It does not surprise the inhabitants of La Gomera to see stairs perched to the palm trees of the island between the months of February and July, but possibly the peninsular may be surprised, that it may come to think that the men who haunt those glasses are picking dates or hearts of palm.
However, they do not do one thing or the other, but during the first half of the year -and a little longer- they ascend to the tops of the Canarian palm tree (Phoenix canariensis) for turn the guarapo, its juicy sap, into a delicacy which puts La Gomera at the epicenter of the islands’ sweet tooth.
From it is extracted the so-called palm honey (although by administrative terms we will see it as syrup or as sap) because the definition of honey imposed by the European Union does not allow it to be considered as such, although the popular use has it thus baptized.
A miracle is thus produced that sweetens and dyes a intense and fragrant vegetable smell dishes all over the islands of the archipelago, accompanying fruits, sweets, coffees, desserts and, above all, the white cheeses of La Gomera and La Palma, to which a jet of this black nectar escort of wonder.
However, this is the end of a sustainable idyll and in danger of extinction that puts La Gomera in the sweet map of sugar alternatives (such as agave syrup, maple syrup or even cane syrup) and which we were lucky to witness.
A profession of risk: the guarapero
The Canary Island palm census (the aforementioned Phoenix canariensis) on the rugged island of La Gomera, within the province of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, exceeds 230,000 copies. Unfortunately, this natural treasure is hardly exploited due to the harsh conditions under which the guarapero, the in charge of extracting the sap from these glasses, he faces.
About 10 meters high, climbing either with stakes or from ladders, the guarapero rises from February with the machete in hand to turn the palm tree into the gourmand protagonist of Gomera.
Today, this ascent is more accessible, although historically they climbed the trunk with a rope passed between the back and the tree, using feet and hands to climb to the top.
It is not an easy job, although it allows the guarapero, a profession in disuse due to the difficulty and risk that it entails, stay the rest of the year with the season that the palm tree allows. Thus, it stands up towards the top of the tree ready to peel it to turn it into a kind of source from which the sap will flow until the middle of the year.
A landscape cut from ravines and palm trees
Not all palm trees are worth it, of course. AND neither can they all work at the same time. In fact, hands are lacking to take over a business that could be easily exportable if the virtues of palm honey were known beyond the island limes.
But let’s go to the tree. As we said, not everything is worth it. As in wine, tall palm trees, although older, they give better guarapos than the younger palms. In the same way, that guarapo (the fresh sap of the palm tree, which when it flows is transparent in color) is more concentrated and is tastier in the palms of drier areas and on the slopes, although it is more demanding to obtain.
Sometimes the work of the guarapero It is not just peeling the leaves, curing the palm tree and removing the herbs, but also to reach them. To understand it, you have to take a look at the orography of La Gomera, the only island where palm honey is made, and on the north face of which we see slopes and ravines that require going to a palm tree to take a walk of more than forty minutes.
It is thus understood that the legendary whistle was the base of the language of this remote island in which only 22,000 inhabitants live and which allowed communication through the ravines, in which it is common to see scattered dozens of palm trees that a time ago the Guanches exploited with more relish.
A natural source of sap
Once in front of the tree, the guarapero climbs to the top of the tree, peeling the central leaves there, the freshest ones with machetes and axes. He is the despencado, when he removes those young leaves to air the upper surface of the palm heart (the descogollado) and that allows you to access the highest part of the trunk, from where the guarapo will sprout.
This process, known as opening the palm, is just the beginning of an arduous task that will take the guarapero a month of constant pampering to the palm tree. Chisel in hand, the figure of these intrepid farmers stands out in the evening to smooth the field (This is the name of the surface from which the guarapo flows), removing small sheets of it (called cures) so that the sap continues to flow.
