When she was a girl here in Webster the old homeplace was a popular gathering place for the young folks who dropped in about once a week to pull molasses and show off their beaux.
“Always at such time,” she said, “mama took charge and gave we girls a chance to look after the company. She would go back to the kitchen and put on a kettle of molasses to boil.”
Sometimes, my grandmother would swing an iron pot filled with sorghum over the hearth fire to bubble and boil while she sat in the corner with one eye on the cooking molasses and the other on the young folks who were looking for a chance to sneak a buss.
In due time, my grandmother would ladle out some of the molasses and drop it with a spoon into a dipper of cold water. If it hardened just right she knew the sorghum had boiled long enough.
Then it was poured into buttered plates to cool. If butter was scarce, then lard was used.
When the molasses‚ some called it taffy—had cooled so it could be lifted up in the hands, the fun of pulling it began.
—John Parris “Molasses Pulling” Roaming the Mountains
I dearly love sorghum syrup, but have only eaten it on biscuits and used it in recipes like cookies, breads, and cakes. I would love to make candy with it. The other day Chatter and I did try to make a drink with sorghum syrup.
We learned about the drink from the book Alex Stewart Portrait of a Pioneer. Easy to make, just add a little baking soda to the sorghum and stir. It foams up a bit, but once it settles down it is like a thick cola. Very good but oh so very sweet too.
Today’s Thankful November giveaway is a used copy of Roaming the Mountains written by John Parris. Leave a comment on this post to be entered. *Giveaway ends November 18, 2022.
Last night’s video: How We Met & What Makes Our Marriage Work.
Subscribe for FREE and get a daily dose of Appalachia in your inbox
Would love to read this book! My parents took my girls to a candy making shop up here in NY and they watched how peppermint sticks & candy canes are made. They said it was fun to watch. I tried to make homemade candy canes, but must have goofed something up….they were not right & that is all I’ll say about them. We do a big shindig for making cider which would be something similar to a taffy pull or corn shucking. We try to keep alive some history here amongst our family & neighbors. Wish more folks would have held onto this way of life. what we traded for is not better, in my opinion.
I know ppl who’ve made sorghum molasses. Tons & tons of work. We used to raise it to cut for silage for dairy cows. A fun part of silage time was cutting up some & chewing it.
It would be so nice to have an old fashioned get together with no electronics. One where you sit and visit and tell stories, maybe play a game or two. We haven’t done that in a long time.
I enjoy reading anything by John Parris. Last night’s video post caused me to reminisce some. My wife and I met at work, went to college as a married couple (taking many of the same classes) and worked together for most of our careers. We still enjoy being together after 58 years.
I have never pulled molasses, but I I think it would be fun. My grandmother used to make the best molasses cookies every Christmas & I looked forward to going to her house during the holidays. She made great gingerbread, too. Sure miss those times!
I remember my grandmother making so many things we didn’t get in Brooklyn, where we lived during the school year, but I don’t remember her ever making candy. Our candy came from the candy store which we passed twice a day on our way to and from school at P.S. 27. But summer at Grandma and Pappy’s in Middletown, Pennsylvania was full of other treats like homemade apple butter, which seemed almost magical to me because it was so dark and apples were so white when you bit into them. Then there were the apple dumplings that seemed exotic and not-too-sweet and a world away from Brooklyn where we were surrounded by Italian restaurants and Jewish delis. Looking back, I see that I had the best of both worlds.
Over 1½ million pages of The Asheville Citizen-Times have been scanned and are available by subscription online at Newspapers.com. Most, if not all, of John Parris’s columns can be read there for a fee. I subscribe in order to look at obituaries in support of my genealogical addiction. It’s a little pricey but it’s far less than the average man my age spends to support his habits.
My mom loved sorghum. She loved it on biscuits. She passed away on October 23.
I only remember trying to make taffy from syrup one time and it didn’t turn out very well. Like Jim Casada commented syrup and molasses were considered the same. I remember the syrup mills and if I remember correctly there was usually a lot of honey bees around the mill. I have more RESPECT for a bee than spiders, snakes, etc. I like to stir up butter in my syrup and eat it on hot biscuits hopefully not ones out of a can.
I love to hear the different things they used to use to make candy. I miss hearing the stories my Mommy would tell of her growing up years. They didn’t have the money or the modern conveniences we have now so a lot of good recipes probably came to be by our mountain ancestors just using what they had.
