by Andy Gricevich, Newsletter Writer
Drip, drip, drip
The ground is still frozen. It’s still weeks before the first warm breezes, the bursts of green, the few glorious flushes of ephemeral blossoms, before the fleeting season that seems so quickly to give way to summer. For some, though, spring has already arrived. There’s work to do in the snowy woods, among the cardinals and the owls and the first drops of sap from the maple trees.
Early European explorers and colonists in the Northeast witnessed Native Americans, gaunt and sallow at the end of a hard winter, disappearing into the woods, only to reappear weeks later looking hearty and well-nourished. The secret? A steady, short-term diet of maple. Each year, First Nations tribes set up “sugar camps” among the trees, preparing for the right time to slice into the bark, collect ample sap in hollowed-out logs, and finally boil it down—often in folded birch-bark baskets set over a fire—into thick syrup, and then crystallized blocks, easily transported without spoilage throughout the coming months. They’d then store equipment for the next year and, before moving on, tend to the groves they cared for as gardens, encouraging populations of the edible and useful plants that appeared just as the sap stopped flowing.
The new arrivals picked up the practice. During the struggles for independence from Europe, maple provided a meaningful alternative to heavily-taxed, imported sugar from distant colonies. For some time in the early U.S. and Canada, maple sugar was the primary sweetener. Tapping trees was a homesteader’s industry, and a practice available to anyone with a small “sugarbush,” or maple grove. Eventually, changing trade relations replaced maple with cane and beet sugar, and the industry shifted to production of syrup—a practice that has continued unbroken to the present day.
THE SAP RUN AND THE SYRUP BOIL
Maple syrup is a regional specialty, dependent on particular conditions. While any member of the maple (acer) genus can be tapped for its sap, sugar maple, the preferred source, thrives exclusively in cool, northern climates. Sap only flows when temperatures dip below freezing at night and crest above it during the day. It’s an intriguing and unique process.
Inside the cooling tree, dissolved carbon dioxide gases contract, creating a partial vacuum that draws sap up from the roots to the crown of the tree. During the day, the gases expand, pushing the sap back downward. This cycle goes on until the nights warm up, when the flow ceases and the tree gets on with the business of flowering and leafing out, preparing to gather solar energy and turn it into more sugars for the next winter’s nap.
The syruping process hasn’t changed much over the years. Small holes are drilled into each tree large and healthy enough to tap, and short metal tubes (spiles) are inserted into the holes. Instead of individual buckets, most contemporary producers use food-grade plastic tubing to siphon sap to a central storage tank. There’s often a pump that gently draws sap through the tubes, and special spiles have been developed that seal when temperatures drop, as the vacuum in the trees during cold nights is often strong enough to pull sap back through the tubes!
A few times throughout the short season, the sap is moved into large, rectangular evaporators, where it’s boiled down over a hot wood fire until it reaches the proper sugar concentration. Often a reverse osmosis machine removes some of the water from the sap first, in order to reduce boiling time (on average, it takes forty gallons of sugar maple sap to produce one gallon of syrup). Following production, the syrup is bottled hot, at which point it’s shelf-stable until opened (after which it’s best kept refrigerated, to prevent harmless but undesirable surface mold).
ECOLOGY
The process is highly sustainable. Small holes and minimal sap loss leave trees unharmed. Irresponsible practices, while not unheard of, are the exception in this business, which never approaches anything like the ecological disturbance necessitated by agriculture. Syruping has always been a practice of working with nature’s rhythms rather than struggling against them.
One reason so many of Wisconsin’s maple producers opt for organic certification is that its prescriptions barely differ from what they’re already doing. Certification requires the use of organically approved cleaning agents and other products, as well as a certain distance between the sugarbush and any chemically-treated cropland. Primarily, though, it’s about care for forest land: maintaining a minimum diversity of tree and understory plant species, as well as wildlife habitat and healthy soil, with a plan in place for long-term management.
It’s natural for practitioners of forest-based agriculture to be ecologically minded, and syrupers are aware of the threats climate change poses to their work and the trees it depends on. The spread of sugar maple into more northerly habitat is already too slow to outpace rising average temperatures. The USDA predicts that, given current trends, the number of maple-producing states will drop from 24 to 10 over the next fifty years. Even now, some in the industry are observing gradual shifts in the color and flavor of their syrup, due to chemical changes in the sap brought on by stress to the trees. These are serious concerns for people who not only want to preserve their business, but wish to see future generations nourished by a shared life at work and play in the sugarbush.
OUR PRODUCERS
The producers who supply the maple syrup available at your Co-op bring a range of different life stories to their work. The Maple Valley Cooperative, centered in Cashton, WI, was founded almost thirty years ago by longtime syruper-collaborators. Maple Valley coordinates more than 30 farms across seven states in a cooperative structure that benefits producers, vendors, and consumer-owners. Some producers came to syruping as adults, while others started as kids, inheriting a multi-generational practice of tending the family sugarbush. From full-time farmers to town dwellers with a seasonal business on the side, the diverse range of members is united by care for the land, and all of them meet organic certification standards.
Seventh-generation farmers Erica and Scott Walter maintain similar practices, selling organic syrup, maple candy and maple cream (a remarkable spread of thickened, partially crystallized syrup) under the Driftless Gold label. The collective of friends and family running B & E’s Trees specialize in syrup aged deliciously in bourbon barrels on their off-grid farm. Their playful website puts particular emphasis on maple’s potential in gourmet food and drink.
