The Paris News from Paris, Texas • Page 25

Paris April 16. 19M 3C 500 cane syrup mills in East Texas before World War II CROCKETT, Texas (AP) If Walter Stewart's interest was making a fast buck, he'd build a modern factory and make syrup in stainless steel casks like the big companies do. But it's not. So while other larger syrup makers in Louisiana and other Southern states blend corn and cane syrup and pump out thousands of gallons of the stuff, Stewart spent a cold December day doing it the old-fashioned way. Using sugar cane from his own fields, Stewart spent 10 hours outdoors in 40-degree weather squeezing out its juice and cooking down the pure, untreated extract much the way it was done 100 years ago.

The result is sublime. "You can tell the difference," said Tim Blocker, one of Stewart's helpers, as he stirred the mixture amid rising plumes of sweet- smelling steam. "When you taste a lot of cane syrup, you can tell the types of cane used, even the different fields it was grown in." Stewart, 35, and Blocker, 39, may be the youngest practitioners of the almost-lost art of cane-syrup cooking, an autumn ritual of East Texas that used to be as common as Friday night high school football. Before World War II, every county had syrup mills, said Horace McQueen. There were as many as 500 in East Texas alone, he estimated.

McQueen, the agricultural director for a Tyler television station, added. "If you went down any East Texas farm road 35 years ago, every two or three miles, someone had a syrup mill running." Not anymore. McQueen, considered by some Piney Woods residents to be an expert on the subject, says there may only be a dozen left in East Texas, with a few others in the Hill Country. "Most of the few fellows still doing it are of an average age near 75," said McQueen. Stewart, who owns the mill, and Blocker, chief syrup cooker, are the exceptions.

They got started three years ago when Stewart decided to take up syrup making as a hobby. He and Blocker spent a month scouting East Texas syrup mills and began asking old-time syrup makers about their tricks. "We squeezed them for everything we could, and then we took the best parts from each one," Blocker said. Stewart bought an 80-year-old motor-driven mill to grind the sugar cane. He had two Targe copper pots built by a Grapeland man who had been doing it for 50 years.

They built a brick furnace and installed the $800 pots. Then they began to cook. It takes an acre of sugar cane for one day of syrup cooking, which produces only about 120 gallons of the thick, reddish-brown liquid. The cane is planted in February, fertilized in the spring or summer, then harvested in late October. The leftover cane stubble is buried by hand to protect it from the elements.

Making the syrup is an all-day venture. Stewart arrives early and kindles the fire under the pans. The cane is then fed into a grinder, which squeezes out the juice, which resembles lime- flavored Kool-Aid. In the old days, the mills were powered by horses or mules hooked to the wheel and led in circles. Stewart uses a gasoline-powered engine.

The juice is then strained; the pulp once fed to the hogs tossed away. "I don't have no hogs," Stewart allowed. After the juice is filtered, it's fed by pipe into the copper pots, which are already filled with boiling water. In a bow to modern convenience, Stewart uses underground plastic pipe to carry the juice to the pots. Then the tedium starts.

The pots are built so that the water and syrup mixture will flow slowly through a series of 6-inch- wide channels to the final cooking area. "You've got to do it that way to make sure it's cooked," Stewart said, carrying another armload of pinewood to stoke the fire. "If you don't, it'll all mix together and it won't cook completely." The final cooking area is about five by five. When the syrup gets there, it foams. "The idea is to try and get it as thick as you can without turning it to sugar," Blocker said.

On cooking days, Blocker spends up to 10 hours in front of the pans, patiently stirring the red foam with a rake-like mixing device. He admitted it's not a job many would enjoy. "Nobody else wants to have the responsibility of sitting over here and burning the syrup," Blocker said. "My uncle used to do it a long time ago. It's just something I always wanted to do." Stewart owns the mill, but prefers loading the fire because he can ivatch everyone else at work.

Stewart has also imported Kennedy "Doc" Brown of Grapeland, a syrup maker for 40 years, to help with the task. "We're just like a woman who leans over a stove all day making said the 63-year-old Brown. When the syrup is ready resembling 30-weight motor oil in color and consistency it's poured into cans. Blocker says he pours when the foam turns the right color. Different strains of cane, however, produce different colors of syrup.

"I guess if you want to be scientific, you'd go by temperature," he said. Brown, using a ladle to skim off solids that float in the mixture, shook his head. "That's what they do over in Louisiana," he said. "Look at this." He picked up the ladle and let a dollop of syrup ooze off. "See how it's dripping there? Now that's syrup." Blocker laughed.

