Steens Syrup
THE SWEETEST SEASON
As winter approaches in Acadiana, thoughts of the locals turn to cane syrup. Only the Steen family still commercially makes the thick, earthy, sweet syrup. But there are still a few spots where the clever traveler can discover what the fuss is all about.
ABBEVILLE -- The bright clatter inside Comeaux's Cafe provides a tonic for the damp December morning. Coffee cups chatter against saucers, waitresses greet locals by name and hefty country breakfasts steam in front of early morning diners.
"I'll take the pain perdu," says novelist and Abbeville native Chris Segura. "With Steen's."
The waitress nods and returns shortly with three crisp pieces of French toast made the old-fashioned way -- long diagonal slices of French bread steeped in egg and milk batter, delicately flavored with cinnamon, then fried in butter. The cook has sprinkled on powdered sugar, and under ordinary circumstances that would be enough.
But on an early winter morning in Abbeville, where the Steen's cane syrup mill down the street infuses the air with the intoxicating scent of caramelizing sugar, every kind of food begs for sweetening, from the ham and grilled biscuit special at breakfast to the collard greens and corn bread plate lunch.
The yellow Steen's cans with black writing used to sit on every table of every eating establishment in Acadiana, Segura says. Cane syrup was such a ubiquitous flavoring during the 19th century that travelers through southwest Louisiana complained that Cajuns dumped the sticky liquid all over everything.
While the syrup is in grocery stores throughout south Louisiana and bubbles up in a handful of stupendous country cakes and gingerbreads, the spirited taste of cane syrup seems to have become more of an acquired taste, a flavor that summons up the rigor and grace of country life from an earlier time.
Last mill standing
Steen's in Abbeville is the only remaining commercial syrup mill in the state. Like the rest of the sugar industry in Louisiana, the family-run business has been going through a series of transitions.
"Just to run a mill takes a lot of labor," fourth generation owner Charley Steen says. For 84 years, the Steen family ground locally grown cane at the plant. Ten years ago, Steen's stopped grinding, and began buying cane juice from sugar mills. But Glenwood in Napoleonville, the last Louisiana mill to sell cane juice to Steen's, ceased operations in 2002. Steen's now buys cane juice from Florida and Central America.
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Times-Picayune
By Mary Tutwiler
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