Thankful for this day the Lord has given us!
Hi Tipper! First off, let me say that I’m a “newby” to your blog and videos. Since finding them, I have thoroughly enjoyed all the memories that have risen in my heart and mind of when I was a little girl. I would love to share these with my own family, but they are so,so busy. I’ve been thinking about writing them down for later on, when they have the time to read them. So much has changed since then, some things I miss, some I don’t. I think your know what I mean by that! Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family!
I am priviledged to have seen sorghum syrup in the making when I was a little girl. The syrup cane was juicy and sweet and we would bite it and twist it to get the juice out into our mouth. Sometimes it would pinch our lip if we twisted it the wrong way. I loved popcorn balls made with the boiled syrup. So good! I loved the video of you and Matt. It was cute and funny. Our love story began 54 years ago and I like to tell it to my granddaughters. I hope I will win the book Roaming the Mountains. It sure sounds like my kind of book!!!
Hi Tipper! First, let me tell you, I’m a Newby here. I have just recently started getting your emails and I love the trips I take when I hear some of your stories. I live in Tennessee and I’m old enough, now, to yearn to remember the days that I grew up in, and to share them with my family. I love sorghum. My brother and I would travel to Cades Cove every fall when they made it up there and buy fresh for the year. He has passed away and I don’t go anymore. I never tried the candy except for the suckers that were sold at Dollywood by the Muddy Pond people. There were delicious! I always bought enough to hand out to my grandchildren for Halloween treats but they are too old to “Trick or Treat”, now! Thank you, for the memories!
My mom used to talk about pulling candy. Please share the drink recipe. Growing up my mom would heat molasses and add baking soda to make what we called foamed molasses. We’d eat it with butter and biscuits. Yummy I can’t just taste it now and see my mom making it and biscuits.
My Mom was a girl scout leader back in the early 80’s. She had a “great idea”! A taffy pull in our kitchen with lots of young ladies age 7-10. I have a picture my Mom took of myself and others pulling taffy. We had a blast! Clean up, however, went on for weeks! There was taffy on the ceiling, cupboards, floor you name it! So it was a one time event. I will never forget it tho. Thanks, Mom ❤.
Would love this book! I sure miss those mountains.
“Roaming the mountains” sounds like my kinda book!
Oh, this will be another good book! I remember my mama and grandmama calling it, “pulling taffy.” I was too young to participate but I can remember the fun they had! If we go to Myrtle Beach, I love going to a candy store that makes taffy. It’s amazing what machinery can do that our hands once did. I stand there and can only imagine what my grandmama would think.
I had forgotten that buss was a kiss. My granny used to use that word. I remember my mama telling me about molasses pulling parties. Love mine on hot buttered cornbread. We live next to a national park that makes maple syrup in early spring and molasses in the fall. They get lots of help from folks visiting here from the city on those days. Loved your video about how you two met. So true how there’s bad days to make the rest of the time together even sweeter. We’re still together after 54 years and still never run out of something to talk about and love each other to pieces. More important though we think is we also really like each other.
My mom used to read to me from John Paris books! I love the stories! I would love to have this book!Brought back memories!
Hi Tipper! I’m not familiar with sorghum so I did a little research about it and now I’m feeling a more informed on the subject. I’ve never seen sorghum in the grocery stores before but I’m going to look for it. I am a big fan of molasses and I make molasses cookies at least a couple times around Christmas. “Roaming the Mountains” sounds like a fun book to read. I’ve spent a lot of time in the beautiful mountains of Oregon and north Idaho. I even spent time roaming the Black Hills of South Dakota, which was quite underwhelming and full of too many people. I feel most at peace when I’m out in the woods hiking up a mountain looking for that panoramic view.
I don’t want that book! I need that Book!
“But once you get started they are easier to work and you worked them into a sort of rope.
I found Mr. Parris’s article in the 17 Oct 1955 edition of the Asheville Citizen. It ran again in the 28 Oct 1966 edition. One thing I noticed further into the article was that molasses was referred to as they or them instead of it. “But once you get started “they” are easier to work and you worked “them” into a sort of rope.” The lady describing the event to Mr. Parris is referring to molasses in the plural. Why do I find that unusual? Well, I don’t! That’s the way I heard it coming up.
