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Molasses Time

© Dorothy Hill

When I was growing up, we passed by a crude structure every Sunday on our way to church. For most of the year, it was a deserted spot overgrown with weeds, but, come the start of fall, the grass was cut, firewood was brought in, and repairs were made. It was molasses time.

In rural Mississippi when you say molasses, everyone knows you're talking about sorghum molasses. Technically it isn't really a molasses but a syrup because it's made from the natural juice that was squeezed from the sorghum cane and cooked down until it thickened.

Sweet sorghum originated in Africa and was brought to the United States around the middle of the 1800s in an effort to reduce dependence on cane sugar imports. It became an important source of sweetener in many rural communities well into the 1900s. While some farmers raised sorghum as a cash crop, many planted just enough for their family's use. There was usually someone in the community who had a sorghum mill. Today many of the sorghum mills, such as the one that was located in my community, have disappeared.

The following pictures, which illustrate the process for making sorghum molasses, were made nearly twenty years ago at the sorghum mill located on the property of Marvin Harris near Sardis, Mississippi. A year or two after the pictures were taken, the mill and the evaporating pan were taken down and moved from the community.

Sorghum cane is first chopped down and stripped of its leaves. The cane is fed by hand a few stalks at a time through the mill to crush the stalks and squeeze out the juice. In the old days, mules going in a circle hour after hour, provided the power to operate the mill. Later a tractor provided power for the belt driven mills such as this one.

The collected juice is poured into an evaporating pan to boil over a blazing fire.

The pan is divided into compartments and the juice is moved from one compartment to another as it cooks.

While the juice cooks, it must be skimmed.

The skim on top contains the impurities which are being cooked out of the juice.

What is left is pure natural juice.

The cooking is completed when the liquid becomes a thick brown syrup.

It is then put into a container to cool.

After it has cooled, the syrup can then be stored in individual jars or cans.

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