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Turning Sugar Cane into Candy

FrontLines - March 2010

By Angela Rucker

This stack of sugar cane will be turned into dulce de panela, a candy popular in El Salvador.
	Two boys get a treat: sugar cane honey. The honey, served here in corn husks, is a byproduct in the creation of dulce de panela, a candy popular in El Salvador made from sugar cane.
It takes most of the day to produce dulce de panela, a candy made of sugar cane. Once the candy hardens, it is removed from concrete molds and wrapped for sale in local shops.

It takes most of the day to transform a pile of sugar cane stalks into the mellow-sweet dulce de panela, a caramel-colored candy popular in Central America.

Workers start around 4:30 in the morning.

Several yards outside a lean-to in San Isidro is a machine that starts the process. Sugar cane is fed a few stalks at a time into the contraption, which strips the rough exterior, extracts the juice, and shunts it through a series of narrow underground pipes.

Those pipes lead to a series of iron vats-each a bit smaller than a hot tub-stationed along the one wall of the lean-to. Inside each vat, the liquid is heated to high temperature and cooked slowly for several hours. Once the sugar cane juice reaches a creamy consistency much like molasses, it is poured into a series of concrete molds to harden for a few hours. (Left in its liquid state, the sugar cane becomes a rich honey.)

When the candy is ready, each cup-like chunk of slightly sticky sweetness is removed from the molds by hand. By now the sun will be setting.

The candy will be packaged and shipped for sale in El Salvador supermarkets and other shops. Eat it straight from the container. Or use it as an ingredient in sweets or drinks. This particular candy factory uses no-burn sugar cane, said Carlos Hasbún, a regional biodiversity specialist at USAID's office in El Salvador.

Sugar plantation owners typically burn off sugar cane's rough leaves to make it easier to harvest. Given the size of most sugar plantations, the haze from cane burning regularly blots El Salvador's horizon and releases carbon dioxide into the air. No-burn sugar cane seeds allow the plant to grow normally, but the tough exterior leaves come off on their own near harvest time, Hasbún explained. ★

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