March Is Maple Sugaring Time

There are few things more Canadian than maple syrup. Almost 90% of world production is Canadian. about 73,000,000 litres. Quebec world leader with 70% of global production with Ontario second largest Canadian producer, contributing almost a million litres per year. Most exports are to United States, with smaller amounts to Germany, Japan and the UK. Yet strangely, it is the US which claims a National Maple Syrup Day--and on 17^th December rather than in March, prime sugaring off time in most areas of production.

The zone where conditions are exactly suitable are comparatively limited. Only where early spring days herald below-zero cold nights and warmer days will cause the sap to flow in certain maple species. Only in northeastern North America, and especially Canada, are such conditions to be found. Even enthusiastic gardening President Jefferson discovered at his celebrated Virginia plantation was too far south for maple syrup production. Forget elsewhere in the world, even where suitable maples flourish. Japan, Korea, northern Europe, none have precisely the right conditions. Where those are, however, the Sugar Maple, Acer saccharum, sap has 2 to 5% sugar content. It takes 40 litres of sap to make a single litre of syrup. This messy, sticky process is not for the home kitchen. It is instead carried out in a sugar shack or house, located in the sugar bush, where the sugaring off takes place. A maple tree may be first tapped when it is 30- to 40-years-old. A yield of some 35 to 50 litres sap per tree, up to 12 litres per day may be expected, although some famous trees have produced more. Modern production utilizes plastic tubing and vacuum pumps, replacing staggering through snow bearing buckets of the precious liquid. Botanical cousins of A. saccharum, the Red Maple, Acer rubrum, and Black Maple, Acer nigrum, may also be tapped successfully. Less often are the Silver Maple, Acer saccharinum, or the Manitoba Maple, Acer negundo. The latter, while flourishing in its weedy way outside its named province, is particularly despised. Ogden Nash must then be chastised, despite being a New Englander, when he claimed:

Fields are green and flower are gay! Maples swell with syrup a-syruping! Nature is spreading herself today!

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Perhaps moving to Maryland triggered his ignorance or maybe just poetic license taken a few lines too far. Whatever and wherever the syrup derives, it will delight foodies. Pancakes, ice cream, waffles, French toast, doughnuts, glaze, candy, baked beans, sweet potatoes, squash all taste better for it. Better news yet, nutritionists say this is a good sweetener, unlike the now-notorious products of cane, beet and corn. Bob Chambers was right on: "The only stuff to have us real maple syrup. Aunt Jemima is no good." There have been less well-known claims for the sticky stuff. Unsurprisingly in the Age of Paltrow, maple syrup has been recommended for a face and hair mask--a disease preventer yet, that fights wrinkles. In the United States maple flavoured pipe and chewing tobacco have found a niche market. Back in Canada, scientists in a Quebec based laboratory were reported by CBC News in 2004 as researching into maple syrup flavoured cigarettes. Inevitably where such a valued product occurs, so does big-time crime. With a barrel of maple syrup worth more than a barrel of oil, there occurred what has come down in history as 'The Great Maple Syrup Robbery.' In Saint-Louis-de-Blandford, Quebec, sticky-fingered thieves made off with the equivalent of 12 tractor-trailer loads, or 6,000 pounds worth $18 million. The 2011-2012 theft was masterminded by Richard Valliéres who, upon arrest and conviction, later got 8 years in prison and fined $9.4 million. Subject of a 2016 Vanity Fair article, a documentary was shown on television by Netflix in 2018. The 5^th episode in Dirty Money was called The Maple Syrup Heist. But perhaps you missed out on something with your honey this past Valentines Day. Robert Somley, a 52-year-old landscaper, came to passionate, if sticky grips earlier while working for a client in Monroe, Connecticut. Smearing himself with maple syrup he was joined in a tryst with an unnamed female co-worker who added blueberry jelly to their encounter, according to a report in the Connecticut Post. It is not known if scientists in Quebec have confirmed this unusual use of the pride of the province.