Maple Syruping

"Roses are red and violets are purple. Sugar is sweet and so is maple syrple." - Roger Miller

Last week and this week has been a busy, not to mention cold, kick-off to our programming season at the museum with maple syrup demonstrations. March is usually the time of year when the temperatures are just right for the sap in the maple trees to start flowing, but it was about ten degrees outside when I left home for work on Saturday. Needless to say, the sap was frozen, just like the ground and just like my fingers as I tried to start my wood burning stove in the old schoolhouse. I am pretty sure all of us in Minnesota are ready for winter to be over and are praying we do not get snow in May again like last year.

Nothing says good morning like a negative five windchill in March. The houses at the museum can be pretty cold before
the wood burning stoves start kicking off heat.

Early springtime, though, is usually an ideal season for collecting sap to make maple syrup. Cold overnight temperatures followed by relatively warm daytime temperatures is the ideal weather for harvesting a bumper crop of sap. (I say relatively here because while everyone in Minnesota knows 40 degrees Fahrenheit is perfect sweatshirt sans jacket weather, folks from other parts of the country are usually bundled up and freezing in those temperatures.) There are four tree types commonly used in Minnesota for making maple syrup and sugar: silver maple (Acer Saccharinum), red maple (Acer Rubrum), sugar maple (Acer Saccharum), and box elder (Acer Negundo). Notice how they all come from the same genus group? Something I learned while becoming familiar with the museum's program a few years ago is that you can tap a box elder tree for sap, and get a fairly decent crop, because it is related to the other maple trees. However, most people collect the sugar maple's sap because it produces the best tasting syrup.

As a high school senior so eloquently remarked to me one day, "Who first decided to make maple syrup? I mean, who in the world first decided that stuff coming out of trees would be good for eating?" Ah, teenagers. He posed a good question, though. While we do not know exactly the first person to discover the sugaring process, we do know of many folktales passed down orally by American Indian tribes. Feel free read a few of the American Indian Maple Tree Legends. Our museum shares the Ojibwe story of "Manabozho and the Maple Trees". If you find those stories entertaining, you can delve into other American Indian Legends.

Early written accounts of American Indian life are often how European settlers learned of the maple sugaring process, as can be found in An Account of the Remarkable Occurrences in the Life and Travels of Col. James Smith. Long before westward expansion brought fur traders to the Minnesota area, American Indian tribes taught European settlers how to make maple sugar. Settlers, in return, often introduced metal ware to the maple sugaring process.

Kids learn how the Ojibwe tribes would look for signs in nature to let them know it was maple sugaring time. American
Indians made large gashes in the shape of a V in tree trunks to gather the sap. Mukuks, birch bark baskets, were put
below the notches to collect the sap. European traders eventually introduced metal drills, spiels, and buckets.

American Indians poured gathered sap into large wooden troughs. Hot stones, heated by fire, were put into the sap to
make it boil and evaporate the water. Kids get to practice moving "hot" stones with sticks from the fire to the trough.

Many of the early settlers in Minnesota learned quite a bit from local American Indian tribes. Supplies to purchase were not readily available for the first settlers, so people quickly developed the skills and techniques needed for making their own supplies in order to survive. Collecting maple sap to make syrup and sugar is one of those crafts that early Minnesota settlers picked up from the Ojibwe and the Dakota. Many folks carved out a decent life on the frontier of Minnesota and lived comfortably after a little hard work. By modern standards, a 21st century child usually considers this lifestyle to be roughing it, but ease and comfort met different expectations in the 19th century.

Boiling sap down to make syrup.

A pitcher of maple syrup waiting to be turned into maple sugar.

The finished product!

In the 19th century, sugar was packed into sugar molds like this one as it was prepared for storage.

Maple sugar was a godsend to frugal American housewives. Sugar cane was extremely expensive in the 19th century since what was produced in the United States' southern region was not enough to meet demand, which meant most of it was imported and subject to tariff. While there is still a tariff on imported sugar cane in the 21st century, the cost of cane sugar compared to maple sugar has flip-flopped compared to the 19th century. The next time you are in the grocery store, take a look at the price of pure maple syrup. I am not talking about the artificially flavored, derived from corn sugar, Mrs. Butterworth or Aunt Jemima syrup. Look at the real stuff. It is not cheap! Now, imagine that is your only option for purchasing a sweetener. Hello, DIY! Had I been living in the frontier of Minnesota in the 1840s, I would have been extremely grateful for the capability of producing my own sugar to use.

