Out of Maple Syrup!
February 22, 2007 at 12:10 pm (Food)
Photo taken in Northern Ontario
Sugar shacks and maple syrup make up some of my fondest childhood memories. Every Easter, my family would make the four-hour drive from Timmins to Astorville, ON (near North Bay) to my grandmother’s farm, where sugar maples had been tapped and sap was being collected for maple syrup. Now, the farm belongs to my uncle, and he and his brothers occasionally get together to make syrup. So on my last visit to my father’s, I wheedled a small container of the stuff out of him. This was a quite a feat as he’s very protective of his syrup and doesn’t easily part with it.
Interestingly, he went into a story about how “good maple syrup” doesn’t harden in the freezer. You can pour it as easily as if it had been sitting on the shelf. My father prides himself in being able to make good maple syrup. The secret, apparently, is boiling it long enough to get rid of all the water contained in the sap. He told me a story about a man who was selling the stuff at a local mall, and he was telling customers that they could store it in the freezer but that the syrup would have to be scooped out like ice cream, unless left to thaw in the refrigerator. Because the man was unconvinced that “good quality” maple syrup won’t harden in the freezer, my father invited him to come to his house so he could prove it. The guy didn’t take him up on the offer.
I personally don’t know all the workings behind making even bad maple syrup, but I thought I’d test out his theory, as I found it hard to believe that maple syrup doesn’t freeze. As soon as I got home, I plunked my new treasure on a freezer shelf and left it there for a few days. The next time I made pancakes, I took it out, and, sure enough, the syrup flowed very easily. You’d never have known that it came from the freezer. Okay, so my dad’s theory was proven.
The problem? Today I used up the last drop of my maple syrup. I always have maple syrup in the house, though I usually buy it at the grocery store. When I brought my dad’s syrup home, I had forgotten how tasty the real home-made stuff is. I don’t know why the store bought stuff tastes different, but it does. Maybe my dad’s syrup really is of better quality than what’s on store shelves, or maybe, just maybe, it’s the nostalgia for the trees on my grandmother’s farm.
Fawn said,
February 22, 2007 at 1:46 pm
I once bought a 4L jug of Ontario maple syrup and brought it home to the NWT. The owners of the sugar shack suggested that I rebottle the syrup into smaller containers and freeze them to prevent airborne spores that might get into the big jug from making the syrup go bad. I did that, but, as you say, the containers of syrup never ever froze. I suppose they’d have to freeze if you got them cold enough, but it was never cold enough in our deep freeze.
As for the quality of the syrup, maybe most store-bought syrup has added sugar. My husband and I made birch syrup when we lived in the NWT and we’ve since found out that commercially-made birch syrup pretty much always contains added sugar because it’s too difficult to boil it right down without burning it, besides which there’s so little sugar in birch water (compared to maple) that it gets really expensive to boil it right down.
yukonchatterbug said,
February 23, 2007 at 1:05 pm
Very interesting comment Fawn. My dad explained to me that if mold forms on the syrup, you can strain it, re-boil it, and it’s as good as new. Luckily, I’ve never run into that problem. Maybe that’s because I’ve never had a 4L jug of syrup! You’re probably right about the added sugar in store-bought syrups. I find, at least with the maple syrup, that the the home-made one is much more flavourful. I’ve yet to try birch syrup. I’ll have to get some from a local supplier.
Thanks for your comment.
Liane in TO said,
March 12, 2007 at 9:55 am
Came across this story just as I’ve just finished my lunch of waffles and sryup – nothing like a good quality syrup to provide a pick-me-up on grey days… The syrup I had was from southern Ontario and came from a real sugaring-off – cooked in iron caldrons over wood fires – the taste is amazing! I think that is why I don’t like the store bought syrup – no wood smoke undertones. Now normally I am a Quebec syrup girl as my grandparents used to own a sugar bush (pronounced: Boosch) but this batch from Ontario might be a close match. For those who are interested Canadian author, Jonathan London, wrote a brilliant children’s book called “The Sugaring-Off Party” (ISBN #1550415964 – avail on-line through Chapters/Indigo). I read it to my son who loves maple sugar too.