Scissors, glasses (eyeglasses) and pants are also words that come to mind which have no singular form. The reason “they” and “them” molasses jumped out at me is as a child I laughed, to myself, when I tried to visualize what a molass looked like. Is it the far end of a furry little thing?
I remember making molasses taffy with mom and pulling and pulling. It was fun and unlike making anything else. We made it a few times, and as a child, the making was as fun as the eating!
Now I use molasses in making oatmeal bread, and cookies of course, and mom always had my sisters and me take a swig or two during those days of the month, for the extra boost of iron. Would love to try sorghum some time.
Thank you for your recipes, stories and music!
My mom talked a lot about taffy pullings with her church youth group. It was a highlight of her teenage years.
As a preschooler in Oconee County, SC, I saw my dad’s teenage cousins and their friends pull taffy. I remember hearing a lot of laughter as they buttered their hands and pulled the syrup until it turned from brown to tan in color. During that same time period I was with my dad at a cane grinding and syrup boiling. Those sights and smells impressed me deeply–but not as deeply as a trip to the river in a school bus to witness a baptizing. I didn’t understand a bit of that, especially the part where a man was dunked a second time because he hadn’t gone all the way under the first time, when his flailing made me think he was fighting for his life.
Gene, I have read a book titled Rusty by A O Harrell. He lived in Bakersville, NC. He tells of a baptizing at their church during late winter or early spring when the creek water was still cold. The custom at his church was to put the person under 3 times. After one man was put under twice he broke loose and took off running, He said he had all of the religion he could stand for that day!
This sounds like such fun! I’d love to read Roaming the Mountains.
That brought back a lot of memories. My uncle’s molasses making and the one time I went to visit a cousin and my aunt was making taffy for us to pull. I remember it being good but also very sticky. I was probably 12 at the time.
I had to look “buss” up.
It’s interesting that John Parris called sorghum syrup molasses. That was standard practice throughout the mountains, at least in my experience, although for those who are picky the two are different.
Molasses vs. sorghum aside, John Parris was a pure treasure. For 42 years, three columns per week in the “Asheville Citizen-Times,” he chronicled mountain ways. In the book you are offering and four others there’s a tiny sampling of his writings, but so much more–1000s of columns–is largely forgotten. Arguably no one has done a finer job of sharing mountain days and mountain ways than Parris, and to add to his legacy he and his wife endowed a chair at Western Carolina University. It is held by noted writer Ron Rash.
For my part, I consider Parris a sort of literary guiding star. I greatly admire his work, have written about him on multiple occasions in magazines, and he will be the subject of a chapter in a book on mountain characters I’m in the process of wrapping up.
I remember making molasses taffy when I was a young girl. It had to be a very cold day or night with no rain in sight. It would start out dark but would turn to a golden amber when it was ready. We would make in to a twisted rope and cut it in to small pieces. My mother would also use molasses to make stack cakes with cooked dried apples between the layers. My aunt and uncle made molasses every fall and we loved watching them. We would use short pieces of cane to dip in the molasses and suck on the cane. What good memories.
Dad loved sorghum molasses even after he was diabetic, he would go to a festival of some kind just to get a metal half gallon can of it.
I’ve made taffy with molasses many times through the years, but never with sorghum as it is not common in Michigan. A few years ago I made the molasses candy at my daughter’s home in Charlotte, NC. Our grandson got discouraged with the amount necessary pulling. Oh well, we insisted he continue cuz he was “almost there”. Guess who ate most of the taffy???
I’ve not used sorghum very many times but the few times I have I liked it….my main memory associated with sorghum is: it being in “sweet feed” that we feed to our horses when the winter days started getting really cold. That sweet horse feed had a wonderful smell, from the sorghum or molasses that was added to help the horses internal self stay warmer…or at least that’s what I was always told.
A big pot of dried butterbeans cooked with ham hock and a plate of hot buttermilk biscuits with either molasses or sorghum smushed up with butter. Take that hot biscuit and sop up some of the butter and molasses………mighty fine eating. And if you had a couple of strips of fried streak o’lean, it was heaven on a plate. Love John Parris’ writing and thanks for the memories.
My friend got me a food basket for Christmas last year that was filled with goodies that included sorghum and honey from a farm just up the road. I planned to make some old-fashioned gingerbread using my jar of sorghum. My dad talked about his sister making the best gingerbread when he was young. I contacted my aunt’s daughter to ask if she had the recipe. She was able to mail the treasured recipe to me just before she passed away. I can’t wait to try the recipe using my year old jar of sorghum.
