SORGHUM SYRUP

Hey ya', no it's not Paula Deen but I do alot of reading and it is mostly cook books and the history of recipes. This one is about sorghum syrup. I spent alot of my growing up years at my grandmother's house. I called her Ma Jones. To all of you who are not descendents of her, she was called Aunt "Nannie" by everyone. When every I visited her house, her kitchen table would be covered with a tablecloth. I asked her why she did this and I was told that some family members had not eaten so she covered the food. There weren't any plastic bowls back then. I found out later that the dirty dishes were covered as well. If a few people had eaten, then she would wash dishes at a later time so she didn't have to heat so much water on the stove. Dishes were washed in a dishpan and as the water cooled, you could set it on the stove to re-heat and finish-up the chore. Imagine that, no indoor running water. But the one thing that was always a staple on her table was sorghum syrup. If you have never eaten any, you probably would not like it because of the strong taste. But I grew up with it so I would always eat it when ever Ma Jones cooked biscuits. She would add fresh butter to them and it would melt in your mouth. Sometimes I would help her churn the butter. This is made from clabbered milk. This is to any of you who do not know about  clabbered milk, it is milk that has set out to sour. It's the "curds and whey" from the nursery rhyme titled "Little Miss Muffet." Some people say it tastes like cottage cheese. You put it in a churn, add a dasher and with an up and down motion it turns the mixture into butter and buttermilk. Now this is not just a few minutes, mind you, it is continuous motion for about 30 to 35 minutes and your arms get very tired. Some people do not realize how hard women had to work just to put a meal on the table. You had to make do with what you had on hand. Mostly it was vegetables from your garden and meat that you raised on the farm. Or anything that you bartered or swapped. With this in mind, sorghum syrup was not bought in the store. You had to make it. But you had to grow syrup cane and cook the mixture just to get a small amount. My granddad, Pa Jones used to peel some of the cane for me to have a sweet treat. After this process was done, the syrup was put into jars and Pa Jones would take it to town and sell it. He also sold vegetables in town. This was how he made money to raise his family. But the syrup was used to sweeten any foods cooked like fried sweet potatoes, lemonade when no white sugar was available, oatmeal, and PIES-lots and lots of PIES. Ma Jones made the best pies. Chess pies, pumpkin pies, egg custard, fried apple pies, peach cobblers, blackberry cobblers and molasses pie. I don't know where she got her recipes because she died before I even thought about learning to cook. Then my mom died so I had to depend on cook books So I found this recipe for 150-year-old Molasses pie and when I cooked it, it was very similar to her pie. The following is the story that came with this particular recipe.
"Sorghum molasses (or "sweet sorghum," as it's also known) is most likely what cooks in rural Kentucky, the Blue Ridge, and the Smokies would have used in this pie a hundred or so years ago because nearly every family grew a patch of this grain to feed their livestock-plus a little extra for themselves. Early on farmers learned how to press the juice from sorghum's ripe seed clusters and boil down into a sweet thick syrup the color of amber: "nothin' better on hot buttered biscuits or pancakes." Mason jars of sorghum molasses are sold at roadside stands in the mountains or county stores just about all over the South. I urge you to buy a quart. Sorghum molasses is lighter, mellower, and sweeter than cane molasses and it's flavor is unique. You can also order sorghum molasses online."
My granddad always made his sorghum from syrup cane. I don't know if he ever grew anything else. He may have because he had cows for milking and hogs to be killed after frost. And plenty of chickens.
Ingredients
1/3 cup sugar
3 tbsp. all-purpose flour
1 tsp. freshly grated mutmeg or
1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp. salt
3 large eggs
3/4 cup molasses
1/2 cup milk or evaporated milk
2 tbsp. butter softened
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla
1 9-inch unbaked pie shell
1. Preheat the oven to 325 F. Whisk together the sugar, flour, nutmeg, and salt in a medium-size bowl. Whisk the eggs in, one by one, then mix in the molasses, milk, melted butter, and vanilla.
2. Pour the filling into the pie shell, slide the pie onto a baking sheet, and bake on the middle oven shelk for about 1 hour or until puffed and a cake tester inserted halfwqy between the edge and the center comes out clean.
3. If you want to serve the pie warm, cool on a wire rack for 30 minutes. Or, if you prefer, cool the pie to room temperature before serving.
note: The filling will fall somewhat but this is as it should be. Cut the pie into small pieces. Serve plain or top with vanilla ice cream or whipped topping