It’s Maple Sugaring Season

Manufacturers rank their products into four classes: “Golden,” “Amber,” “Dark,” and “Very Dark.” The Golden is the lightest in color and taste. It is the result of the earliest tappings and is used as a sweetening for ice cream, yogurt, and berry-desserts. The flavor of Amber syrup is much richer. Amber is the syrup most of us like when we are sweetening pancakes and waffles. It is truly the most versatile and plentiful of the four grades.

Dark syrup has a red and brown color. Its taste is quite robust and it is often used in porridge making and baking. Dark syrup is also the perfect starter for the preparation of barbeque sauces. Very Dark syrup is the variety that comes at the end of the season. The flavor is heavy, but it is just what the baker needs for spice cakes and cookies.

Does it need to be said that the politicians have managed to wiggle their way into the maple syrup business? In Canada, by national legislation, syrups must be made entirely from maple tree sap and the sugar content must be at least 66% by volume. In the United States the words “almost entirely” appear in maple sugar legislation, however in states like New York and Vermont, their state legislatures have gone deeper into the process and have passed laws with very stringent definitions.

The one general characteristic of maple syrup that most everyone agrees on is the flavor agents in the syrup, but the chemistry is still, after hundreds of years, a mystery.

Sugar in the Snow Festivals

For at least the last century or more Americans have celebrated a variety of Maple Syrup Days on Saturdays from early-February to late-March. These seasonal celebrations often include parades, sleigh rides, sled races, concerts, and open-air dinners or picnics. If you have not yet experienced a “Sugar in the Snow Festival” or “A Sugaring off Party” your social experiences are incomplete.

The essential ingredients for a Vermont Sugaring-off Party are: “Sugar in the Snow,” fresh brown donuts, scalding-hot coffee or black or orange-pekoe teas, and sour dill pickles. Yes, dill pickles.

“Sugar in the Snow” is often prepared with crowds of people watching. The process begins somewhat earlier when a blazing hot fire is built in a firebox in the middle of the sugarhouse floor. A good “sugar-man” will welcome his audience with an announcement of the current temperature, “It’s up to 200 degrees!,” he’ll say. Then, “210,” “215,” and then degree by degree until the boiling maple syrup reaches its sweetest temperature at 235° Fahrenheit.

When the “It’s ready!” announcement is made the cheers rise from the crowd and everyone makes a mad-dash for the snow pans. The snow maidens (the sugar-man’s helpers) ladle the boiling hot syrup onto the beds of freshly packed (tamped down) snow and often each ladle full will be given the name of a child who is anxiously waiting for this taste from heaven. Because of the extreme difference in temperatures the hot sugar hardens quickly into brittle, amber-colored pools against the white snow.

As fast as it congeals, children (of all ages) take to the concoction which sticks to the tines of a fork or the bowl of a wooden spoon. It is simply delicious! It is rich and smooth and sweet, but not sickening sweet. When your tastebuds are finally overcome by the sugar it is time for the pickle and donut. Then the hot coffee or tea tops off this truly unique flavor experience.

Certainly, the maple syrup and pickle seem incompatible but they are truly the only flavors on an American menu that completely cancel each other. It is unknown who was first to learn that these flavors would work together, but millions of happy people thank him every Spring.

With a little experimentation into the correct ratio of pickle to syrup, anyone can create a pickle dish that has a delightful crunchiness. Alone you wouldn’t achieve much at all from this except a good palate-cleansing. Is there any worth to that? Probably not, since what glory is there in tasteless food?