(From http://www.thekitchenandthegardenpatch.com ) :
My parents and I went five miles down the street to Maple Corner Farm to get 4 gallons of maple syrup, one of which is mine.
While we were there, we were given a little lesson on how maple syrup is produced. Apparently it takes 40 or 50 gallons of sap out of the trees, slowly boiled, to make one gallon of maple syrup. Definitely worth the price.
And besides, maple syrup is amazing for your health; I use it whenever I can in recipes in place of other sweeteners.
My dad fondly remembers being at his grandmother’s house in Vermont, getting maple syrup from the tap on the trees and pouring some of it onto the snow to make candy. Before there was cane sugar in this country, people in New England used to make maple sugar by cooking and stirring the syrup until it was in powdered form.
I will be sure to post some pictures on here of the farm and the surrounding area.
It’s comforting to know that I walked among the trees where my syrup came from, and talk with the person who created it. As we listened to him talk passionately about the process, I started to realize that he doesn’t do this just because it’s been their family business since the 1830’s, but because to this day, he is still fascinated with the idea that something so wonderful can come from a tree.