Dad loved sorghum and as a little girl I was fascinated as I watched him stir it in with a dab of butter and put it on his biscuits to eat. He also love Horehound candy.
Fond memories.
I remember eating sorghum as child at my grandparents house but I can’t really remember if I liked it or not. I enjoy reading all your stories and remembering things I had tried and forgotten as a child.
Mom made taffy when I was a child. We had to butter our hands really well when it was time to pull it. I love molasses (Dad called it sorghum)! We would pour some on our plates, mix a dab of butter with it, and spread it on hot biscuits. I like it in cookies and other baked goods, too. Our Old Order Mennonite neighbors still process the cane the old fashioned way, using a horse to walk in a circle to turn the contraption that squeezes out the juice. Then boiling it down, etc. Yum!
I so enjoyed you and matt telling us all about how y’all met, it was very sweet. But like matt I would never have dream you hatched that selling the truck incident, that is classic! And a great funny memory for you both I’m sure. Looking forward to hearing about the surprise if twins!
I have a very stupid question: What is sorghum? I do use molasses often as I make my own brown sugar instead of buying it. Recipes call for it and if they don’t, I use it anyway as it is richer in taste. Brown sugar is just white sugar with molasses in it – 1 T molasses per 1 cup white sugar. I sometimes don’t even mix up the two – just add molasses and white sugar in a recipe. But I’ve never known what sorghum was. My Mom used to tell me about pulling taffy when she was young but the thought of all those different sweaty hands grabbing at something I wanted to eat just made me sick thinking about it.
Mary-not stupid at all 🙂 Here’s a page that talks about the differences: https://www.foodandwine.com/condiments/difference-between-sorghum-and-molasses
The only “taffy” I know is salt water taffy from the New Jersey boardwalks down the shore.
I can picture the grandmother cooking on the open hearth. Had to look up a buss. Expected it to be a kiss but never heard the term. I love sorghum also. It’s good on anything, especially vanilla ice cream. Thanks for sharing all your gifts.
I especially enjoy the videos of you and Matt. He is not as shy on camera as he used to seem. It’s fun to see the ways you each tease the other. Says a lot about your relationship.
Sounds like a good book.
My children and I have only pulled taffy once. I think we should do it again!
I like molasses cookies. That’s my experience and once I doubled up molasses which stuck like glue to the pan. Thank God the horses are it. Lol When my friends in Starr, SC had a large farm they gave all the hired hands a quart of sorghum mollasses. It was the son’s job to do it when he was about 10. He said he heard all types of pitiful tales but was forewarned by his pap they greatly exaggerated and if word got out you gave one extra, it was ON after that cause they ALL would want extra. He never gave extra and to his last day he was a hard feller. He became a hydro engineer who helped develop TN hydro electric (and also all over the world.)
Interesting he used “buss” for ‘kiss’. I’m guessing he did it deliberately as a memorial to someone, perhaps his Grandmother, who did that. I would think in his generation it had been replaced already. That would be an example of why Appalachian English went through a spell of being called “Elizabethan”.
I like that book title. “Roaming” covers whatever he came across; people, places, plants, animals, minerals, weather etc. I’m much that way myself. I like to ‘roam’ on foot and just find things of interest. Been doing it a long time and haven’t run out of interest yet.
When I was a kid in the ’50s we used the word buss. A buss was a light kiss on the cheek! Full fledged kissing was not allowed. I fully understand the reasoning for that. It wasn’t purely puritanical thinking although I’m sure there was some of that. It was in the midst of the polio epidemic. Such things as measles, mumps, whooping cough and smallpox amongst many others were still prevalent. Mouth to mouth contacted was a primary means of dissemination for those diseases. Our mothers and grandmothers had watched their siblings die of contact diseases and tried to do everything they could to prevent it happening to their own children.
A lovely story. My mother made mollasses candy for her 11 children. Poured it on greased plates. We never pulled ours, though.
I don’t think I have ever tried sourgum molasses. sounds interesting.
