Muscogee County GaArchives News.....Eating Sugar Cane a Pleasure 1978 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/ga/gafiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Christine Thacker http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00033.html#0008100 April 25, 2007, 9:51 pm Special Sesquicentennial Supplement II Ledger Enquirer 1978 Eating Sugar Cane a Pleasure By Sara Spano Staff Writer I think that some of the happiest times in my whl?le childhood were in the fall of the year. In the small country town where I lived, cotton was picked and ginned, and sugar cane was made into syrup. I used to ride with my father all over the big planation. When the cane began to ripen, he would stop and cut a few stalks. I would then be permitted to drive the horse while he peeled the cane, and we'd eat it as we went along. I can't remember anything that ever tasted any better unless it was the sardines and crackers we'd have for lunch. Being far from home he'd stop at a small country store and buy two cans of sardines and a box of soda crackers. We'd eat these washing them down with drinks of cool creek water out of his black derby hat. (Isn't it wonderful how well one survived germs in those days?) When we went to the cane mill, I always elected to stay there while he went on somewhere else. I felt a deep sympathy for the poor mule who, hitched to the long pole that turned the mill, went round and round all day long. The stalks of cane were inserted in the mill, where all the juice was pressed from them, and then they were tossed aside. The juice ran out into a big wooden barrel and I always managed to drink several large dippersful during my stay. I invariably got sick from my tasting spree and my mother would fuss and fret and threaten not to let me go again. I also took a great interest in the syrup making, which took place a few yards from the mill. The juice was put in a large vat, under which a roaring fire was kept going. Someone had to stand there all the time and skim off the top of the boiling juice with a big tin dipper. What he took off he poured over into a barrel. These were called "skimmings.” Let me tell you one thing, after standing a few days this was potent stuff. And unless my father stood right there and made the workers pour it out, the result was a lot of singing and cavorting around in the streets on Saturday night. One good glass of "skimmings" was as effective as a pint of the best moonshine whiskey, and a lot cheaper too. Even at an early age, I was determined to live life to the fullest. One day, waiting until the man at the vat turned his head, I hastily drank down about half a dipper of the "skimmings." When my father returned to pick me up I was reclining, full-length. upon a pile of cane stalks. We both caught it when we got home. My mother had plenty to say about a father who returned home with an intoxicated nine-yearold daughter. We always brought back a jug of the syrup. Nothing, absolutely nothing, tastes better for breakfast than enormous feather light hot biscuits, ozzing butter and covered with fresh cane syrup. Special Sesquicentennial Supplement II Ledger- Enquirer, Sunday, April 23, 1978. S-30. File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/ga/muscogee/newspapers/eatingsu2249gnw.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/gafiles/ File size: 3.6 Kb