Every year around this time my sister and her husband, who still do some farming despite the changeover to suburbia this county has experienced in recent years, make molasses. It's a part of Fall that I would not want to miss, it makes the waning days feel so much nicer, knowing that this tradition continues despite all the incentives to let it go.

 For years my brother-in-law's family has made this sweet treat, used in making things like pecan pie (a southern favorite), gingerbread, and other treats. It's an all-day affair, from early morning until late at night, sometimes through the night depending on the quality of the cane for that year.

First the cane is grown, an effort in itself that only other farmers can really appreciate. After a frost or two the cane must be stripped of all its leaves but is still left standing in the field, preparatory to harvesting it. It's allowed to stand in the field in this condition for another week or so, after which it's harvested and placed on trailers to be brought to where the molasses is made. This year there were two full trailers of the cane to work through. The day before the processing starts, the equipment for cooking the juice is scrubbed to make sure it's thoroughly clean and ready for use.

Next the cane is processed through a crusher. This is a family affair, family members taking turns loading the cane into the crusher and giving it a push through. The crusher removes the juice from the cane, sending this initial fluid through a small chute and layers of screening to remove some of the larger pieces of cane that make it into the chute. From here it travels down tubing to take it into the shed where the actual processing takes place.

The "table" on which the cane fluids process was specially designed for the purpose of amking molasses. It has 24 courses back and forth, and as the fluid from the cane travels slowly down this table, boiling all the while, moisture is gradually removed and the fluid begins to acquire its characteristic rich, brown color and the syrupy texture that gave rise to the expression "as slow as molasses".

During the process of cooking down the syrup must be kept moving constantly. Even though the slots on the table are slightly tilted toward the end where the molasses is finally done, there is still a lot to keep an eye on. If the syrup moves too fast it won't thicken enough and will taste too thin, if it moves too slowly it will burn. If the fluids from the cane were more watery this year, then the syrup has to cook longer, so cooking time must be adjusted. And oh, yes, the heat must be watched and altered throughout the day as the day warms up and then cools again. All these factors affect the way the molasses turns out at the end; it takes a practiced hand and practiced taste buds to know when it's done.

My brother-in-law is very particular about his molasses, but it seems that even here, someone has to cheat... we've seen their product sold by people at local flea markets, but it's been watered down and is not the same product they produced. Better to buy it direct from the producer when it comes to farm goods likes this, assuming that they sell their product.

The last step is another filtering process where the molasses is filtered through several layers of cheesecloth and a layer of screening into a vat that was designed specifically for this process.

 The bowl you see at the bottom of the vat is there to catch any drips. Anything in the bowl is thrown away, we just don't want to get stuck to the floor while this whol process is going on.

When it's full, the vat is moved to another location where quart jars are then filled with the sweet syrup. In the meantime the processing doesn't stop,  another vat is put in its place to catch the new syrup still cooking through.

In general, it takes about an hour or a little longer from the time the cane fluids reach the cooking table until they are fully molasses.