Maple syrup

Maple syrup is a thick sweet liquid made by concentrating the sap of a maple tree. For a short time each year, the sap is liquid enough to flow from pipes tapped into the trees. This sap is treated to remove the water, leaving behind a thick amber-colored syrup. Some people consider maple syrup a better sweetener than sugar because it maintains some nutritional elements after processing. This syrup is so desirable that it has sold for more than twelve times the cost of crude oil. Maple syrup has been harvested for centuries, especially in Canada and the northern-most portion of the eastern United States, where the weather is most conducive to the process. The maple syrup business forms a significant part of the economy in these areas.

Background

The more than 130 types of maple trees are thought to have originated in China. These trees are now found across Asia, Europe, and North American, and they are commonly associated with Canada and the northeastern United States. Maple syrup has been harvested in North America for centuries. It became a part of Native American Culture. It is unclear exactly when people first discovered that maple trees had sap that was sweeter than most others were. One Native American legend says that a chief threw a tomahawk at a tree, and his wife boiled venison in the liquid that leaked out. They discovered that the liquid made the meat sweet. Other stories suggest that the sweet liquid was discovered accidentally.

Another native legend explains why maple syrup can only be harvested for a short time each year. The legend says that the syrup used to be available year-round and came from the trees thick and sweet, but the people became lazy and chose to simply rest under the trees, letting the syrup fall into their mouths drop by drop. One young man, dismayed by the laziness of his people, used his special powers to fill the trees with lake water to dilute the syrup. From then on, it only ran out during the time of the year when other food was scarce.

The earliest records of maple syrup harvesting are from 1557, but little is known about exactly how it was done or how much maple syrup was harvested at that time. Some accounts from the 1700s indicate the native tribes may have filled shallow vessels with sap and allowed them to freeze overnight. The sugary part would not freeze so it separated from the water, which was discarded, leaving behind the thicker syrup. French and English settlers used large copper and iron kettles to boil the sap. The water, which makes up about 98 percent of the sap, would boil away, leaving the syrup behind.

Later in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, North American explorers and settlers would boil the syrup even further until it left behind sugar-like crystals that traveled well and lasted for a very long time. Many people used maple sugar in place of regular sugar, especially when the abolitionist movement in the latter part of the nineteenth century raised ethical concerns about using sugar produced by slave labor.

Up until the 1860s, the production of maple sugar and maple syrup was a largely a home-based effort, with people who had maple trees on their property producing enough for themselves and extra to trade with neighbors for other goods. Toward the end of the nineteenth century, maple syrup production became an industry, one often engaged in by farmers in the off-season. Soon, some people began to produce maple syrup for distribution across the country. Trees were hand-tapped with small pipes that allowed the sap to run into buckets. Workers collected and carried these buckets to a processing area where the syrup was heated in large evaporator pans until the water was mostly gone. It was not until the 1970s that most maple syrup producers began using systems of pipes that carried the syrup from the tree directly to the nearby processing plant for evaporation.

Overview

Maple syrup comes from the maple tree's sap. Sap is a watery fluid that flows through the tree's xylem. The xylem is similar to the vascular system in people, carrying nutrients through the tree just as the veins and arteries carry nutrients through the human body. The sap is produced through photosynthesis, the process that converts sunlight to energy. It contains carbohydrates, which is what gives the syrup its sweetness. Although maple trees produce the sweetest known sap, it is still more than 98 percent water. It takes forty gallons of tree sap to produce one gallon of finished syrup. While all maples produce sap, the sugar maple, red maple, black maple, and silver maple are most often tapped to produce syrup.

Maple syrup can only be harvested for a short time each year. This is because the conditions must be just right for the sap to be liquid enough to run out of the pipes punched into the tree trunks. This only happens on days when the temperature reaches about 40 degrees, and only if the temperature the night before remained below freezing. The maple syrup harvest is better in years that have many days that meet these conditions.

In addition to its sweet taste, maple syrup has gained a reputation for being a more nutritious way to sweeten beverages, desserts, and other foods. While it still has a significant number of calories (50 per tablespoon), maple syrup does contain far more nutrients (including potassium, zinc, calcium, and riboflavin) than simple white cane sugar does. Although it provides some nutritional benefits over sugar and some other sweeteners, nutritionists caution that these sugars do still need to be taken into account in dietary planning. There is also some question as to whether claims of maple syrup's purported health benefits, such as the presence of antioxidants, are sufficient to overcome its caloric impact.

Maple syrup is graded according to the color and flavor. For many years, the United States graded maple syrup as either Grade A or Grade B. This was confusing because it implied the Grade B syrups were inferior to Grade A syrups. However, most people actually preferred the flavor and color of Grade B syrups. In March of 2015, the United States changed its grading system to be similar to the ones used in other countries, in which all syrups are Grade A and have descriptions added to define the taste and color of the syrup.

Bibliography

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