Your Bridge to
Atenas
Los Trapiches
This day park is located in Gertrudis,
Grecia, along the Rio Prendas. Comprising several hectares of land
there, there is a small artificial lake, a small waterfall on the
river, hiking trails, picnic grounds, swimming and wading pools,
ice cream stands, an amphitheatre. In the large roofed structure
there is a small buffet restaurant with Costa Rican standards such
as picadillo, sweated chicken and beef, rice, beans, olla de
carne. The dining area has pleasant tables alongside the river. On
Sundays and holidays the joint packs, the bar opens, the music
plays, and the dance floor fills with dancers of Merengue, Salsa,
Cumbia, and Rock. My wife and I visited during Holy Week 2007, and
the grounds were full of
people and activities
The large roofed "galeron" serves as shelter
for another principal attraction, too: the water wheel cane press
and the series of large open cauldrons, known as pailas,
used to boil down the sweet cane juice into cane syrup. A large
sluice has been diverted upriver down to the trapiche, feeding
into a small pond. Just above the waterwheel there is a gate
allowing direction of water into the waterwheel which drives the
cane press. The whole apparatus dates from the US Civil War, and
still works like a charm. Here's a link to a
movie of the
waterwheel in action.
Yes, it is dark in there, but I couldn't
resist the temptation to take movies. That's because during Holy
Week they were staging exhibitions of the ancient process they use
to convert sugarcane into usable products, especially tapa
dulce (conic cylinders of dark raw sugar used to make agua
dulce), and taffy. On that day, April 1, they were making
taffy laced with peanuts, although they will lace it with other
delicacies as well, such as chiverre (a fruit that matures
during Holy Week).
My movie has live commentary in parts, but
it is in Spanish, albeit by a personable commentator, so allow me
to explain briefly what is happening. As the cane juice is drawn
off the press, it is loaded into a huge paila to boil off
impurities, which are skimmed. All the pailas, or cauldrons, have
a fire chamber below in which is burned the pressed and dried cane
stalks to fuel the fire. As the liquid thickens, it is ladled via
bucket on a bamboo pole to a secondary, smaller, paila,
where it
cooks to a syrupy consistency
(9.8 mb)
The operators ladle and wait for the fire to
do it's job. They know by experience that the syrup reaches
various points on its way to perfection for taffy. At one point,
if cooled, it is a sticky, chewy but pliable candy when dipped in
water, like caramel. The foreman begins testing the syrup, first
dipping his hand in water, and then into the hot cauldron, and
dipping out a sample into a 5 gallon bucket of water. He hands
samples to chew to the onlookers, who chomp happily on the sticky
mess. The foreman himself is
waiting for "the
point" (13.4 mb) where the syrup hardens sufficiently to then
be pulled into taffy. He recognizes this by consistency: when
cooled quickly in water it becomes more brittle, less sticky but
still pliable candy. At that point, the ladle work begins
in earnest, as the syrup is ladled out onto smooth slabs of wet
concrete. Quickly, large bags of peanuts are sprinkled onto the
ribbons of cooling syrup. At this point, also, they drip the last,
most cooked syrup, directly into a large bowl of water, creating
little globs of "chicharrones", or cane brittle, for lack of a
better term. These too are shared with the onlookers.
The taffy quickly cools, and must be
"pulled" to aerate it into taffy.The helpers peel the taffy from
the concrete, and deliver it to pullers, who hang it on large
wooden spikes to pull downward. Here's the
movie
(11.3 mb)
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Larry@atenasrealty.com
(011)506-2446-5587
8848-2098
3-06-07 |
