#Azuero, #Panama, #SugarCane,#LosSantosProvince
On one of our forays around the Azuero peninsula, we traveled through the tiny town of Bajo Corral in the Los Santos Province. Sue spotted an interestingly decorated house, so we drove back to take a closer look. Noticing an interesting machine in the yard, we asked what it was used for. Miriam Julio was very friendly and told us it was for processing sugar cane. However, they would not be using it for about another month (starting in March). She invited us back to see it in operation and sent us a text to let us know the day. This is a family operation and they used a horse to drive the pressing machine.
Each stick of cane is put through the machine two times to squeeze out as much juice out as possible. The spent cane is used to feed to the cattle.
Miriam collected a small amount of the juice for us to taste. It isn’t terribly sweet at this point.
Once collected, the juice is put in a large pot (holding 5 milk-cans worth of juice) and boiled down. How far it is boiled down depends on if they were making cane honey or molasses. Below is a picture of a boiler not in use. They are built of earth, with an opening in the side to insert firewood to heat the pot. The pot just fits into the opening and is supported by the form of the oven.
Scattered around the Azuero peninsula are little entrepreneurial sugar cane honey and molasses producers. Some squeeze the juice from the cane by hand, some use horses to power the presses, and some use motors to drive the presses.
On another day, we found a producer using a motor to drive the press. It was much faster than by horse.
This was operated by a brother and sister with the brother manning the juice press, and the sister boiling down the liquid.
Again we were offered a taste of the juice, but this time with some lime juice added in. What a difference! Delicious.
It takes a lot of wood to keep those fires going, and we suspect that when they cut the living fences back they save the wood for the fires.
Below is an old fashioned hand press – no longer in use. You put rods into the holes and use those as levers to drive the rollers which squeeze the juice out of the cane.
This is so interesting and so cool! I have only seen a hand press in Cuba once. He was selling sugar cane juice to the tourists.