Nancy Huber doesn’t feel the need to raise her voice. It carries clearly enough above the clank of the old cane press’s spinning shafts and rattling chains, which are currently wringing the juice out of sorghum stalks. But as I feed another bundle of stalks between the rolling metallic cylinders, I can make out her saying, “If your hand gets in there, you’re finished.” Sheave by sheave, I’m careful not to become some cautionary tale. I keep my sleeves well away from the mouth of this press, which has surely milled fields upon fields of sorghum cane in the century since it was manufactured.
None of the Huber sisters—not Nancy, Elva, Elizabeth, or Mary Ellen—speak very loudly. They all taught at the local Mennonite schoolhouse at some point, and recite their instructions the way a teacher might: kindly and matter-of-factly. But today, it’s me—a millennial farmer from outside the Anabaptist community with little sorghum know-how—who is their student. I’ve come to learn how to raise, harvest, press, and cook sorghum, a staple food here in Northeast Missouri. Judging by the stream of neighbors who show up while we work to buy a gallon or two of syrup, it’s clear the Huber sisters are known for making the good stuff.
In this largely rural region, it’s not uncommon to pass by small plots of cane sorghum, distinguished from grain sorghum (also known as milo) by their lengthy, corn-like stalk and thinner, smaller seedheads. Though
