George Shirley wrote:
> Dee.Dee wrote:
>> <sf> wrote in message ...
>>> On Tue, 29 Jan 2008 08:51:35 -0800 (PST), Doug Freyburger
>>> > wrote:
>>>
>>>> "cybercat" > wrote:
>>>> I like honey okay but I'm a low carber these days so I don't
>>>> have it much. For a very long time I've thought the best and
>>>> highest purpose of honey is to be fermented into homebrew
>>>> mead. Mmmmm, mmmmead ...
>>>>
>>>>> But molasses is my true love. I just learned that molasses comes
>>>>> from a plant called sorghum. It is like a grass that grows canes,
>>>>> like sugar.
>>>> No, that's sorghum syrup. It's lighter in color than molasses,
>>>> more the darkness of honey or Lyle's Golden syrup, but it is
>>>> no more identical to molasses than maple syrup is identical
>>>> to molasses. They are all liquids containing a very high
>>>> percentage of one type of sugar or another by way of a partial
>>>> purification process. For all but honey it's humans who follow
>>>> the purification process.
>>>>
>>>> Light and dark karo are made from corn. Molasses and Lyle's
>>>> are made from sugar cane. Maple is made from tree sap. Honey
>>>> is bees eating various plant materials. Sorghum is made from
>>>> a grain that looks sorta like corn while it's growing in the field but
>>>> that does not make the same sort of ears of grain that corn does.
>>> wow, thanks for the quick biology lesson. I didn't know what sorghum
>>> was.
>>>
>>
>> When I was a child, on the farm, we grew sorghum. It was a main
>> source of sweetness, specifically during WW II when there was sugar
>> rationing. I'm repeating myself many times, but I have vivid memories
>> of family stirring sorghum over the fire on dark cold nights and the
>> butchered hogs hanging.
>>
>> What we cooked them were large drinking troughs that horses may or may
>> not have drunk from, but this is what was used to make it.
>>
>> I see sorghum still growing in fields today. It does look like small
>> corn.
>>
>> Dee Dee
>>
>>
>>
> My Dad used to call sorghum "Indian Corn." I think it was just a local
> name for it because Indian corn is really maize AFAIK.
>
> I, too, have memories of making syrup in the fall, butchering hogs, and,
> in the spring, branding, ear marking, and castrating beef calves. Been a
> long time though.
>
> George


We called that short grain sorghum "milo". I think sorghum syrup comes
from the stalks of a tall sorghum. We never grew any. (I wonder if
johnson grass is sweet; it is a type of sorghum too)

My dad and I used to butcher 1 or 2 hogs per year. You wouldn't believe
how good pound cakes are when made with good quality lard instead of butter.