Kids get to sample pure maple syrup.

Kids also get to sample pure maple sugar. Teachers just love us. :)

The steps for making maple sugar:

1. Tap the tree.
2. Turn the sap into syrup.
3. Turn the syrup into sugar.
4. Store for later use.

Simple, right? It is a lot of work, though, considering it takes about forty gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup. If you keep cooking your syrup down, one gallon of syrup will yield about one pound of sugar. The clean up is usually messy, not to mention sticky. The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources has a wonderful guide for young naturalists who would like to collect their own sap at home. And while you are making your own syrup, do not forget to sing the old New England folk song Maple Sweet. 

Kids get to enjoy a ride on a trolley pulled by these guys.

Percheron horses are big! I am about 5'6", and I stand at about their nostrils.

As a kid, I remember often putting corn syrup on my pancakes. An old high school friend of mine told me once that was considered poor man's syrup, certainly a 20th century phenomenon if anything. Whether it is poor man's syrup or not, even a bottle of Karo is more natural than the artificially flavored, so-called maple syrups found in stores today. The taste of pure maple syrup is one that cannot be truly replicated. Hopefully, this post is an inspiration to try to include a bottle of real maple syrup in your kitchen pantry. The next time you use some, remember how lucky Americans in the 19th century were to have such a treat at their disposal.

We used a 20th century evaporator to demonstrate for kids how to start the process of turning sap into syrup. The sap
in the evaporator was cooking so long for our school group that it turned into syrup. As the syrup started to boil, it was
not removed from the heat before its combustion temperature was reached. There were flames shooting up from the
syrup before snow was used to extinguish the fire. No children were in danger of getting hurt unless my co-workers are
considered to be children, which is very likely.

A quick chemistry lesson to keep in mind if you plan on making your own maple sugar! Sugar is combustible. As you boil your maple syrup to make maple sugar, the heat is causing chemical reactions to occur at a very fast rate as the water molecules start to evaporate. Removing the syrup from the heat at just the right time allows the reaction process to slow down, but if you forget to remove the syrup from the heat, this process will increase steadily. When this happens, sugar can actually ignite into flames before turning into ash. Author Harold McGee discusses the chemistry of cooking with sugar in his book On Food and Cooking if you would like more reading on the subject. Moral of the story: burnt marshmallows from a campfire are delicious; burnt maple sugar, which has been turned into pure carbon, is not.

Scalloped Potatoes - An Old Family Recipe

I have not decided if my mother will threaten bodily harm for spilling family recipe secrets, but this comfort food recipe is too good not to share. If you are used to modern cooking recipes, this is not one of those. There was a time when recipes were written for women who cooked all the time, and the wording tended to be vague and ambiguous because it was assumed the reader would understand even the simplest of guidelines. Modern cookbooks do not read like old fashioned cookbooks. I will have to share a few more old fashioned recipes as proof, but for now, here is the yummiest supper dish ever.

Scalloped Potatoes

Peel potatoes and slice. Rinse off well. (Note: my mother always used to soak them in water for a bit to remove some of the starch from the potatoes. Reserve the starch water for another use if you like.) Grease the bottom of a roasting pan. Layer potatoes, salt and pepper, butter, flour, and ham. Repeat the layers to fill the roaster. Pour in milk. Bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

The thinner the potato slices the better. I have used mandolin slicers in the past for this.

My first layer filled up about half of my roasting pan. I really need a larger pan.

Add as much or as little ham as you like. Hubby always says things could use more meat, so I added a lot.

Do not forget to add the milk like I almost did this time. We drink whole milk in this household. :)

Mmm! Yummy!

Tips:

• Use about half of a stick of butter for the first layer.
• Sprinkle about 2 Tbsp flour per layer for exact measurements.
• Fill with milk about half way up the pan.
• Cover when baking, stirring about halfway through.
• Add more flour to thicken as needed, more milk to thin.
• Bake for about an hour or until desired tenderness.