Published in Caledon Living, Spring 2006:
   A cold winter’s weekend morning is the perfect time for hot pancakes, waffles or French toast to serve as sponges for Canada’s most famous specialty, maple syrup. Yet spring is the season in which it’s made, and if you want to stock up on a year’s supply, you’ll find the freshest from the farms that produce it, farmers’ markets and rural outlets.
     Maple syrup lasts a long time, and is always delicious in any form. Savour the drops of information we’ve gathered about this liquid gold. Have a sweet spring!
What is Maple Syrup?
     “During the growing season, maple trees accumulate starch. With the spring thaw, enzymes change this starch into sugar, which mixes with the water absorbed through the roots, imparting a slightly sweet taste. Maple sap contains water (about 97 per cent), minerals, organic acids and maple taste precursors. In early March, the sap starts to run for about six to eight weeks and gives energy to the tree to make it grow. All trees produce sap but maple trees produce more and sweeter sap than other trees.”*
What’s In It?
     “A 50 ml serving of maple syrup contains 67 calories, 43 grams of sugar, 117 mg of potassium, seven mg of sodium and no fat. It provides six per cent of the recommended daily intake of calcium and thiamin and two per cent of magnesium and riboflavin.”*
*Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada
Native Traditions
     “The sweet sap of the sugar maple (Acer saccharum) was known and valued by the native peoples of eastern North America long before the arrival of European settlers. An Iroquois legend tells of the piercing of the bark of a maple and the use of the “sweet water” to cook venison, a happy accident which established the culinary tradition of maple-cured meats. French settlers probably learned from the Indians how to tap trees to obtain sap and how to boil it to reduce it to sweet syrup or sugar slabs to be stored for later use. The Ojibwa called the “sugaring off” period the “maple moon” or “sugar month.”
The Canadian Encyclopedia
     “It is believed Native people both drank the sap of the maple tree and boiled it to make sugar. The Sugar Moon (or Maple Moon to some) – the first full moon of sap season in March or occasionally April – marked the beginning of maple syrup season. The first tapping of the trees was marked by an energetic Maple Dance to give thanks to the Creator for nature’s gift, and the Sugar Moon was a joyful celebration of the coming springtime.”
Janet Eagleson and Rosemary Hasner, The Maple Syrup Book
How It’s Made
     “Once the maple sap is collected, it is evaporated into syrup. The dilute raw material is reduced to remove excess water; nothing is added. Water can be removed from sap by using various systems, from wood-fired evaporators to reverse osmosis systems that separate water from the sugar molecules at high pressure.”
The Canadian Encyclopedia
Grades and Colours
     According to the Ontario Maple Syrup Producers’ Association, all maple syrup sold in Ontario must be graded as follows:
Canada 1
Extra Light                              Very delicate maple flavour
Light                                        Delicate maple flavour
Medium                                   Distinct maple flavour
Canada 2
Amber (farm gate sales only)   Stronger maple flavour
Ontario Amber                         Stronger maple flavour
Other Maple Products
Soft Maple Sugar –   strong yellow, crystallized sugar that has been moulded into shapes and can be easily cut with a knife
Hard Maple Sugar –  hard blocks of moulded sugar that can be broken into chunks, crushed or grated
Maple Butter –  syrup that has been creamed
Storing Maple Products
Maple Syrup: unopened containers should be stored in a cool dry place like the refrigerator or preferably, the freezer. Once opened, close container tightly and return to the fridge or freezer.
Maple Butter: keep in the fridge or in a tightly covered container to prevent drying, or cover it with a shallow layer of water. To store for long periods of time, keep it in the freezer.
Soft Maple Sugar: do not keep it longer than a week unless it is crystal coated. If crystal coated, it can be stored for up to two months in a cool, dry place.
[Call out] It takes on average, 40 litres of sap to make one litre of syrup.
[Call out] During the height of the sugaring season, sap may contain about 2.5 per cent sugar. Towards the end of the season, it may contain less than one per cent.
[Call out] Careful tapping does no harm to mature trees. During the harvest, the tree may give up about seven per cent of its sap. Many tapped trees are more than 100 years old.
Where to Find It
     Some communities in southern Ontario hold maple syrup festivals; Elmira is one. Some conservation areas around Caledon host maple sap demonstrations of either or both Native and pioneer methods. Farmers’ markets usually stock maple products that are made locally or near by. In Caledon, Downey’s Farm Market stocks maple syrup, while The Caledon Inn’s Sunday brunch features 100 per cent maple syrup as part of the meal. At home or away, maple syrup is a unique product made only in eastern North America, with a distinctive taste that says home to many.
[Sidebar]
     Putney Heath Farms, owned by Norman Jewison and managed by Jim Pipher, produces about 250 gallons of syrup annually from their 45-acre mixed bush. Jim taps about 800 sugar maples using a strictly gravity system of plastic piping. “We never use a vacuum system,” he says.
     Sugaring off is done in an on-site sugar shack with an oil-fired evaporator. While the sugar shack is not open to the public, people can buy syrup directly from the farm. The medium-grade syrup is available in one-litre, 500-ml., 250-ml. bottles and in smaller gift sizes. The syrup is also sold at Howard the Butcher in Caledon East and Harbord Bakery in Toronto. To buy from Putney Heath Farms, call first: 905-584-9328.
    The amount available for sale depends partly on the season. Too-warm temperatures can shut down the sap flow in the trees. “Norman gives a lot away,” adds Jim. “He gave away a lot at the Oscars.”

By Gloria Hildebrandt