One day in April, I was invited to watch how the people here processed their sugar cane. I walked 2 hours to this place and spent the entire day with them. Here are the pictures that explain the process.
Above you can see from far away that the oxen are pulling around in circles a large log which cranks around the sugar cane juice extractor.
These 2 pictures, above and below, show much closer how the sugar cane is shoved in and how it comes out completely flattened and drained of its sugary juices. If you look close at the picture below, under the extractor between the log legs of the platform you can see the bucket catching the juice.
Above is where all the juice ends of up: in a giant vat. I think they filled about 28 stardard-size white pails in all. This stuff is cooked and cooked for hours and needs to be continuously stirred so that it does not boil over. After many hours, something like 8 hours of boiling, all the juice fits in the vat and the juice reaches a thickness and consistency where it does not need to be stirred. Soon after, the product can start to be cooled.
Pure gold
Finally, after having woken up at 1am and having started the fire, extracted the juices, and cooked and stirred continuosly the juices, the vat can be removed to start cooling the sugar and start making all kinds of goodies. In the bottom part of the picture, you can see 3 squashes that were put in the vat to cook...ummm, were they good.
One of these goodies involves sticking sugar cane in the hot cooked sugar and having it cool on the sugar cane. Once semi-hardened, the sugar is removed from the cane and then worked in the hands for about 20 or 30 minutes to develop a sweet that is somewhat soft and that is not so sticky that it rips out your teeth.
Working the sugar product into a delicious treat.
Here the last job, is to make the blocks of panela, which are basically like hardened bricks of brown sugar. They load the goopy cooked sugar cane juice while still hot into the wooden containers where they harden. Below you can see about 50 hardening. The last job got done about 4pm. (That would bring the total work hours spent to about 15.)
Even this guy got in on the sugar-licking fun.
The women of the farm where the sugar cane was extracted.
1 comment:
This was a really cool post, Jose! It's really fascinating to see sweets made that don't contain preservatives. I wish we could all see where the food we're eating comes from and the work that goes into it.
I have another food related question that perhaps you could address in a future blog...no rush. I (and maybe some other people, which is why I'm asking it here) am wondering if the Fair Trade movement plays any role in the lives of the coffee farmers that you work alongside. I understand the basic components of what makes a product Fair Trade-certified, but I don't quite get how individual farmers (particularly in geographically-isolated communities like Alzatate and Sabenetas) have the resources to connect with producer co-ops that will then help to regulate the wages they earn for their product. Perhaps that request for information is confusing, but I am basically just curious to know the destination of the beans that your community members pick. It's a very complex social and economical issue, but I know you deal with it directly and it would be cool to hear more details!
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