The jaggery producers at Chatmohar in Pabna are now busy making juggleries. They are making jaggery from date juice every day. They have to be busy from morning till night in all the activities like removing the juice from the tree, making nest by making net, obstructing the juice from the tree, collecting fuel.
Jaggery makers from different areas of Natore and Rajshahi come to Chatmohar in winter season and lease household trees to make jaggery. Thick and hard Patali (jaggery) is made by heating the date juice. Although molasses, granular molasses, jaggeryand chita molasses are made from date juice, food lovers prefer jaggery to make in winter. That is why the word Patali Gur (jaggery ) is closely associated with Payesh in winter.
Moinul, Monirul and Maqbool of BaliharShahidpur village in Bagha upazila of Rajshahi are jointly tending date palm trees, collecting juice and making jaggeryfrom Kumargara village of Bilchalan union of Chatmohar in Pabna. Moinul said that each of them has been making jaggeryfor about fifteen years. They are doing this from the house of Abul Hossain Master of Kumargara village.
They collected juice from 250 palm trees of 30 households. In turn, he collects sap from 120 trees every day. One by one 40 trees can be prepared and tied with juice. From noon to about 4 o'clock, he ties a rope of juice to the tree. After that he worked to collect fuel till about seven o'clock at night. He wakes up at 3 am and gets busy collecting juice. At around 8 in the morning, he squeezes the juice and puts it in four (big pots) for heating up. After burning for three hours, the juice turns red. During this time the concentration of the juice increases. When one side of the four is relatively low, the red thick juice goes to one side of the four.
The molasses seeds are made by rubbing a few minutes of bamboo sticks on the high side. At this time molasses becomes quite thick. jaggeryis made by pouring this thick liquid molasses in molds of different sizes. On an average, they are getting 50 kg of molasses every day. At present, jaggery is being sold at Tk 110 per kg wholesale and Tk 140 retail per kg.
He further said, “In the start of fall, we started the work of clearing the date palms and making them suitable for collecting juice. The collection of juice starts from the end of fall. The work of collecting juice goes on till mid-spring. Tree owners have to pay 2 to 3 kg of jaggery per year for each tree. Fuel prices have risen. The prices of other accessories have also gone up. In all, the wages of our workers are 4 to 500 Tk per day.
Regarding date Patali molasses, DrRuhulQuddus Dollar said that molasses and jaggery increases the energy of enzymes that help in digestion, can reduce iron deficiency, maintains hormonal balance in the body and helps to keep the body warm.
However, eating too much molasses can lead to weight gain, high blood sugar levels. At many times, molasse sare not made in a healthy environment, which can lead to bacterial infections, and eating freshly made molasses can cause diarrhea.