Black treacle. Known in the United States as molasses. In the manufacture of molasses, light molasses comes from the first boiling of the sugar syrup and is generally used as a syrup to served with desserts. Dark molasses comes from the second boiling and is less sweet, but thicker and darker than light molasses and is used in cooking robust foods such as gingerbreads or Boston baked beans. Blackstrap is the result of the third boiling, and is consequently even darker and more concentrated, but even less sweet. It is commonly used as cattle feed. It is erroneously thought to be nutrient rich.
In Boston, we lived in a building which had been built on reclaimed land, the site of a molasses factory. On 15 January 1919, three days before my mother's first birthday, this factory was damaged by some catastrophe, never really identified, and a great vat of molasses, nearly 20 metres (60 ft) high disintegrated. It had a capacity in excess of 2,000,000 gallons. Like lava from a volcano the molasses ran through the streets, to a depth of around 6 meters (18 ft) and travelling at 25-30 miles per hour. Twenty one people were drowned in the treacly sea which engulfed them and some 150 others injured. It is said that, after a tortuous clean-up, molasses continued to ooze from cracks in the ground for another 30 years. So, molasses isn’t all good.
