The Palm Tree and Making Palm Sugar

 ------ Forwarded Message
From: Judy Everswick
Date: Thu, 09 Feb 2012 22:17:09 +0700
Subject: Letter from Judy - The Palm Tree and Palm Sugar, Cambodia #8

The Palm Tree: The National Tree of Cambodia 

On a recent visit with Asian Outreach, Cambodia (AOC) Director, Romanea Thong, we learned the following fact:

EVERY BIT of the palm tree can be used...
...Palm Leaves are used to make mats
...Palm Flowers are used to supply sweet palm juice
...Palm Branches can be “stringed” and used to make rope to tether the animals or can be used to make brooms
...Palm Tree Trunks are used to make houses
...Dried coconuts used as dishes
...Dry shells are used to make charcoal
...Palm Sugar makes great cakes
...And we “hear” Palm Wine is great with BBQ!  :)

 
We spent time in a very rural village for teaching on a Clean Water Filtration System. Of the 156 homes in the area, only 10 had latrines. Much of water that has been tested in the wells has arsenic in it; the water can be used for watering crops, but it is not safe for human consumption. Hence, Asian Outreach, Cambodia (AOC) is bringing a brilliant, yet simple, water filtration system to this village. If used properly, it will last them 100 years. What a gift to the people!

Making Palm Sugar...High, Hot and Hard Work!

During the water filtration teaching I slipped off to observe a Grandma and her daughter making Palm Sugar. I had been wanting to find some brown sugar to make cinnamon buns for the Phnom Penh University students, but after tasting the fresh palm sugar, (and finding it quite fabulous), I plan to give it a try instead!

The following is the ‘step-by-step’ process and recipe for making palm sugar passed on from the local ‘Ohm’ or Grandma:

1. Climb to the top of a palm tree...usually 20-25 feet tall...VERY HIGH!

2. Find 5 palm flowers and bring them together; let their juice drip out overnight into a bamboo strip.
3. Start a fire and bring water to a boil in a HUGE pan.
4. At around 9 in the morning, empty the palm syrup that you have gathered from the flowers into a big basket and place basket in the boiling water. 

5. Start stirring with a LONG stick...over a HOT fire (...in HOT Cambodia!)

6. Stoke the fire with ground rice husks, and finely dried, crushed cow manure. Winnow the mixture together well in a flat basket so that the chaff is blown away and you have a nice, even consistency with which to stoke the fire.

7. Boil the syrup for about 6 hours...until about 3-3:30 in the afternoon, stirring constantly so the syrup doesn’t burn.

8. Remove the basket from the boiling water and place over another simmering fire.


9. Place the stirring paddle in the basket and use a pulley motion on the rope for about an hour until the syrup is a sticky mixture.

10. If you are blessed with having a water buffalo, you can harness him to the paddle and have him walk in circles. It could save you some time pulling on the rope for an hour, but make sure the buffalo doesn’t stop walking or the mixture will burn.

11. Scrape the sweet, yummy, sticky mixture into a bucket. 

12. Scoop out and Weigh the sugar and sell it by the kilo, especially if there is a drooling American Pastor’s wife watching, in TOTAL admiration, when it is finished!  (Yes, I bought 2 kilos, which is almost 5 pounds! It is fabulous!)  

What a humbling experience to watch all that about three people went through to make that delicious sugar.  There was so much involved. They worked so hard. Their life is so hard. They give so freely.

My ‘take away’ from the experience?  When there are high mountains that I face, and it is hot, and I am too close to the fire of frustration, when life may seem hard and challenging, may I be as persistent and faithful to give of myself so freely...as I saw demonstrated by that dear, dear Grandma in that remote jungle village.

-Jud