Sorghum Drops

Size: 4 ounces in a 3x6" bag

Sorghum Molasses, Cane Sugar, Corn Syrup, Caramel Color

From Susan’s Book “Sweet as Sin”

 The sorghum story sounds much like the cane sugar’s, it dates back to the early 1700s; was closely connected to slavery; grows in tall stalks with a plume on top, primarily in the South; and requires a process of milling and boiling. Unlike the cane sugar, the sorghum has always been the peoples’ sugar - homegrown and affordable.

The journey of the sorghum plant to North America begins about 8000 years ago in Southern Egypt, Ethiopia and the Sudan. It traveled throughout Africa and India in the first millennium BC on ships, where it was used as food, and later along the silk trade routes.[i] According to one USDA report:

“It appears that sorghum originally grew wild in all tropical and sub-tropical parts of the Old World.  In Beni-Hassan, Egypt, on the tomb of Anemembes, belonging to the dynasty existing 2,200 years before Christ, is frescoed a harvest field which is said to represent sorghum. In the book of the prophet Ezekiel (600 B.C.) is found the word “dochan” translated “millet” which word is still used in Arabic for forms of sorghum.”[ii]

The first sorghum arrived in the U.S. with ships transporting enslaved Africans in the early eighteenth century. They used the grain for bread and puddings, as a pulled candy, as chicken feed and, the inedible fiber, for brooms.[iii] As for the taste, sorghum resembles molasses, so much so it’s called “sorghum molasses.”

The sorghum syrup entered the American culinary landscape on a large scale in the mid-1800s. It was “discovered” and promoted by abolitionists via Shanghai and Paris, France.  The abolitionists didn’t seem to notice it was here in the first place. Regardless, it became an alternative top cane sugar, which abolitionists boycotted because of its role in slavery.

Sorghum remained on the American landscape. As sorghum didn’t crystallize, its use was eclipsed by beet and other sugars.

[i] Whole Grains Council website, “Sorghum June Grain of the Month,” http://wholegrainscouncil.org/whole-grains-101/sorghum-june-grain-of-the-month (accessed August 24, 2015)

[ii] University of North Texas Digital Library website, “Sorghum Syrup Manufacture,” http://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc85696/m1/6/ (accessed August 24, 2015)

[iii] Smithsonian Education website, “Migrations in History,” http://www.smithsonianeducation.org/migrations/zoofood/sor.html (accessed August 24, 2015)