Maple Sugar Season
By Mary Emma Allen
With the warmer weather we’ve enjoyed throughout New England, maple syrup producers wonder if the sap will start to run early this year. Collecting the maple’s sap takes place in a variety of areas of our country.
In addition to the New England states, I’ve found it in New York and Ohio. The sap buckets ring the trees and maple sugaring festivals often are organized.
Maple Sugaring of Long Ago
Maple syrup first was made in this country by the native Indians who, after collecting the sap from the sugar maples, boiled off the excess water and produced delicious nectar. The colonists learned to tap the maples from the Indians and soon were sweetening their food with this product.
Manufacturing maple sugar became a lucrative trade in this country when the Quakers, who were adverse to using sugar produced by the slave labor of the Indies, began making sugar from the maples on a large scale.
Early American Festivals
About the time of the northward migrations of the wild geese, the colonists started tapping their maples. In those days a bucket hung on each spout, but modern maple sugar producers usually run plastic tubing from tree to tree and gather the sap in one central collecting place.
The “Sugaring Off Party” held during sap season, was a gala occasion in days ago, one of the eagerly anticipated social events of the winter. Hot syrup was poured on snow. There it hardened into a taffy-like consistency. Hot biscuits might be served and dipped into the fresh syrup.
My aunt told of attending these sugaring parties in Canada as well as New Hampshire when she was a girl and spent her childhood in both places. These social events were especially popular with the young people.
Sugaring Times of Childhood
When my daughter was a youngster, I related how my dad tapped the maples in the front yard of our farmhouse during my childhood. Since there were maples at the home where we lived at the time, Beth decided she wanted to do this, too, and have the fun my sister, brothers, and I had gathering sap and boiling it into syrup on the kitchen cook stove.
That year Beth and her dad tapped the maples. Before and after school she checked her sap buckets, and then rushed into the house, “Mom! They’re nearly full!”
We boiled it into syrup and sugar on the kerosene stove I used for heat and cooking in that kitchen. We didn’t make a huge amount. But since I needed the stove going all day for hear anyway, it cost us no extra to boil the sap down.
In the process, we had a family fun time together and created memories Beth can pass along to her children.
BAKED APPLES with MAPLE SYRUP – Place cored apples in shallow dish; some cooks like to pare the apples halfway down the sides. Fill the centers with maple syrup. You may want to place raisins and/or chopped nuts in the centers first. Then add warm water to cover the bottom of the pan.
Bake at 350 degrees F., for 20 to 30 minutes, until the apples are tender. For tastier results, spoon some of the juices over the apples a number of times while they are baking.
When tender, remove from oven. Serve warm or cool, with whipped topping or ice cream.
You also can bake maple apples in the microwave oven.
©2006 Mary Emma Allen
About The Author:
Mary Emma Allen writes from her multigenerational home in New Hampshire where she researches and writes about cooking and quiltmaking. Visit her web site: here
or email her at me.allen@juno.com.
