![]() Thanks to increasing demand and poor sugaring weather in some regions over the past several years, retail prices have spiked to as much as $80 per gallon in some places. And let’s not forget the Master Cleanse diet - more accurately a fast - in which people eat nothing for days on end, subsisting only on a drink made of water, lemon juice, cayenne pepper and maple syrup. These days, some maple syrup devotees use the liquid sweetener as a substitute for sugar in everything from cakes to stir fry. The actual maple syrup industry has grown some 10% in each of the past four years - and no, maple syrup it not just for flapjacks. (Most brands of maple-flavored pancake toppings are made with corn syrup.) The tagline for Log Cabin, which is made with sugar, is “Authentic Maple Tasting Syrup for over 120 years.” This careful wording is intentional and crafted to avoid false advertising claims. ![]() If you’re wondering where Aunt Jemima or Log Cabin syrup fit into this picture - these common table products are not real maple syrup. Over time, the industry evolved enough that companies from Quebec to Vermont produced ready-made “evaporators,” essentially giant frying pans with fire boxes built underneath.Īs the natural foods movement has picked up steam in recent years, maple syrup has become, along with honey, an increasingly attractive alternative to processed cane sugar. Some sugar makers heated the sap further, turning it into crystallized sugar. Sugar makers boiled off most of the water over a wood fire - what they were left with was brown sweet syrup. It takes about 40 gallons of sap to make one gallon of maple syrup because sap is about 98% water. Every day or two - depending on how fast the sap was running out of the trees - the farmers would empty out the buckets into larger containers or tanks and haul the watery substance to a “sugar house” usually built in the woods. (Sap typically runs out of maple trees on days when the temperature is around 40 degrees following a night when the mercury dropped below freezing.) The farmers called the maple tree stands “sugar bushes” and hung buckets under the drilled holes. I love to drink the fresh sap straight from the tree as well (it tastes like the best water EVER!) I’ll be posting my favorite Maple syrup recipes in the cooking section of my blog and using the harvest to sweeten wild menus for many an upcoming WILD event at Wild Blessings! Join me!ĪND I am sending this blog entry to Butter Wilde’s Wild Things Round UP at the 17th century onward, dairy farmers who wanted to supplement their income from milk - or who just needed a source of sweetener that was better and cheaper than sugar or molasses - drilled small holes in the trees during the brief weather window between winter and spring. It is now March 23 and the sap continues to flow and I am still eagerly collecting every drop. The Maple syrup is so delicious! As we ate dinner we had daffodils on the table but snow quietly falling outside the windows. These banana almond butter egg paleo pancakes are our favorites. ooooh baby! So I splurged and made sourdough bread french toast topped with strawberries as a platform for the Maple syrup! Alone with the fried egg and bacon are some rather burned potato peels that I fried in the bacon grease (I don’t throw much if anything away…ever) and Dandelion root coffee for the perfect touch! Bethany pouring it on! Jason and I have been trying to eat gluten free for the past few years. Jason was so thrilled! I plan on making Maple scones for my next wild food class! and butternut squash soup with MAPLE syrup (click on links to see the recipes) The final product from tree to plate…. Maple syrup at long last! It tastes amazing. Next year, I will tap many Maples and use an outdoor mapling pan over a fire pit to save electricity! The beginning of my harvest. Using droppers we syringed every drop of the liquid gold into the jar. No wonder Maple syrup prices are steep! Jason helped me pour the syrup into waiting glass jug bottles and poured to fast the first time resulting in a a huge mess on the stove top. Yes, I am aware that I am crazy… this is the culmination of lots of boiling and ‘wasting’ of electricity. The finished product is not only a honey brown but also thick and syrupy. Interesting to watch the color of the boiled sap deepen as it is boiled. The brown liquid in the glass jug jar in front is the final boiled down syrup. Clear Maple sap tasty like pure water with a twinge of sweetness to it. ![]() Taylor checking the frozen harvest! Boiling on the stove top….for hours. Since I can’t lift the 5 gallon buckets I transfer the sap into gallon glass jugs to take home for boiling. I love to hear the plunk of the sap into the buckets. Almost full after only changing the bucket less than 24 hours before.
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