The World of Sugar

Yesterday we were picked up by 2 girls in mopeds to experience the wonderful world of cane sugar making. At first we were a tad frightened to put our lives in the hands of shy little Indian girls but they proved to navigate the trash, dog, tractor, and water buffalo streets with ease. Once we relaxed we began to enjoy whipping by fields of bright green with the sun beating down and people in loincloths staring open-mouthed at us. We arrived at the location in one piece just in time to learn all about the process that dominates the landscape of Southern India. And I thought I'd impart this handy information to you all...

First the Sugar cane is is cut down by individuals such as these fine young men. The straw-like materials that they are standing on are the leaves which are hacked off and used later to fuel the fires.








The bare sugar cane stalks (which are about 7 or 8 ft) are then taken to a grinder which drains it of its succulent juices. The dry fibers fall into a big pile while the pure sugar water is pooled into a bucket. You can drink this raw form of sugar, which incidentally tastes like warm water with sugar mixed in.







Next they transport the sugar water to a rather large vat where the water is boiled off. Someone is always within approximately 5 inches from the scalding vat continually feeding the fire with the dry leaves, which is quite unbelievable since Naz and I couldn't stand a couple feet from it for more than 2 min at a time.






After about an hour the vat is then transfered to the ground where it is being constantly prodded with an assorted tools, which I was told were instrumental in giving sugar its powdery quality. By this time it looks a lot like mustard cake batter but I assure you it tastes much better than one would imagine.






Once it cools off it is bagged and sent off to far off places like...north India. It is a significantly more lucrative business than making white sugar, since raw brown sugar is more commonly used in this country. Since it goes thru much less refinement than white sugar it isn't saturated with chemicals but it is also in a form that is harder for individuals such as myself, who have gotten used to the crap that dominates American's diets, to process.

Once the fields are cleared they burn the remnants as seen in this picture and then flood it to make way for a new crop of sugar cane. One planted the seeds will re-shoot three times themselves and can grow to full size within 10 months. Fascinating stuff huh?