In the early days of the Blalock Mexico Colony, people grew much of their own food. Almost all families had gardens producing food crops like tomatoes, cabbages, onions, and sweet potatoes. Basic staples, such as refined sugar, could be purchased at the Frasier or Britt mercantile stores in town, but were often too expensive for some families to afford. The Blalock colonists heard of another way of getting sugar for cooking and the table. The Mexicans in the Chamal area had been making their own sugar for hundreds of years, and the colonists learned from them their method of making sugar from sugarcane.
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Ashley Taylor and Trino Vasquez
cooking piloncillo |
Sugarcane will grow in the same field for several years before it is necessary to replant. At the end of the growing season the outer leaves are burned off and the stalks cut down with a machete. The next year's crop grows from the roots of the shoots just cut. Each year the stalks are a little shorter than the year before but still full of sweet sugar. After the sugarcane stalks have been harvested the piloncillo making begins.
One of the colonists who grew sugarcane was Ashley Taylor who arrived in Chamal with the first wave of colonists in 1903. He sowed a small amount of sugarcane in addition to his regular garden and used it to make piloncillo, brown sugar. Piloncillo is sweeter than modern refined brown sugar and has a soft sugarcane flavor. Growing sugarcane to sell requires a lot of land and much water. Ashley didn't have much land so he planted a crop primarily for the use of his family.
The first step Ashley took in making piloncillo was to grind the sugar cane stalks to squeeze out the sugary liquid. Four to five stalks at a time were fed by hand into a steel mill turned by two mules. The mules walking around in a circle provided the power to grind the cane. The horizontal grinding wheels of the mill were three feet in diameter and each wheel had grinding teeth on its face that would mash the cane and squeeze out the sugarcane liquid into a bucket. Some kids loved to slip a taste of this pure unrefined juice, but too much of it was hard on their stomach.
While the cane was being ground, Ashley would start a fire under his copper-bottomed vat. The vat was four to five feet in length, about three feet across, and about eighteen inches high. Ashley had dug a seven-foot trench beneath the vat to hold the fire that would cook the sugary liquid. At one end of the trench was a six to seven foot tall smokestack to carry away smoke from the fire. From the end opposite the smokestack Ashley would stoke and tend his fire.
After the cane was ground and the fire hot, but not too hot, Ashley would pour the sugarcane liquid into the copper bottomed vat. While the solution cooked he would constantly stir it with a six-foot pole that had a flat piece of wood fastened to its end. He would push the liquid back and forth, some splashing out, beating it to help it gain the consistency necessary for a good batch of piloncillo. The beating made the solution grow in lightness and kept it from hardening in the vat. It was also important to keep the syrup stirred to keep it from burning. Ashley used a sifter to sweep through the foam on top of the syrup to remove bits of the cane stalk, leaves or other debris that might fall into the vat during cooking. He knew it was important to keep the liquid clean.
The best piloncillo was light tan in color so this was one measure Ashley used to know if the syrup was done. Ashley would test the texture of the syrup by seeing if it could quickly harden when cooled. First he stuck his hand into a bucket of cool water, then he would dip his fingers into the cooking syrup, scoop out a splash of the thick liquid and then dip his hand back into the cool water. This process would cool the syrup enough for him to see if his creation would harden properly. He repeated this process many times to monitor the consistency of the sugarcane juice and to determine when the syrup had reached the right cooking stage.
Finally, when the piloncillo was completely cooked and ready to harden, it was quickly poured by cup into clay cone-shaped molds made just for this purpose. These molds had been hand washed but not allowed to dry. The piloncillo had to be poured quickly so it would fill the mold before it hardened. Next the molds were set to cool over night in a dry place. The next day when the piloncillo had cooled and hardened, it was removed from the mold and could be wrapped with grass or leaves. This was the way it was commonly stored and also sold. The Taylor family did not wrap the piloncillo they kept for themselves because this rock hard brown sugar would stay good for a long time.
Piloncillo had many uses in the kitchen. Silvia Penix Taylor, Ashley's wife, would set one whole piloncillo in a pot and heat it with one half to one cup of water. This would make sweet sugary syrup. She would pour the syrup on biscuits for a tasty treat. Silvia would slice bananas lengthwise and fry them on a skillet and then pour piloncillo on them for another scrumptious treat. The Taylor kids liked to cut off a big chunk of piloncillo and eat it all by itself. When it was really hard, one could hit it hard with a spoon and it would break into small bite sized pieces.
Piloncillo was also used at parties to make taffy. Girls would take four to five piloncillos and heat them in a pan. When it was melted, they would pour it out on a clean wooden table to begin cooling. Once it was not too hot, partners would roll out a ball of the syrup and while one held the ball the other would grip a piece of the ball and begin to pull. As the candy was pulled it would lighten in color. This became a contest among the young people to see whose taffy would become the most beautiful golden color.
The process of growing, and making piloncillo from sugarcane took a lot of work but was used to create many fondly remembered treats that brought much joy to young and old alike. Mary Taylor Dolge, now eighty-seven years old, serves up a huge smile when she remembers the joy of eating piloncillo syrup on her bananas and biscuits at her beloved home in Chamal.
Mary Taylor Dolge was born in Chamal, Tamaulipas, in the Taylor barn on May 30, 1924. She was the eighth of ten children of Ashley & Silvia Taylor. She fondly remembers growing up on her parents' farm.
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