I’m not exactly sure how he managed to live in this world this long, especially in the South, and never experience one of the sweetest treats of life. Some of you have watched my grandson, Drew, grow up… if not in person, at least through my writings. He is now 15 years old, and I have to look up to him.
Recently, Drew, Gigi and I went to the farmers’ market. Just inside the door they had some of the biggest sticks of sugarcane I had ever seen in my life, and believe me, I have seen quite a few. I could quickly tell by the expression on Drew’s face that he had no idea what those stalks were. I said, “We’re going to buy ourselves one of those.” When I told him it was cane, he laughed and said, “Like old people, like you, walk with?”
Drew asked, ‘What are you going to do with it?” He probably thought I would say I would build something out of it. Lately, I’ve been building guitars out of just about everything, so he may have thought a guitar. He was surprised when I answered, “We’re going to eat it.” Now, in all honesty, to look at a piece of sugarcane, it certainly doesn’t look like something one might eat. I bought a stalk that was almost as big around as a baseball bat and probably 6 or 7 feet long.
If you’ve never eaten one, you’ve missed one of the simple sweet pleasures of life. Back when I was growing up, we had many of those pleasures…treats like finding a wild muscadine vine in the woods sagging with ripe fruit or a loaded blackberry brier. We raised all kinds of tasty things in Mama’s 100-acre garden, but not sugarcane. She often accused me of raising cane, but I don’t think she meant the sugarcane kind. There was a canebrake by the creek in the woods behind our house, but that was not the kind of cane we could eat. They were the kind we could fish with, and we did, but there was nothing about them that made me want to eat one. I understand that cows, pigs and horses will eat cane, but since I am neither of those, I passed on eating all cane, except sugarcane.
My Uncle Lester used to grow sugarcane or syrup cane on his farm. When I was a kid, I loved to visit him at crop time and make myself sick by sucking the sweet insides out of that cane. Every October, the town of Loachapoka has the Syrup Sopping Festival. There you can buy cane syrup or sorghum syrup and even pick up a cane and chew on it. They will even sell you a biscuit to put under your flood of syrup. They will demonstrate right before your eyes the fine art of syrup making.
Drew and I didn’t make syrup with ours. We just sucked out the juice. Drew asked, “How do you eat this stuff?” I grabbed my small handsaw and cut off some pieces that were about 6 inches long. Then I cut them in halves, longways, and exposed the good stuff inside. I demonstrated for Drew how you can dig out the inside, chew the fiber until the juice is all gone, and then throw away what you can’t chew up. Like two pigs, we chewed until we were just shy of making ourselves sick. That sweet treat was so good, but the best treat of all was another memory made with my favorite grandchild. Yes, he’s the only one.
Bill King can be reached at bkpreach@yahoo.com or 334-728-5514 (office).
