Feeling under the weather today, but my poor health is your gain, because it means I’m home, and can post some pictures I’ve been meaning to get up the past few days. On Monday, we took the kids over to some friends to see them making maple syrup. Now, I don’t think non-Mainers completely understand the passion some Mainers and New Englanders feel for maple syrup. (I include myself in that category.) To me, maple syrup is this cool tasting thing that you put on one of three things: pancakes, waffles or french toast. To some Mainers, maple syrup is the fifth food group. 🙂 They put it on everything from cereal to ice cream. They literally go through gallons of the stuff a year. I am not making this up. And, after now tasting maple syrup on ice cream, I can personally say that these Mainers are on to something–especially when you can make the maple syrup yourself, so it doesn’t cost anything. If only the entire world could consume maple syrup like Mainers do, we’d probably be a much more advanced civilization, free from hunger and poverty and war. Mitt Romney should run on a 100% maple syrup platform next go round. He’d win for sure.
Anyway–for those of you who don’t know where maple syrup comes from, here’s a brief rundown. Maple trees make sap. This is not the sticky stuff you’re used to seeing on pine trees–the stuff that makes it so your hands stick to everything for the next five years. No, maple sap looks pretty much like water. In fact it’s 34 parts water for every 1 part maple syrup. You basically drill a hole a few inches into the tree, put in a little spigot, and drip drip drip comes the sap. You collect all this sap and then boil the heck out of it. For every 35 gallons of sap you boil, you get 1 gallon of syrup. Each tree can make a gallon or so with no harm to the tree. One quart per tap. And now, as promised, the pictures:
First, here’s TRCÂ having maple syrup straight from the bottle.
DKCÂ and DC enjoy the action:
Maple sap on its way to becoming maple syrup:
And for fun, TRC in full detective mode. He likes to go around inspecting things, with his pet groundhog Phil and a magnifying glass:
Great Pictures!
That TRC. He cracks me up. Those are great! I thought that Will and I were huge Maple Syrup fans until I read your post and realized how mild our passion is in comparison. Will’s dad always used to carry around a small bottle of Cracker Barrel maple syrup wherever he went, though, and would take swigs of it straight. 🙂 On ice cream, eh? I’ll have to try that…
-Gretel
Re: Great Pictures!
You should–very tasty! Glad you liked the pics.
Looks like great fun. Do you have any of those trees on your property? If not, you’d better plant some! We’ll come by for homemade syrup in 25 years!
Ice Cream
Those not blessed with sugar maples (i.e. Californians) make due pretty well with what else is on hand. For example, lemon flavored olive oil over ice cream. It sounds gross but they converted me in a mere 3 years.
-Becky
Re: Ice Cream
Wow–that sounds . . . interesting. I think I’ll stick with maple syrup. 🙂