Cast Iron Sugar Kettles
The cast iron sugar kettle is not the familiar tea kettle shape with a lid, spout and carrying handle. Instead it is generally bowl-shaped, often with a projecting lip, made in a variety of dimensions from about three feet to the largest, seven or eight feet across. Although kettles were cast locally in the south, many were shipped from the more industrialized centers in the eastern and midwestern states in the 19th century.
The antique kettles are mainly found in the south where large quantities of sugar cane were grown. The kettles may have had multiple culinary uses on plantations, but these cast iron beauties were primarily for the processing of the cane juice into sugar. The cane was crushed in an animal powered mill, with the juice siphoned off into a series of iron kettles set into brickwork over roaring furnaces. As the cane juice was evaporated and clarified with lime, the impurities were skimmed off. The thickening syrup was moved to smaller kettles until sugar crystals formed. It was then transferred into shallow wooden tanks for cooling. SugarKettles.com relates that during the pressing and processing, guests were served “hot punch”, the steaming cane juice from the kettle generously laced with French brandy. A number of preserved plantation homes in Louisiana carry on the tradition of preparing sugar with their sugar kettles. One of the best public demonstrations takes place at Kent Plantation House in Alexandria (Louisiana) every fall.
Referency note by Robert P. Goldberg, P4a.com editor, January 2009.