Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Maple Syrup

I went to the swing dance Friday. Had a blast. Sunday I took an Argentine Tango class, which would have been much better if there were not twice as many women as men.

Saturday, I went to a Maple Syrup festival. And I learned a lot. I froze, but I learned a lot. I wore a turtleneck, wool sweater and my big down parka, wool hat, gloves, and was freezing. It was Stuart weather, but we were walking in the woods, so I wore the down instead. And froze. I wore Stewart yesterday to and from the dance class and boy was I glad. The wind was so strong it blew me across the street. But did not get through the coat. But I digress. Back to the maple syrup lesson....

It takes 40 litres of sap to make 1 litre of syrup. They really do tap the trees with a tap and bucket. There's only a 6-8 week window in the winter when the sap flows. The start of the thaw until the buds appear. This winter has been terrible for sap production (too cold), so buy your maple syrup now, before the price goes up next year. So, they collect the sap, which is clear, runny, and 97% water. Each tree gives off about 1 bucket of sap per day. They then boil it for 18 hours, and magically, you now have syrup, which is 66% sugar. It is brown because the sugar has caramelized.

They have machines now that can do the boiling in 6-8 hours, and some commercial productions use clear plastic tubing to connect all the trees and collect the sap. If they continue boiling it, it will become maple butter. Still more, maple sugar - water is gone, only sugar crystals are left.

Quebec is the largest producer of maple syrup in the world. And maple syrup is only made in North America. Because it's the only place with maple trees. And it's concentrated to Ontario, Quebec and the NE US.

We then tasted straight maple syrup, then ate pancakes with more maple syrup, then went home and crashed from the sugar rush. Apparently, maple syrup has more calcium than milk.

Our tour guide was Santa Claus. Not kidding. He's Santa Claus at the Eaton Center (biggest shopping mall in Toronto) every year. My friend had 2 pictures of him in her wallet (her dogs sitting on Santa's lap).