Seeking Sweetness from an Ancient Grass
Across the southern mountains, the nutritious sweetener is getting the appreciation it deserves.
The hours are long, and the work is hard, but the making of sorghum syrup is thriving in the Appalachian region.
Before he leaves for work in the morning to mend broken hands, Southwest Virginia orthopedic surgeon Dr. Michael Fleenor pours himself a bowl of Cheerios.
He passes up the family’s sugar bowl and instead removes a glass jar from the shelf. It contains a thick, viscous amber liquid. Fleenor slowly drizzles a stream of it over his cereal. This is no store-bought product. It is sorghum syrup, of his own making.
Despite a demanding medical practice, Fleenor grows his own sorghum cane, a grass that originated in Africa. From the planting of the seeds in late spring, he nurtures the cane into the fall until it’s ready to be cut and the liquid is extracted. That liquid is carefully boiled until all traces of greenness are gone and it reaches the right stage of thickness.
True sorghum is an all-natural product. As Doug Harrell of Harrell Hill Farms in Bakersville, North Carolina, puts it, “We do not add anything to the juice except heat.” Sorghum maker Arland Johnson in Washington County, Tennessee, calls his product “mother nature in a jug.”
These sorghum makers are members of an organization called the National Sweet Sorghum Producers and Processors Association. It convenes every February for three days to talk cane, share samples of syrups, engage in a friendly recipe competition, and generally celebrate the fact that although the making of sorghum syrup is hard work, the practice is showing no signs of dying away.
Traditional college-age students from Tennessee Tech University regularly attend the convention. It’s a mix of veterans and novices, all seeking ways to make a better syrup.
Tennessee and Kentucky are the two most prolific sorghum-making states. Danny Townsend, from Jeffersonville, Kentucky, is the fifth generation in his family to be involved in the growing of sorghum cane and the making of sorghum syrup. A charter member of the NSSPPA, he has held every office in the organization, including president.
“You see the crowd we have here today,” Townsend said at a recent convention. “People are interested in growing sorghum. Twenty years ago, there was a lot of road tar here. Now it’s beautiful syrup. This organization is the best thing that’s ever happened to sorghum.”
As NSSPPA members Mark and Sherry Guenther of Tennessee often explain, sorghum and molasses are commonly confused, but they are two different products. Molasses is a by-product of the making of sugar, and sugar cane will not grow in the Mountain South. It has a growing season of about 11 months. Sorghum cane has a much shorter growing season, perfect for the climates of states like Tennessee, Kentucky, North Carolina and Virginia. And sorghum syrup is not a by-product. It’s the primary reason that the cane is grown.
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