When chef Josh Feathers was growing up in Tennessee, his grandmother always had a jar of sorghum syrup in the cupboard. But he never gave much thought to it, or its significance to Southern culture.
That didn’t happen until he’d grown up, moved away, then returned home to work at Blackberry Farm in Walland, Tennessee. “My mentor, while we were creating desserts he said, ‘This is one of the main ingredients you need to look at,”‘ recalls Feathers, now corporate chef at Blackberry Farm. “This is a truly Southern heritage ingredient we want to highlight.”
Today, much of the country — even the South itself — is experiencing a similar delayed appreciation for sorghum.
Sorghum syrup — or “sorghum molasses” as it’s sometimes called — has long been a staple of certain Southern cupboards. Pressed from the tough, grassy stalks of the sweet sorghum plant, then boiled down, it was seen as the province of grandmothers, a stodgy, household ingredient no one paid much mind.