Getting children interested in home gardening is, to say the least, a challenge. Instead of relaxing on soft cushions in climate-controlled comfort where the WIFI signal is strong, the youngster must put down the electronic device and go outside.
When in the great outdoors, there are hand tools to be used which require physical exertion. Then there is the insect population, some of which bite or buzz around in a menacing manner.
Then there is the wait time, usually about three months, for the harvest. This will entail more labor and sweat, and the bugs which have had months to grow and reproduce in larger numbers.
And for what? Everything picked, pulled or dug tastes like vegetables.
It is true that all the homegrown harvest is healthy, but a sweet option would be nice. As it turns out, there is.
Homegrown sugarcane for chewing was once a very popular crop. It was typically included in the garden along with sugarcane for processing into syrup.
A once-common garden crop is sugarcane. There are two types of sugarcane, one grown for processing and one for a softer, chewing cane.
Generations of youth have chewed the sweet and fibrous cane until all the sugar has been extracted. At that point the masticated mass is expelled from the mouth and another section is started.
For those who are obsessed with dental hygiene, sugary plugs from the cane patch are no worse than the mass marketed candies of the 21st century. At least sugarcane does not have any artificial preservatives or dyes.
Planting cane is accomplished by digging a shallow furrow and laying the cane end-to-end. The cane is then covered with the soil removed from the furrows.
In the days before mass market sweeteners, almost every farm had a few rows of sugarcane. Some varieties were planted for processing into cane syrup, molasses and raw sugar, and some for chewing by the young and those with a sweet tooth.
When not pulling a plow or wagon, mules spent their days walking in a circle to drive a cane mill which extracted cane juice. The juice would be boiled, reducing the moisture until the desired product was made.
Enterprising growers frequently sold their excess production as a means of generating another revenue stream to support the family farm.
Roadside sales of homemade cane syrup were a common sight in the rural south for many years. Sampling was a quality assurance courtesy offered to the potential buyer, confirming the syrup had not been scorched while cooking.
The sugarcane plant is a form of grass with high sucrose content. It originated in south Asia where it has been cultivated for several millennia.
Over the centuries, sugarcane production followed the trade routes west. Christopher Columbus brought it to the New World on his second voyage west.
South Florida has long had a large commercial cane sugar industry with thousands of acres committed to growing and processing the sweetener on the outskirts of the Everglades.
Louisiana is the other big sugarcane state, but Brazil is the global production champion.
The perennial nature of sugarcane allows growers to harvest the cane and then grow the following year’s crop off the existing roots. Ratooning, as it is termed, is a widely used practice which has applications for growing in panhandle Florida.
From a nutritional standpoint, sugarcane-based products are a source of carbohydrates in the diet. Generally speaking, the reason for the addition of sugar to a recipe is an issue of taste and flavor.
There is another major advantage to having children chew sugarcane. When they are busy chewing the cane, complaints about access to technology are much harder to express.
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