FLAVOR
Old-fashioned methods of making food so often make for the best flavors. Traditional wild-gathering and processing gives maple its standout depth and complexity. Maple sugar itself is sucrose, the combination of fructose and glucose found in table sugar, which most of us think of as the most pure “sweet” taste. Syrup gets its enhanced flavor from numerous compounds found in the sap, which change subtly over the course of the season, and are activated and intensified by the main transformation: the slow caramelization that occurs during boiling.
Caramelization is the basis for the classification of different types of syrup. For a long time, “Grade A” syrup designated the nearly transparent syrup often called “pure amber,” while darker syrup was labeled “Grade B.” Nowadays the USDA opts for the less confusing “light” and “dark.” Traditionally, light syrup is poured directly over food, with darker syrup used in baking and cooking. Each type has its adherents, though; some Grade B devotees claim that New Englanders came up with the old system as a sneaky way to keep more of the richer, darker syrup for themselves.
Maple has a range of culinary applications. It’s familiar, of course, over pancakes, waffles, or ice cream, and as a glaze for ham, sweet potatoes, and squash. It also makes a great component in a marinade for fish. Pecans or walnuts pan-toasted with butter and maple syrup are a delicious snack or topping for many sweet or savory dishes. Add some chopped bacon to the pan, and the nuts complete a hearty salad of greens, apples or pears, and blue cheese, dressed with a simple maple-kissed vinaigrette. A touch of syrup and a few drops of cider vinegar give simple cooked greens the magic touch. For many more possibilities (especially for luscious desserts and fancy drinks), visit the B & E Trees website.
Maple syrup can be substituted for white or brown sugar in baking, though it can be tricky (the “nutritional value” page on the Maple Valley Cooperative’s website has some good tips on using it). Maple sugar, on the other hand, can be easily switched in at one-to-one proportions. It’s harder to find in stores, but can be ordered directly from suppliers. It’s also fun to make by heating liquid syrup and stirring it vigorously until it crystallizes. If the process goes wrong, you’re likely to end up with the consolation prize of maple taffy–nothing to cry about.
NUTRITION
For hunter-gatherers and forest gardeners in our region, maple (along with wild rice and occasionally acorn meal) was one of the most important high-calorie plant foods during the season when supplies were otherwise depleted. Sugars have generally been rare and valuable in pre-colonial diets. The standard modern way of eating has the opposite problem, in which easy access to high quantities of empty calories leads to many of our worst and most widespread ailments.
That last sentence is mainly meant to dissuade the reader from guzzling syrup from the bottle after hearing about its striking benefits. Among sweeteners, maple approaches superfood status. It’s packed with polyphenols (perhaps the most important class of antioxidants) and micronutrients. Maple syrup is high in B complex vitamins, bioavailable calcium, potassium, and (especially) zinc and manganese; the latter is a crucial nutrient, necessary for our body to synthesize the crucial antioxidant superoxide dismutase.
The polyphenols in maple syrup are either already present in the sap or—more often—are produced during the boiling process (which means darker, more highly caramelized syrup tends to be higher in antioxidants). Some have been studied for their ability to destroy cancer cells; one, with the amusing name Quebecol, is unique to maple. Others are antimicrobial, softening the membranes of bacteria and making them more vulnerable to antibiotics and antibodies.
Multiple studies indicate that pure maple syrup can prevent the deformation of proteins in the brain that cause Alzheimer’s disease. Another compound appears to improve liver function. In perhaps the most fun news, maple syrup contains a polyphenol that inhibits the body’s breakdown of glucose and starch. That means it effectively slows the rise of blood sugar and insulin! As a result, studies are underway to explore the treatment of diabetes with extracts of maple syrup. This is all good news for anyone who follows the Hippocratic injunction to let food be their medicine.
SUGAR AS COLLECTIVE MEDICINE
It’s no wonder that people carry on the tradition of syruping. It’s a satisfying process that provides something deeply delicious and nourishing. Where cane and beet sugar generally involve ecological destruction, harsh labor conditions and exploitative trade arrangements, maple syrup production at its best is an exemplary instance of autonomous work and exchange with nature–sustainability through use.
It’s also accessible to nearly anyone in the right region. Imagine if we tapped every one of the countless healthy, good-sized maples lining our city streets and growing in our yards and parklands. Cooking down syrup on our stoves, or in community around public or neighborhood firepits, it wouldn’t be hard for many of us to produce all the sugar a household needs for a year. Our commercial syrup producers could export to regions not fortunate enough to enjoy our long winters. We might plant more food-bearing, carbon-sequestering trees throughout our cities, and convert the land surrounding them from mown grass to supportive understory. What a beautiful way to reduce our collective footprint and increase the resilience of our local food system, while connecting with the joys of wild food.
As the cold winter wears on and the sunlight so slowly grows, we can offer gratitude to the trees that freely grant their sweet gift. We can recognize the long, rightful stewardship of the land by First Peoples, and give thanks for the continuance of their knowledge in the work of today’s forest tenders. Finally, we might, at the shrine of a stack of pancakes, take a moment to acknowledge the care for the earth, on every level, needed to keep the sap flowing, so the people who come after us can also share in this first taste of spring.