We love sorghums too. We eat it on biscuits mainly. I pour some in a small pan and get hot then add a teaspoon of baking soda and it foams up and we put the foam on our biscuits while it’s hot. Yum yum. Nothing like it. Love to watch them make molasses too. My father in law use to raise sugar cane and we’d cut it and haul it to a friend of his that had a cane mill and he had boiling pans in an old shed. And we’d help make the molasses he charged us 1/2 of the molasses for boiling it down for us. He sold his park of the molasses that’s how he made his money. Good memories. Would love a good book to read. I still love walking in the hills that we roamed over every day as a child growing up. I love your UTube channel. Keep up the good work.
So neat, will have to try that foam on biscuits…..oh wow what a memory that would make for grandkids!
Enjoyed the video last pm and the candy pulling story today. I have only made the popcorn balls
My mom told the story of how during the Depression, all the food they had one winter was home-ground meal and some molasses. So three times a day, they had molasses poured over hot cornbread. She remembered helping when the molasses were made. She and her siblings attempted to drive away yellow jackets attracted to that sweet smell. After her children were grown and gone, she was known for making popcorn balls with molasses for the children who came to her house at Halloween.
I remember reading John Parris articles in the Asheville Citizen Times Newspaper, now that has been a year or two ago. I have a couple of Mr. Parris books, but don’t have this one, I always enjoyed reading his writings of the Appalachian area. My Dad worked in Photo finishing and met John several times, I wish I had of had that opportunity too.
I have never pulled molasses but it sounds like fun. When I read The Little house on the prairie books, my daughter and I tried the maple syrup on snow candy. That was fun.
Thanks for your book suggestions. I have read “The Doll maker” and Dora women of the mountains “ which I enjoyed hearing you read. I passed those books on to my daughter and my dad to enjoy.
Barbara
I can’t think of a better subject than Roaming the Mountains. I did a lot of that in my younger days. I still miss that, and have not walked in the mountains for many years. The closest I come is visiting our numerous family cemeteries which are mostly out in the mountains. They are still well kept thanks to caring family. I fear when the generations get watered down, they will be forgotten and unattended.
Fortunately, my sister cannot get enough of learning and reliving the old ways we remember. Occasionally, we just get in the car and go meandering through the mountains to observe the old and the new. Occasionally we can stop at a Mcdonalds which is a good thing. We remember the days of stopping at country stores for snacks, because back then they were as plentiful as our present day fast food restaurants. Keep bringing us these gems every day, Tipper. Many really appreciate something this unique and informative in a time when turning on the television just brings bad news.
When I was growing up we had Grandma’s Molasses. My mother made the best biscuits and we would make a hole in the top of the biscuit and pour the molasses in. So good! I would enjoy this book. My husband and I enjoyed last night’s video so much. December 10 will be our 50th wedding anniversary. We were also very serious about our wedding vows! You and Matt are a beautiful couple. Take care and God bless ❣️
Roaming the mountains is something I love to do. Looking over the valleys and seeing what is below or looking over to the next mountain is fabulous! My husband and I spent 2 weeks camping in the Black Hills of South Dakota and it was so beautiful, we hope to go back again!
I remember once as a child my mom and us girls making taffy. It was fun but a lot of work too! Maybe that’s why we only did it once.
Gotta try that drink. I have some new Hughes sorghum…
I love sorghum too! When I was a kid, I often stayed with my grandparents. My grandmother made the very best biscuits that I’ve ever eaten. She made them every day, usually twice. Sorghum mixed with butter on her biscuits was heavenly! It’s wonderful on buttered cornbread too.
I love to read the stories of the old ways. My father is 86 and when I visit him every Sunday, with my granddaughters in tow, he will tell me some of the stories of when he & his brothers were growing up.
This is a tradition that I definitely want to pass down to them.
I love pull candy, but have never made it. It’s funny that you shared this excerpt since I just wrote pull candy on my list of Christmas candy to make this year. I am determined to try it.
I loved your vlog with you and Matt, giving us a ‘look’ into your life dating, etc. He seems to be such a ‘gentle sole and you two do compliment each other. I have already watched Alex Stewart some months back and my hubby is back in town and will be for a while…we are on episode 22, almost at the end and only one more to go. He is so impressed by Mr Stewart and his knowledge and all the things he did…I knew he would be and couldn’t wait to share it with him. Both of us are looking forward to Friday and your next reading. God Bless
I’ve never tried sourgum syrup. I plan to do so soon. so many new tastes since I moved here full time and so many old ones from my childhood.
What a wonderful story in time.
Roaming mountains is fun especially in search of family cemeteries after learning my ancestors lived in those same mountains.