donât live here, I think itâs hard to fully appreciate the impact that maple syrup, and its related productsâmaple (âIndianâ) sugar, maple sugar candy, maple cream, maple creemies (soft-serve ice cream), maple cotton candy, maple roasted nuts, and so onâhave on the culture, economy, and collective unconscious of Vermont. Just look at our state quarter: a guy straight out of Vermont-stereotype casting, sporting a plaid jacket and sugaring with buckets the old-fashioned way. (Although metal sap buckets are still used here and there, the preferred modern method involves a much less bucolic plastic sap line, which runs from tree to tree. Come springtime, youâll see them materialize on trees like quick-climbing vines.)
Now here is some surprising advice, coming from me: if youâve never had maple syrup fresh, by which I mean straight out of the boiling-down process, this is an experience you must try to have in your lifetime, because there is no other taste in the world like it. Unless you are attempting your own Year of No Sugar, I see no real obstacles for you, save getting through the almost-as-famous Vermont mud in springtime. There is some sort of magic that is happening just then, as the water is evaporated out of the sap slowly, hovered over for hours in the warmth of the sugarhouse, that you can actually taste at no other time than right then. Likely, you will have wind-burned cheeks and be stamping your slushy shoes when someone hands you a Dixie cup containing a tablespoon or two of warm, pure gold. Warning: your taste buds may very well be spoiled forever.
You may never even want to have regular maple syrupagain. All things considered, having one tablespoon of that just-born manna might be a great trade-off for all those metal gallons we might otherwise go through. In fact (and Iâm going to speak very quietly now, so my fellow Vermonters wonât hear me), after Steve devised a new-and-improved pancake recipe employing coconut and (what else?) bananas, we found we could enjoy no-syrup pancakes very well, and without that âmaple-syrup crashâ half an hour later.
Itâs tough though. Iâm a stickler for appreciating culture, heritage, history. Of all the sugars on our list, maple sugar might well be the most appealing from a romantic and historical point of view. Itâs hard to be nostalgic about sugar extracted by machines from beets or corn. But extracting maple sap from the shady trees that dot our state is something almost anyone can do with a proper hammer and tin bucket. This appeals, of course, not only to history buffs who see continuity stretching back even to the Native Americans, but also to the do-it-yourself mentality that is so entrenched throughout New England.
We know people who sugar every year for fun, and those who do so for serious profit. We know people with sleek, modern sap boilers and those whose impossible, heaving contraptions look as if they belong in the Middle Ages. We have sat in on lengthy discussions of wood fire versus propane heating and whether or not you can properly cook a batch down on your stove without ending up with a flypaper-wall kitchen and whether you can taste the difference when some of the trees happen to grow just over the line in (gasp!) New York. We know people who use no sweetener besides maple syrupâin their coffee, their baking, in their glazed carrots and sweet potatoes.
Believe me when I say, maple syrup is waaaaaaay beyond a thing to put on your pancakes around here. Itâs practically a religion.
Which makes me� Once again, the bad guy? If this were Star Wars , would I be the creepy old guy in the black hood in desperate need of a facial and some eye drops?
No. I was determined. I was not going to be the Sugar Nazi; I was notâprobablyâgoing to instill neurosis in my children that would haunt them for decades to come. I believed, with perhaps Pollyanna-ish determination,
Now here is some surprising advice, coming from me: if youâve never had maple syrup fresh, by which I mean straight out of the boiling-down process, this is an experience you must try to have in your lifetime, because there is no other taste in the world like it. Unless you are attempting your own Year of No Sugar, I see no real obstacles for you, save getting through the almost-as-famous Vermont mud in springtime. There is some sort of magic that is happening just then, as the water is evaporated out of the sap slowly, hovered over for hours in the warmth of the sugarhouse, that you can actually taste at no other time than right then. Likely, you will have wind-burned cheeks and be stamping your slushy shoes when someone hands you a Dixie cup containing a tablespoon or two of warm, pure gold. Warning: your taste buds may very well be spoiled forever.
You may never even want to have regular maple syrupagain. All things considered, having one tablespoon of that just-born manna might be a great trade-off for all those metal gallons we might otherwise go through. In fact (and Iâm going to speak very quietly now, so my fellow Vermonters wonât hear me), after Steve devised a new-and-improved pancake recipe employing coconut and (what else?) bananas, we found we could enjoy no-syrup pancakes very well, and without that âmaple-syrup crashâ half an hour later.
Itâs tough though. Iâm a stickler for appreciating culture, heritage, history. Of all the sugars on our list, maple sugar might well be the most appealing from a romantic and historical point of view. Itâs hard to be nostalgic about sugar extracted by machines from beets or corn. But extracting maple sap from the shady trees that dot our state is something almost anyone can do with a proper hammer and tin bucket. This appeals, of course, not only to history buffs who see continuity stretching back even to the Native Americans, but also to the do-it-yourself mentality that is so entrenched throughout New England.
We know people who sugar every year for fun, and those who do so for serious profit. We know people with sleek, modern sap boilers and those whose impossible, heaving contraptions look as if they belong in the Middle Ages. We have sat in on lengthy discussions of wood fire versus propane heating and whether or not you can properly cook a batch down on your stove without ending up with a flypaper-wall kitchen and whether you can taste the difference when some of the trees happen to grow just over the line in (gasp!) New York. We know people who use no sweetener besides maple syrupâin their coffee, their baking, in their glazed carrots and sweet potatoes.
Believe me when I say, maple syrup is waaaaaaay beyond a thing to put on your pancakes around here. Itâs practically a religion.
Which makes me� Once again, the bad guy? If this were Star Wars , would I be the creepy old guy in the black hood in desperate need of a facial and some eye drops?
No. I was determined. I was not going to be the Sugar Nazi; I was notâprobablyâgoing to instill neurosis in my children that would haunt them for decades to come. I believed, with perhaps Pollyanna-ish determination,
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