Yum, yum
July 23, 2010 (Friday)
When I was a young guy in college, I lived for a while in an old house directly across the street from the campus. Each of the young men in that house had his own room. There was Howard, Everett, Bill, Dwight, and Jud.
One day Howard announced that he was beginning a health regimen and wanted us to know about the pills, etc. he was putting in the bathroom. Well, among the stuff was blackstrap molasses and wheat germ bread. We were talking about it, and Howard repeated, “Blackstrap molasses and wheat germ bread.” Everett chimed in, “makes you fee so good…” Then Bill finished the rhyme, “that you wish you were dead!” We all then joined in cadence, repeating it over and over, “That blackstrap molasses and wheat germ bread makes you feel so good that you wish you were dead!” I said, “You know, that could be a song. We ought to write it and make some money.” All of us agreed, but nobody did it.
Would you believe that about ten years later, I actually heard a song on the car radio, “That blackstrap molasses…” It was our words set to music. I could hardly believe it. I wanted to say to somebody, “They’re playing our song!”
The question is, “What in the world is ‘blackstrap molasses?” As far as that goes, what is molasses of any kind? I was recently asked that question and I’ve been looking it up on the trusty Internet. I have to report, however, that my research came up with complex and complicated answers to the history and manufacture of syrups of many kinds and molasses with many uses. It’s really a subject without easy answers. The simplest explanation is that “molasses” is what’s left over when you make sugar from sugar cane. The first time you get the sugar out, the molasses is amber, the second time it’s darker, and the third time it’s blackstrap, and almost all the sugar is gone. As you probably know, there are sources of sugar other than sugar cane, and they, too, can become molasses.
Lots of people in many places sit down to hot buttered biscuits covered with thick molasses for breakfast. Makes me hungry to think about it. Please pass the coffee. Amen.