Monday, October 6, 2008

Making molasses


Known for the ingredient in an old-fashioned Blue Ridge mountains taffy, a deadly disaster in Boston circa 1919 and a gang of comic robbers who used it in 1871 to blind shop owners, molasses was once made by the tubful in the backyard of one Wake Forest resident's East Nelson Avenue home.

In a November 1964 article of The Wake Weekly, Oscar L. Merritt showed reporters how he made cane molasses by the batch, keeping alive what he said then was almost a passing scene. According to the article, "Merritt, who was reluctant to reveal his age, has been making molasses for about 40 years and has had his present equipment since 1934. He said when he began making it people laughed at him, until he turned it into a profitable venture.

"The process is slow and tiresome beginning with a primitive cane mill powered by a mule pulling a long pole in a circle. The pole is attached to gears which turn two rollers that flatten cane stalks being fed into it by hand ... The juice is drained into a bucket. When full, the juice is strained into a keg several yards away where it runs into the cooking pan.

"Starting at one end, the cane juice runs alternately through ends of seven copper trays about four feet long and about eight inches wide. The wood fire is hottest about midway, where the juice boils and changes into molasses. Merritt maintained almost a continuous skimming with a copper scoop with holes in it to take off the waste. The thick molasses then drains out from the last tray when a wooden plug is pulled."

Each batch fills 22 half gallon jars, Merritt said, which he turned around and sold for $2 apiece.

"It's a lot of trouble and I wouldn't fool with it if folks here at home didn't like it," Merritt said.

Mmmm. You can almost taste it.

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