Maple Syrup

Earlier today, I woke up craving something filling.  I was starving.  I went to the dining hall and did what many Centennial Halls residents do: I made a Belgian waffle in the waffle maker and drizzled maple syrup all over it.  Now although I know that the syrup we use at halls is probably just flavored corn syrup, it got me thinking back to my days in New England where we only had the best in Vermont, Grade A amber maple syrup.  I wondered how the industry worked.  Yes, I, just like all who grew up in that area, went on one or two field trips to a maple syrup processing “sugar house” in the woods, but I still don’t have a true grasp of how it gets from the tree to my waffle.  So I did some research.

            Prior to the 1950s, the United States was responsible for about 80 percent of worldwide syrup production.  Presently, it only accounts for about 20 percent, with New England producing 75% of all United States-made syrup (Rock).  Due to climate change, the ideal climate for harvesting maple syrup that once occupied the northeast United States has now shifted to Quebec and other parts of Canada (Belluck).  Quebec itself now accounts for about 75% of  worldwide maple syrup production due to this climate change (USDA).  All this is interesting, but I was also interested in finding out exactly how it is made.

            Maple syrup can only be harvested in late winter, early spring temperatures when temperatures are in the low 40’s during the day but go back to the 20’s at night.  Syrup season only lasts about a month spanning from late February to early April.  Harvesting is fairly simple; a spile (an iron spigot that allows flowing) is inserted into a matured tree that feeds into a bucket which hangs on the tree and collects raw sap.  The buckets fill up, drop by drop, until enough has been collected to start filtering and processing. 

            Anywhere from 35 to 50 gallons of sap are needed to yield just one gallon of finished product.  To get from sap to product, the sap undergoes a process inside a “sugar house”, the common name for maple syrup processing shacks.  First, syrup is pre-heated up to a near boiling temperature before being put in a boiling pan where much of the water is boiled off.  As the water evaporates, the sugar remains and becomes grainy in the syrup.  Once the grainy sugar has been filtered out, it is packaged and sent to supermarkets for sale.(BWF)

            One thing I found particularly interesting is that it appears that maple syrup is one of the food products that still doesn’t rely on big processing plants to sustain its industry.  Most “real” maple syrup is produced by small operations across Quebec and New England.  From what I’ve seen in my own visits to maple syrup sugar houses, they are often family run operations where the larger ones hire some employees.  For the most part however, they are small farms where everyone profits from the sales of the syrup rather than a CEO profiting and then assigning salaries.  This was interesting to me because it seems like this way of farming is becoming old fashioned and we get so wrapped up in efficiency that large scale operations and processing plants get put in place for many other nationally distributed products.  This is a great way to keep small businesses functioning and I hope that we don’t see maple syrup production fall into the clutches of the corporate world.

Maple Syrup. United States Department of Agriculture. September 2005. p. 12. Retrieved May 5^th, 2013

"How Real Maple Syrup Is Made." RealMapleSyrup.com - How Is Maple Syrup Made? Balsam Woods Farm, 2012. Web. 04 May 2013. <http://www.realmaplesyrup.com/how.html>.

Rock, Barrett, and Shannon Spencer. "The Maple Sugar Industry." Cara.psu.edu. Consortium for Atlantic Regional Assessment at Penn State University, 2001. Web. 04 May 2013. <http://www.cara.psu.edu/about/publications/Maple_syrup.pdf>.

Belluck, Pam. "Warm Winters Upset Rhythms Of Maple Sugar." The New York Times. The New York Times, 03 Mar. 2007. Web. 05 May 2013. <http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/03/us/03maple.html>.