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HUNGRY? TRY MAPLE SYRUP + PULVERIZED CORN + BEAR FAT
For a day or two, our mid-March blizzard seemed to put the promise of spring in doubt. Perhaps the winter flannels had been shed too early. But what about the robin that sang to me from the top of an oak tree last week? The chipmunks scurrying around the woodpile? And those swelling basswood buds?
The surest spring sign I've seen so far, however, are the dozens of plastic buckets attached to sugar maple trees just down the road from my house. This annual outpouring of sap signals that these giant trees have broken dormancy and new life is surging inside their rough bark exterior.
What goes on, exactly, inside a maple this time of year confounds even the experts, but suffice it to say that it has something to do with xylem and phloem and a whole lot of built-up pressure. When a half-inch tap is inserted 3 or 4 inches into the trunk of a maple, the pressure forces the sap out the spout into the waiting bucket.
Sap from maples has been harvested as long as there have been maples...or at least as long as there have been squirrels. Although their tapping technique is rather crude, squirrels seem to have a knack for zeroing in on food supplies. Squirrels have been observed gnawing holes in maple bark and lapping the exuded sap.
Statistics about maple sap production are interesting. Maple sap contains between 1 and 12% sugar - the average is 3%. It takes 30 to 40 gallons of sap to make 1 gallon of maple syrup.
The average maple tree yields about 12 gallons of sap per season but some trees produce considerably more. According to one reference, in 1806, 77-year-old John Barney of Guilford, Vermont, made 74 pounds of sugar and 1 gallon of "molasses" from 11 maple trees. In the 1860s, a stand of 100 maple trees in Michigan yielded 950 pounds of sugar in a single spring.
Remember naturalist Euell Gibbons? He claims to have once put six taps in an immense maple and collected 10 gallons of sap in a single day!
The Indians collected maple sap but their tools differed sharply from today's stainless steel and plastic technology. Sap was collected in pans made of birch bark stitched together with spruce roots, then pooled in 100-gallon moose-skin vats and finally boiled down in troughs made of hollowed-out logs. Heat was supplied by repeatedly dropping in hot rocks to maintain temperature.
The Indians used their finished syrup as a seasoning, a dip and mixed with pulverized corn and bear fat as a main dish. By the way, if you decide to try this recipe, let me know because I'd like a taste.
If you prefer a beverage, consider this recipe for maple beer from an 1846 article in The Young Housekeeper's Friend: "To four gallons of boiling water, add one quart of maple molasses, and a small tablespoonful of essence of spruce. When it is about milk warm, add a pint of yeast; and when fermented, bottle it. In three days it is fit for use."
If you decide to tap the tree in your back yard, make sure, first of all, that you have the right species of maple. All maples produce sap but the sugar content in sap from some species is too low to make high quality syrup. The two species most typically tapped are sugar maple (Acer saccharum) and black maple (Acer nigrum).
To learn more about maple syrup - or if you just want to taste the sweetness of syrup on pancakes - attend the 12th annual Sugarbush Pancake Brunch and Tour at the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum on April 5 and 6. The tour includes a walk to the "sugarbush" to tap a tree and sample the sap. For details, call the Arboretum at 952-443-2460.
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PUTTING DOWN ROOTS:
A Delightful Blend of
Gardening Wisdom, Wit
and Whimsy
$10 + $2 for shipping
by Cliff Johnson |
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