Center continues syrupy tradition

By Scott Nicholson

nicholson@wataugademocrat.com

The peaceful pastures of Valle Crucis are the last place you’d expect to find someone “raising cane,” but the results are generally considered sweet.

The Valle Crucis Conference Center, owned by the western North Carolina diocese of the Episcopal Church, has been growing sugar cane for decades, in keeping with a tradition that was carried on by the old mountain families that settled the area.

On Monday, VCCC staff members cranked up the noisy, gas-powered cane mill and began the process of turning the cane to molasses.

Conference center director Tom Eshelman said the molasses is used in the center’s dining room, served with biscuits as a breakfast treat. But more than stocking the table, it’s a way to preserve tradition, which is an important part of the diocese’s mission, with much of its land under conservation easements.

“Molasses and honey were the only way to sweeten things,” Eshelman said. “They had to squeeze it with mules turning a wheel. If they lost the crop, or it frosted or got scorched, they could be without sweetener for the whole winter.”

Eshelman described the crop as looking like corn in appearance, minus the ears. The canes produce tassels and seeds that can be saved for the next year’s planting.

Because they are susceptible to frost damage, diminishing the taste of the sap, the leaves are stripped from the canes about a week before harvest.

The canes are also topped several days early, then cut at the base.

From there, the canes are fed into the mill, which strips and pulverizes them. The sap is filtered and sent through a pipe to a bin, where it is dipped into large cans.

Depending on the abundance of the crop, the milling can take anywhere from a single morning to several days.

Eshelman said this year’s crop suffered because of dry conditions and was about half the usual amount. That was still an improvement over the previous two years, when high winds and storms destroyed the entire field.

While in the past the VCCC sold jars of extra molasses, lately the goal is to fill the larder.

Once the juice is collected, the boil-down begins. But even that takes planning: Dale Townsend, who has been making molasses for over 30 years and works maintenance for VCCC, prepares a 120-gallon boiler and oven. The oven is constructed of stacked rocks held in place with dried mud.

The boiling pan is actually a box, constructed with a copper sheet bottom and poplar planks for sides. The boiler must be packed in place and sealed with dried mud and sand so the heat and smoke from the oven won’t inhibit the skimming process.

The filtered cane juice is poured into the box and brought to a slow boil. If the temperature gets too high, the entire batch is scorched and ruined.

If it doesn’t burn hot enough, then the molasses doesn’t get thick and sweet or take on the customary brown color.

As the cane juice cooks, it creates a greenish foam that has to be continually skimmed. While some people like the taste, Eshelman finds it bitter. It’s the gooey stuff left in the bottom, which he compares to taffy, that pleases his taste buds the most.

Townsend said the cooker has to watch the color of the boiling juice and listen to the bubbles “talk.” “You have to take it off at the right time and pour it into buckets,” he said. From there, the cooling molasses is stored for several days and poured into jars for later use.

The remnants of the stripped cane stalks are spread on the 445 acres of the conference center and are a favorite treat of bears. Eshelman said the foam used to spread around by hunters who would shoot the bears that came to investigate the sweet-smelling stuff.

The boiler is heated by the scrap wood of leftover packing pallets and is cleaned afterward using vinegar, hot water and scrubbing pads.

A pulley system helps lift the boiler away from the heat so the molasses can be dipped out.

Whoever coined the phrase “slower than molasses” may have been talking about the cooking process rather than the syrup’s rate of pour.

It takes about eight hours to boil a batch of juice to the right temperature and consistency.

Townsend, whose father, Mack, is a renowned molasses cook, said several farmers in the valley used to mill and cook the crop.

“It’s faded out,” Townsend said. “People used to bring it in from all over the area and do it. It was half and half, with the cook getting to sell the extra.”

Townsend prefers molasses with biscuits and butter or on top of buckwheat pancakes. He is disdainful of the molasses sold in stores and roadside stands, saying it is mostly corn syrup.

“It’s a dying art, he said. “We’re trying to keep it alive as much as we can. Like tobacco, people don’t realize how much work there is in it for what you get out of it.”

The payoff may not seem worth it, which is why the “real thing” is so much better, according to Townsend.

 It takes about 10 gallons of cane juice to get one gallon of molasses. And there are ingredients that outdoor, traditional cooking provides that can’t be found in corporate kitchens.

“You’ve got to have a little bug juice and a few ashes,” Townsend said. “That’s what brings the flavor out.”