[Sca-cooks] sugarcane juice

Volker Bach carlton_bach at yahoo.de
Fri Jan 5 22:27:18 PST 2007


Am Freitag, 5. Januar 2007 22:12 schrieb Devra at aol.com:
> In one of her historical novels about 1830's New Orleans, Barbara Hambley
> discussed the cutting and processing of sugar cane. According to her, the
> juice must be boiled down fairly soon after crushing the cane and
> extracting it, or the juice will go sour. She's usually fairly reliable in
> the historical trivia  end of things.

That's borne out in many of the accounts of sufgar processing I've read. It 
accounts for the very labour-intensive nature of sugar processing. Once 
harvest comes arouind, you only have a fairly narrow time window in which to 
cut the ripe cane, crush it before it rots and boil down the juice before it 
goes off (I could not find any clearer reference here - may they be talking 
about uncontrolled fermentation?) Hence sugar making was a rushed, 
round-the-clock, extremely dangerous frenzy of backbreaking work that few 
people in their right minds would voluntarily undertake. Explains some of the 
more gruesome accounts of plantation slavery. 

Giano




	
		
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