Maple Syrup

At time of writing, I’m about sixteen hours out from our journey into the sugarbush and I’m legitimately hype about it. That opinion might change once we’ve hiked a half mile in and the half mile out and I still have two classes left, but for now I’m enthusiastic so let’s go!

I have only the most general concept of how sap is turned into syrup so I started with the Penn State “Maple Syrup Production for the Beginner.” I hadn’t thought about there being different flavors for different species of maple, but I guess that answers my question of whether or not I could tap the maple tree in my front yard. (It’s no, apparently. Red maple, not sugar maple). This article has more things I’ve found in a hardware store than I really expected from anything assigned as reading in a food writing class, and way more geometry than I’ve ever used in making food. There is a lot more science in making maple syrup than I originally anticipated. This is a much drier article, one lacking, ironically, in flavor text.

And so I move on to the History of Maple Sugaring, thanking this author for not using the word “syrup” in their title, because it’s starting to lose all meaning. Right off the bat, this article holds my interest a lot better, with a story and a bunch of words I hesitate to attempt to pronounce. Little wild men told the Anishinaabe how to make sugar from sap! That’s a fascinating origin story! One Ancient Aliens would love to spin, I’m sure. There’s historical documents that are food writing! People have been passionate about food writing since forever, apparently, and some of it has even lasted long enough for it to come back around to us. (And of course, another ancient practice is berated, belittled and damaged by Proselytizing Europeans. As is the nature of history, unfortunately.)

I leave you now, because I have to find something to eat, and I’ve read and written the word syrup too many times. Syrup. Syrup. Syrup. It’s lost all meaning. Syrup.