Thread: Maple Syrup

I spent the day at a friends house boiling sap to make some Maple Syrup.

Lots of fun! Most of the time was spent watching water boil but we solved many of the worlds problems in our discussions.

I LOVE real maple syrup. It's a true treasure of North America.

Real syrup for real American's.

I agree.

Too bad so much of the stuff being sold is counterfeit.

A true American delicacy! Turned my wife onto real syrup and she asked " why, what's the difference besides the price! ". Made a side by side taste test and then made her read the ingredient list of both!
Her response, " Holy Crapola, it's an entire list of chemicals I can't pronounce!! "

End of story and her craving for " Mrs. Butterworths "!

When I was a kid growing up in New Hampshire, I had two uncles across the river in Vermont who did sugaring. One lived in Barnet, which was closer, he had a fairly small operation and mostly leased trees from his neighbors. The other lived on the family farm in Ryegate (built in the 1760s by a distant ancestor) and he had a pretty big operation. Sugaring has been going on for so long at the farm, that he had collected a number of old handmade wooden taps that were the predecessors of the rolled sheet metal ones that were the universal choice for most of the 20th century. I used to help both of them out by placing and collecting sap buckets, as well as general cleaning up around the sugar house. My payment from each at the end of the season was a gallon can of AAA amber, sometimes two if it was a really productive year. Now they're both gone, the farm was sold when my great-aunt passed away at the age of 104 a couple of years back, and I'm diabetic so can't enjoy much syrup anymore. I do keep some on hand for times when my blood sugar has a drop - a shot glass of syrup kicks it right back up into safe range in just a couple of minutes. Weird the way things turn out sometimes...

The trees were starting to bud and everyone involved has a Monday to Friday job so yesterday we pulled the taps. Total production this year a little over 9 gallons. A fun annual tradition with a few friends.

I am Italian, but I have been living in NY Upstate for 8 years now and I make my maple syrup little batch. If you don't try it, you will never understand the quality of homemade syrup. Huge difference from what you buy at the stores.

Man, this thread makes me want some pancakes, french toast or waffles. : )

The only real maple syrup (I hope) we get is a very high priced pint from the grocer.

What I've found is if it's real and not the concoction sold as syrup it's going to be expensive, a gallon can be over the price of a very nice razor. Tc