Posted on 02/14/2010 10:59:54 AM PST by jay1949
In Southern Appalachia, sweetnin' refers to sugar in its various forms, including white sugar, brown sugar, honey, and sorghum syrup. For almost a century following the introduction of sugar sorghum to the United States in 1857, sweet sorghum -- popularly known in the region as "sorghum molasses" -- was the sweetnin' of choice. [Vintage pictures.]
(Excerpt) Read more at backcountrynotes.com ...
Oh for the good old days! None that store bought stuff for me! Go organic, and all that!!
Thanks for posting!
My grandparents always grew a field of sugar cane to make molasses. My mother used to describe how the cane was cut and then fed into a huge crusher pulled by a mule to extract the juice, much as the article describes.
My grandmother always had molasses cookies ready for me when we came to visit because she knew I loved them.
To this day, I love homemade molasses. I won’t even buy the horrible stuff in the grocery store. The homemade is getting hard to find though.
Al
Where do you get homemade molasses? I don’t think I’ve ever seen it.
Btw, is the juice dark brown at the time it’s squeezed or does it turn that color over time?
“Where do you get homemade molasses? I don’t think I’ve ever seen it.”
They used to have it in the local stores in Tennessee when I was growing up. It’s all over the South.
When I used to live in Ashland,Ky. as a child we used to hit the farms that made it. Sor-gum is the way we pronounced it, fresh out the mason jar using a piece of cane for a spoon. Nothing better than fresh sorghum, buttermilk bisquits and butter straight from the churn..
http://www.cityofwestliberty.com/sorghumfestival.htm
You can find places to order online but it ain’t cheap!
The juice from pressing the Sorghum cane is boiled in a huge flat pan about 8inches deep and a yard wide and 8 feet long. It has baffles in it so its like a maze and the syrup thickens and becomes brown as it boils down. Someone stands there and paddles the syrup through to the other end and takes out the finished syrup. Just nothing better over hot buttered biscuits.
This is really bad cause now that I have been reminded of how good it is, I will have to figure out how to get a jar of it sent 4000 miles from Kentucky to where I am now.
Because I live in the Backcountry, I can get locally-made sweet sorghum at the grocery; I buy a local brand, Johnson’s, made in Tennessee, which is pretty good. There are country-store operations which carry sweet sorghum — here is a listing for Kentucky: http://www.kyagr.com/buyky/cstore/CountryStoreCompanies.aspx?group=8&category=66
And for several states, here: http://www.ca.uky.edu/nssppa/purchase.html
To get the real home-made thing, you should go to one of the festivals — some are listed in the article, others are listed here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweet_sorghum
And see: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Appalachian-Sustainable-Agriculture-Project/95087453436?v=box_3
Sorghum juice is a greenish-yellow when it is freshly squeezed. It turns dark brown, very much like cane sugar molasses, when it has been cooked into syrup.
The juice pressing the sorghum...
My grandfather did this- there are great family stories about some of his experiences. He would make a wooden box and send a 5 gal container of this by train to a relative in South Dakota. Once whoever on the train knocked the wood box over, which broke it open along with the molasses container, inside the freight train car. Part of that story was how he was pleased about the horrible mess it made since it should not have happened in the first place.
Any advice for someone making sorghum for the first time? Its going to be part of my nephew’s “candy garden”, along with sugar beets. I probably won’t make a huge batch, I just want to be able to show him how its done, so he learns that candy was once grown.
It has been a while, but you might try Price’s Creek Store near Burnsville, NC. The folks there sell most everything that is authentic country. Not hippie, but country.
They also sell a gun or five and great outdoor boots.
Caddis the Elder
I love sorghum molasses! The folks in Muddy Pond, TN make the best (I think).
It’s not hard to find here in SE OK.
One pint is $5.25 + S&H. The full price list is located here: http://muddypondsorghum.com/?mainURL=/store/category/c0v4/Muddy_Pond_Sorghum.html
Okay, thanks! I’m here in AL, so I’ll bet they’re not too far away.
And thanks to all for the info on the sorghum pressing/boiling. I had been wondering about that for a while.
Where is Burnsville? That name is not familiar to me.
I can sometimes find it at the farmer's market in the fall. And one of my co-workers sometimes brings me a pint jar because I mentioned to him that I loved molasses. He grows sugar cane just for that purpose too.
I've never seen it made, just heard my mother's descriptions of it. I believe, though, the juice is green when the cane is first crushed. It turns brown during the boiling process. I think that's how you know it's ready.
Perhaps some other posters have more first-hand knowledge.
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