculture and the trade of sugar spread, reaching Persia (known
today as Iran) before expanding to the region once known as Mesopotamia
(parts of present day Turkey, Syria, and Iraq ), southern Europe, and the
eastern portions of the Mediterranean and Africa among other places,
between 600 and 1000 AD.OPPOSITE PAGE A cane wagon hauls sugarcane to the mill. THIS PAGE A man grinds
sugarcane to extract juices for a future batch of cane syrup.
BY GEORGIA CLARKE