History
Maple syrup - It is the first finished product made from boiled sap of the maple tree. This is the form most widely used in recipes. A maple tree is usually 30 years old or more and at least 10 inches in diameter before it is tapped. Depending on its size, a tree may have from one to four taps, each of which yields an average of 10 gallons of sap each season.
History: Before the French even colonized the New World; maple sap was already being collected by the American Indians who used it as a sweet beverage. Although they knew how to tap the trees and collect maple sap, their primitive earthenware, however, were not allowing them to boil the sap quite enough to produce maple syrup. Some historians believe that the American Indians taught the process of sugar making to Europeans; others, rather believe that this discovery can be attribute to a certain doctor named Michel Sarrazin, a military surgeon, who arrived to the Canadian country in 1685. Although nothing proves that he might be the father of sugar making; the fact remains that the maple syrup production spread through the French colony. Maple syrup was considered a precious elixir used as medicine to strengthen the chest.
It is now considered a delicacy in the U.S., Canada and all over the world, but in colonial days it was used extensively as an ordinary sweetener. The Indians taught the first white settlers how to tap Maple trees in the spring, and then evaporate the sweet sap until it became maple syrup.
many thanks to: Linda's Culinary and Food Dictionary and GlossaryThe process of making maple syrup is an age-old tradition of the North American Indians, who used it both as a food and as a medicine.
They would make incisions into trees with their tomohawks and use birch barks to collect the sap. The sap would be condensed into syrup by evaporating the excess water using one of two methods: plunging hot stones into the sap or the nightly freezing of the sap, following by the morning removal of the frozen water layer.
When the settlers came to North America, they were fascinated by this traditional process and in awe of the delicious, natural sweetener it produced. They developed other methods to reduce the syrup, using iron drill bits to tap the trees and then boiling the sap in the metal kettles in which it was collected.
Maple syrup was the main sweetener used by the colonists since sugar from the West Indies was highly taxed and very expensive. As sugar became cheaper to produce, it began to replace maple syrup as a relied upon sweetener. In fact, maple syrup production is approximately one-fifth of what it was in the beginning of the 20th century.
Maple syrup-producing trees are only found in select regions of North America. The main producers of maple syrup are New York, Vermont, and in Canada, Quebec.
Thanks to: World's Healthiest Foods
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