From the Fields to Your Table

From the Fields to Your Table
When you sit at your table to eat pancakes, do you ever reach for
delicious sweet syrup to pour over them? Many people do!
Have you ever thought about how syrup makes it’s way to your table? In
this story, you will learn about the journey of one Louisiana product
called “Steen’s Syrup.” This product is produced in Abbeville, Louisiana
is almost 100 years old.
Each batch starts with one popular Louisiana agriculture crop called
sugar cane.
Children and adults in south Louisiana know that when the sides of a
sugar cane are peeled, the sweet juicy pulp is a treat to chew on.
One Louisiana couple took that taste a step further by creating a pure
cane syrup product.
In 1910, Charley Sidney Steen, Sr. and Elizabeth Bernard Steen
founded the C. S. Steen Syrup Mill.
The purchase of a small mill was made through a local hardware
store. At that time, this mule drawn mill could produce a couple barrels
of syrup a day.
Although some things have changed, one thing hasn’t. Since the
plantation days, sugar cane crops are still planted the same way. It
is hand laid into the soil. The seed cane is covered and allowed to
grow. Fifteen months later. the crop will be harvested.
In earlier years, farmers search for people to hand cut and
strip the sugarcane for delivery to the C. S. Steen Syrup Mill.
Now mechanical cutters are
used. Once the crop is
harvested, it is taken to the
mill. The average "Syrup
Making Season" runs from
middle of October through
Christmas.
As the first of its kind in the world, this cane cleaning plant took
sugar cane and removed the leaves and dirt. The leaves and
dirt are burned and the ashes are returned to the fields, while the
sugar cane would go to the mill to be processed.
Today, mechanized equipment cut sugar cane, strips it of its
leaves and loads it on to hydraulic dump carts which tractors
or trucks tow to the mill.
While being processed at the C. S. Steen Syrup Mill, kettles of
pure sugar cane juice are evaporated into cane syrup and it is
cooked until it looks and tastes just right.
Five generations later, the mill still uses the original recipe and steam
equipment continues to make “100% pure cane syrup” over an open
kettle.
Once the syrup is packaged, the producers of this
product then ship it to stores to be sold.
It is then bought or
purchased by consumers
and brought home.
Next time you reach for syrup, share the story of this
Louisiana product with your family!
Click here for more information!
Created by Stacy Bodin with the permission of
Steen’s Syrup Company. (February 13, 2008)
A special thank you goes out to the Steen Family for
permission to share this information with Louisiana
students learning about Louisiana economics and
agriculture. Pictures used are from the Steen’s Syrup
website, Microsoft PowerPoint Images and Annette
Oliva.