Maple Syrup - the Sweet Happy Accident

by Mary Harris

When you think about the food on your table, do you ever wonder who first discovered that the ingredients involved were edible?Maple syrup makes me ask the question - how on earth did someone figure out that the sap of a certain tree could be collected and boiled down to make a sweet and tasty syrup?

Maple Syrup tap (c) Joe Mercier

Of course, it was the aboriginal people of Canada who first discovered it, a long, long time ago before any European settlers set foot here. Today, it is one of the few culinary ingredients that is unique to North America and not a European import.

Most trees, including the maple, go dormant during the Canadian winter, their leaves fall off and they look dead to the world as they stand silently in the deep snow. Just before the spring thaw in northeastern Canada (Ontario and Quebec) and the U.S., something magical happens. The starch that was stored in the maple tree trunk and roots changes to sugar in preparation for the return to life and the growing of leaves again. Legend has it that a group of native people once needed water to do some cooking and turned to the juices of the maple tree because all of their water sources were frozen. What a happy accident!

A classic: Maple Syrup on Pancake © Magdalena Kucova

Maple syrup is very special. It is only made from the sap of certain maple species grown along a narrow corridor of hardwood forests known as the 'Maple Belt'.

This woodland runs from Michigan, U.S. through eastern Canada and ends near the Atlantic Ocean. Depending on the outdoor temperatures, the sap will only run during a short season of 4 - 8 weeks, sometimes called a maple moon, sandwiched between the deep winter and the coming of the warm weather.

Traditional aboriginal sap collection involved cutting a V into the tree with an ax and letting the sap drip into a birch bark bowl. Later, European settlers drilled holes into the maple and inserted a crude spout, then hung a bucket made of a carved out tree trunk or metal. In either case, the sap had to be dragged away by hand or horse drawn sledge to a central boiling location commonly called a sugar shack. Today, many modern operations employ plastic tubing to take the sap directly from tree to boiler. Many litres of sap are required, in fact up to 50 litres of sap might be boiled down to get just 1 litre of sweet maple syrup. You can see how those little bottles in the shops can be so expensive!

Pricey or not, we love our maple syrup! Pour it onto pancakes or French toast, make it into butter or candy, use it as a sweetener or glaze, in sauces or baking - the list is endless. What would you do with a bottle of pure Canadian maple syrup?

A bottle of Canadian maple syrup (c) Foodio