"He won't tell us what to do, but he tells us when we do it wrong." Making cane syrup is a seasonal job. Stewart, who raises cattle, only cooks syrup five or six days a year. Brown is retired and Blocker, a construction, worker, has a schedule that's flexible. "It's a lot of work," Stewart said. "That's why people quit doing it." The emergence ofgrocery stores is another reason, McQueen said.

In early days, cane syrup was the only sweetener available to rural families. "A farmer would grow some cane and take it to the mill and trade some of it for the syrup it made," McQueen said. "It was kind of like a barter system." Sometimes, Brown said, a farmer would work with neighbors in boiling down syrup, then get paid a couple of gallons for the effort. Stewart said remnants of the old mills dot the East Texas countryside, although some have been stripped of valuable metal parts. Stewart sells his syrup for $6 a half-gallon can, but usually can't keep any in stock.

Theough he doesn't advertise, he sells every drop he makes. The product might strike a city palate bred on sorghum-based pancake syrups as earthy. MONEY SAVING COUPON Groin Of'ianO Kansas 66210 Save Bisquich It's the perfect season to bake shortcake! Bisquich MAKES rr EASIER CANE SYRUP TRADITION Walter Stewart, 35, spends 10 hours each day cooking and squeezing cane into syrup in the way it I was done a century ago. (AP Laserphoto) N016 MFR COUPON NO EXPIRATION DATE Save Bisquick (40 oz or 60 02) Cffmwntr; Limit one coupon per purchase, no other coupon may be used in conjunction with this coupon MiNv: You ve authorized to act as our agent and redeom this coupon at face value plus 8t handling, accordance with our redemption policy, copies available upon request Send coupons lo GMl COUPON REDEMPTION. P.O BOK 900, MPLS MN 55460.

or our authorited clearing nouses vfttnprWMM, tewtW.tr 6Md In U.S.A., Jir.O'i, F.P.O-I. Cnh vriM i I I Fifth graders display inventions BRYAN, Texas (AP) At least a part of the nation's next generation of inventors may be a group of fifth-grade science students at La mar Elementary School in Bryan. About 115 Lamar science students entered the school's first Invention Convention recently with hopes of advancing to a national convention and possibly a patent. Kathe Eugster, convention coordinator and a science teacher, said her and the other science teachers' motives were simple: "We wanted to let them know that school is fun; and we wanted them to feel that in making inventions." Ms. Eugster said the convention is an example of the kind of supplemental, learning activities that the 1984 education reforms encourage.

"It involves every subject math, reading and art not just science," she said. Ms. Eugster said the five convention judges, which included Texas University's patent administrator, Taylor Morgan, were all science professionals. The prize for best invention went to John Bradford for his creation called Safety Suspenders. The suspenders were made with tiny, Christmas tree lights, but could be made with neon or amber reflector lights for use by nighttime bikers, joggers or walkers.

Bradford's suspenders were operated by a rechargeable battery that could be attached to a belt around a person's waist. Bradford's prize will be sent to the Silver Burdett National Invention Convention in Morristown, N.J. The winner of that competition will advance to the National Science Fair Convention in March. Ms. Eugster said before the students designed their inventions, they made sure each did not already exist.

"They also researched a famous inventor and they wrote a paper on the intent of their invention," she said. The students started on their inventions in September and worked on the projects in class. Teachers made sure the projects were practically priced and safe. "The inventions could have been an idea, an object or an improvement of something that all ready existed," she added. Other prize winners included: Second prize, Lisa Bingham for her Iron Cradle, a holder that prevents a hot iron from falling from an ironing board; third and fourth prize, Kristie Fritcher, the Traffic Light Reflector, and Tracy Pritchard, Who's Got What Game, INNOVATIVE INVENTOR Rebekah Ledford, a fifth-grader at Lamar Elementary School in Bryan, shows off her invention a velcro stick.

Rebekah was one of 115 science students who participated in the school's Invention Convention. (AP Laserphoto) a game that helps students learn about science. Cited for having the best-of- home-room inventions were: Dena Zubik, for the Tomato Guard; Nicole Stegall, the Sheet Guarder for waterbeds; Michael Hoe- inghause, the Better Absorbing Paper Towel; Sara Hall, the Key Gripper, for people with arthritis. Honorable mentions went to Rebekah Ledford, for the Velcro Stick, a contraption designed to pick up loose, lost cloth objects such as the sock that's caught under a king-sized bed; Stephanie Scarmado, for the Baby Sitter Blanket; Anju Tripathy, for How to Play Tennis on the Moon; Laurett McDaniel, for Dine-A-Desk; Bracken Kolle, the Convenient File; Todd Henderson, the Bird Trap; Megan Yandall, Do You Know Your Math; Allison Rundell. the Balloon Inflator; Leslie Atkinson, the Temperature Protector; and Jill Holste, the Pencil Callus A voider.

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