If you don’t, the palm tree forms a kind of scab or callus and it will clog, having to repeat the whole process. In this way, as it were, an ‘open wound’ is left through which the precious guarapo will end up sliding. This lowering is essential to turn the palm tree into a kind of fountain that will not stop releasing its sap until well into the summer.
Night between palm trees
It is in this field where a gutter is placed, usually made of cane, which leads the sap to a bucket in height where the incessant dripping of the palm tree replicates with cadence on the slopes of La Gomera. Around 12 liters a day, the first guarapos being denser and more powerful, throughout the season are the result of this drainage that, although it may not seem like it, is sustainable.
“There are palm trees that can give up to 20 liters of guarapo a day, but it is not usual. In addition, not all palm trees are worked at the same time, since each one is allowed to rest for four years “, they explain from El Masapé de Aniceta, a small palm honey farm in Vallehermoso (La Gomera), which obtains its guarapo from some 70 palm trees, some owned and others leased.
With the morning about to dawn and the first rays of sun, still breaking dawn, the guaraperos return to the glasses to discover the guarapo. “If you leave it in the sun, the guarapo ferments easily, that’s why they come with him at six in the morning, “they explain.
The ‘stew’ of palm honey
In La Gomera only a dozen companies are dedicated to the manufacture of palm honey. To the aforementioned we must add other references such as Alvamar, Casa Efigenia, El Arrope, El almar, Productos Artesanales Carmita, Royal Palm, Cubaba, La Encantadora or El Guarapero, and whose production methods are similar to each other, but where each one decides his way of making palm honey.
Once received, it must be ‘cooked’. In huge pots, now fueled by diesel (but by wood in the past), the pipotas (denomination of the 36-liter jugs where the guarapo is stored that arrives every morning and that has previously been cast by the guarapero in the palm grove (not palm grove).
It is first passed through another sieve when it is tipped over and then cooking begins. Thus the sap is allowed to foam, at about 60 degrees centigrade, and when it no longer generates foam, it is cooked at temperatures that do not exceed 70º. With concentration, it will take on the colors of molasses and dark syrup.
So about seven or eight hours, although this time may vary depending on the amount of guarapo that day. A complex and hard work – we are talking about cauldrons with hundreds of liters of guarapo with a soft gush – that the cook watches over, stirring with huge spoons, until he sees that the point of palm honey is the right one.
“Sticky, forming threads, but without it being glass”, they comment from El Masapé. Thus it mutates in a ratio of eight liters of guarapo in a liter of palm honey the delicate sap of the Canary palm tree. Once ready, a spigot in the cauldrons is opened and the honey is allowed to cool before bottling.
A widespread use throughout the islands
To think of frangollo, fresh cheese, curd cake, yoghurts, coffees or gofio mousse is also to think of palm honey as the sweetener naturally present that puts ‘sugar’ in Canarian life. Without forgetting, of course, the famous gomerón, a mixture of brandy (grapevine is called in La Gomera) and palm honey, which is served cold as a shot.
Palm Sap EL MASAPÉ 500 ml. Canary Islands product.
Nevertheless, palm honey is less caloric than conventional sugar. Barely 75 grams of carbohydrates for every 100 grams of product compared to the emphaticness of white sugar are the bulwark to cling to to value this sweetener that barely leaves the islands. In addition, it has certain minerals such as zinc, potassium or phosphorus that provide more than energy.
“There is very little production to export it”, they explain to us from Alimentos de La Gomera and is that practically all palm honey is consumed in the Canary archipelago, knowing not only the slightly vegetal and fresh flavor of this derivative of the palm tree, but also for its versatility.
All that insular cookbook can be reinterpreted with palm honey, that has little or nothing to envy other well-marked syrups such as the famous Canadian maple syrup or the increasingly recurring agave syrup that comes from Mexico.
Thus, La Gomera rises as gourmand bastion of a millenary tradition, inherited from the Guanches, which well deserves that we put our eyes and taste buds in a universe
Images | Insular Association for Rural Development of La Gomera /
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