Sugarcane

One of my relatives had a plant nursery way back when, where they grew ornamental plants like bougainvilleas or birds of paradise or grass for golf courses. The house itself was a single-storey concrete structure, and the kitchen was outside in the back, open to the elements, sheltered by a zinc roof. My aunts would toss most of the food scraps out to the grass patch for the chickens to fight over.

In the back of the kitchen was a decent-sized grove of sugarcane. Deep green stems and leaves that rustled in the wind. Occasionally my older cousin would chop a couple of stems down and portion it out to us younger kids, tell us to sit someplace out of the way. Watch the chickens.

To enjoy fresh-cut sugarcane, you need strong teeth. We had to rip off the hard outer bark by biting into it and pulling strips off, then we had to bite a mouthful of sugarcane off.

We'd sit together while the chickens clucked and scrabbled through grass for food, and we'd chew and chew and chew until all we got were fibers that threatened to stick between our teeth. Then we'd spit into the grass, challenging one another to spit the furthest, while a corrugated zinc roof provided the only shelter for us from a tropical sun, the hard concrete floor cool enough to lie on if we wish. And then we'd yank another mouthful from the segment we'd been given to keep us quiet and chew some more, extracting sweetness from a morsel of tough plant fibers.

Sugarcane afternoons were quiet and contemplative and contests to see if we could spit far. We were mulching little patches of grass with the residue and the chickens, clucking and scratching, would spread our mess all over the rest of the patch.

Now I have a dental bridge and two false teeth, and only a memory of those timeless afternoons when nothing really mattered beyond getting as much sweetness as we could out of a mouthful of sugarcane.