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- Title:
- Calumpit Sugarcane
- Description:
- During Medina’s time the Quingua River was a “highway” for missionaries to reach their churches and convents. Calumpit was one day’s journey from Manila down the river and used to be densely populated. Sugarcane was growing during precolonial times. His contemporary Fray Pedro Mejia set up sugar plantations in Calumpit and his co-Augustinian Luis Ronquillo continued the work. It is their order that brought the first sugar presses from Mexico to the Philippines. Called TRAPICHE, the mill originally had two horizontal rollers when it crossed from Iberia to West Africa then Hispaniola (Sto. Domingo today). There Gonzales de Veloso is said to have designed a system so horses could pull the rollers. Sugarcane and its technology were introduced by the Spanish into the rest of the Caribbean and finally Central America. As the TRAPICHE moved into South America, the rollers were positioned vertically and one more was added. In the Philippines carabaos kept the rollers spinning. TRAPICHE began as a mill to extract olive oil before the Middle Ages. The term traces to “trapetum,” Latin for “oil mill. “ Colonialism brought good and bad changes. Sugarcane helped create wealth for natives in later centuries; meanwhile there was depopulation in the 1600s. Cane is inserted between the spinning rollers; juice runs down canals into a container on the ground (bottom right corner). The juice is cooked till it becomes a syrup before being turned into solid cakes.
- Subjects:
- Sugarcane Calumpit Sugar plantations Trapiche
- Exhibition:
- Juan Medina 50
- Source:
- “EL TRAPICHE de AZUCAR, Puebla, Mexico.” From portfolio Mexican People, 1947. Gift of Henry Rock. Portland Art Museum Online Collections.
- Type:
- Image;Still Image
- Format:
- image/jpeg
Source
- Preferred Citation:
- "Calumpit Sugarcane", Philippine Food History, Felice P. Sta. Maria
- Reference Link:
- felicepstamaria.net/items/coll103.html