'I've raised cane all my life...'

...and the year when I really did

Returning to the Appalachian Mountains 20+ years ago, all things mountain and farming became my passion. I tried my hand at growing sorghum (mountain sugar cane), a once staple crop before trails became roads that brought abundant sugar to its hollows. Impressed with the labor and luck it took, I made time to write a guest column in the local newspaper, where I shared what I learned with gardeners who might be thinking of running out to their backyards to grow it themselves.

Todd, N.C.—Baking molasses-rich cookies for the holidays, I can’t help but look back over this past year when my sorghum stood in the field, grain heads gently swaying in the breeze.

My family says I’ve raised cane all my life, but I have to disagree. Until this year, I had never raised the mountain version of sugar cane known as sorghum.

Growing labor-intensive sorghum to make molasses for kitchen-use lost its wide appeal once good roads brought sugar. Only a few people, such as Cecil and Julie Gurganus or Phyllis Winebarger, in the area are still dedicated to the tradition of growing the sweetener. Admiring these pioneers, I longed to be part of the adventure. Problem is, I listened but didn’t hear when they mentioned the hard work involved.

Hearing about something with a long-time history such as sorghum made the whole process seem so romantic. Hoeing weeds, fighting droughts and winds, growing enough to make a boil—these are all details that get lost in the listening. Sort of like hearing about trying to get to Watauga County when the roads were only dirt tracks. How rugged; how thrilling. Unless you are the one trying to fight the mud, potholes, and broken wheels.

I have to admit I got plenty of clues that growing sorghum wasn’t the same as growing green beans. Like the day I talked to Phyllis after she had spent the weekend hoeing the cane; or the time I mentioned growing sorghum to long-time Todd resident Ruby Trivette, who playfully but meaningfully rolled her eyes and shook her head before saying, “Why would you want to do that?”

She remembered: ferreting out the weeds from the cane; stripping the leaves when a strong wind has blown the cane to the ground; watching the stalks stagnate when the rains don’t come; and, maybe the worst, having the syrup burn during the hours-long boil process.

But those are details that all old-timers were willing to suffer to have sweetener for biscuits, cakes and cookies. Sorghum, though in liquid form, was the cheap, local alternative to sugar, especially when times were hard, road-wise and money-wise.

I can’t help but think that mixing plain sorghum with butter had to be about the best cure for a plain biscuit that ever came along. That was always my mom’s favorite way of using sorghum molasses when I was a kid growing up in east Tennessee. I would watch her take a big glob of butter and swirl it around in a little splat of molasses, then spoon it onto a biscuit. I would taste it but never developed the love for sorghum that she had. By that time, sugar was a mainstay, and the molasses had a strange, almost metallic, taste to me.

Local farmers, such as Carol Mauney, whose father taught her to grow sorghum near the New River in Todd, often remember hearing parents tell of the days when sorghum was a staple. Carol processes cane with the Gurganuses, who have restored several 100-year-old-plus cane mills to working order. Instead of mule or horse power, the grinder is powered by an old tractor engine. Watching the cane go in and the green juice come out is some process. What’s left of the cane is pulp that is either plowed back into the field or fed to livestock as forage. Actually, once in molasses form, sorghum has quite a bit of nutritive value. One tablespoon has 300 mg. of protein, 30 mg. of calcium, 0.76 mg. of iron, and 200 mg. of potassium. Throw in another 20 mg. of magnesium and 0.80 mg. of zinc, plus some riboflavin (B2) and copper, and you get quite a “picker-upper.”

Originally a product of Africa, sorghum was introduced into the United States in 1853 and apparently got to the western North Carolina area early-on. Reading a local Civil War memoir, I noted that sorghum was being grown and processed in the Meat Camp area in the 1860s.

My small field of sorghum, close to the main road, seemed to draw visitors, like, well, flies. Actually, I enjoyed these encounters. As I worked in the field, people in cars with out-of-state license plates would stop to tell how their families had grown sorghum in the area; how they always waited for the moment to sop the boiler with freshly made biscuits. They all told me the same story: it takes a lot of cane to make a little molasses. Nothing could be truer, I found out quickly enough.

From a summer’s worth of work came 40 gallons of juice, which boiled down to four gallons of sorghum molasses. Four gallons. I couldn’t help but look at my few jugs and wonder if it had been worth it. But then I stared deep into the golden liquid and a rush of memories poured out: friends who offered their sorghum advice and experiences; stories conjured back from a time forever gone; the sharing of an almost by-gone process.

Will I grow sorghum again, I am frequently asked. I can’t help but smile, think back and recollect the taste of my homemade cookies baked with my homegrown molasses, then reply, ‘Most likely.”

Note: I never have grown sorghum again, but I gravitate toward the harder-to-find molasses boil where friends gather to tell stories and play music…and sop biscuit or two.

Thank you for reading my post. Feel free to share this story if you know people who would enjoy it.