Making molasses at Eldon Henderson’s House, Big Pine, 1978.
We volunteer to help our new neighbors make sorghum syrup and spend a long day cutting cane with tobacco knives, stripping the fodder and seed heads from the stalk, and then grinding the stalks through a mill that is powered by a horse. The thin, greenish juice is poured into a long, shallow pan and cooked for hours, changing the liquid into a thick amber syrup. The process goes on into the night. We meet new people—two of them turn out to be Laura’s relatives. Her cousin Nina suggests we take a piece of the ground stalk, dip it in the cook- ing syrup, and suck it dry. That overpowering sweetness, getting to know new people, and a photograph I make, are the best parts of the day.
- from Little Worlds
Little Worlds Fundraiser
https://www.robamberg.com/blog/2023/8/12/little-worlds-the-book