Oral History Feature | Cecil & Julie Gurganus

Cecil & Julie Gurganus have been making sorghum molasses for over 40 years. They took us through the timeless practice that makes the sticky sweet staple.

"It takes 90 to 100 gallons of cane juice to fill that boiler - we want it to be pretty full. Out of a 100 gallon boil we may get 12 or 15 gallons of molasses. It takes about three hours to grind a hundred gallons of juice, then it takes six to seven hours to cook it so total of about ten hours.

So when it’s cooking there is a residue that floats up, it is the starches in the juice, we then skim that off the top. When it gets close to being done, we dip the skimmer into the molasses, which is now golden and thick and hold it up and watch as it runs off the skimmer. There are different sayings depending on the stages, like “spinning a thread” is one of the things you can look for it will just kind of come off it’ll be a thread running down, “sheeting” it kind of sheets off the skimmer. Once it’s ready we get four strong people to lift the boiler off of the fire and onto saw horses, then it gets strained a final time and piped into mason jars. Then someone will make biscuits or whittle a paddle and everyone gathers around to sop the boiler, that’s the real attraction."

Read their full interview here: https://www.blowingrockmuseum.org/farmforagefeast

Photo by Ashley Warren @naturalcraftphoto
Photo title: Spinning Thread