Maple: A Staple from Tree to Table

Enlarge Image Image Gallery Mennonite farmers follow traditional methods of collection and production of maple syrup on a farm in southwestern Ontario, Canada. PHOTOS BY PAT CROCKER

It is more than the work of one night or one week; its rhythms are measured in sunlight and shadow, in the tilt of the earth’s axis and in the ancient memories of trees.

– Will Weaver, Foreword, Sugartime by Susan Carol Hauser

Like all good things, maple syrup comes with patience, time and honest work. It begins with a few hesitant drops of translucent sap that gather and shimmer on the end of the spout. Then, when the earth hovers at just the right angle and conditions are perfect, the steady plink, plink, plink of that precious liquid culminates in an ancient ritual.

THE SOURCE OF THE SAP

Of the roughly 115 species of maple trees (Acer spp.) scattered over the Northern Hemisphere, 13 are native to North America. Nine thrive in northeastern regions, two in the Rockies, and two on the Pacific coast. All maples produce sweet sap, but the sugar maple (Acer saccharum), also known as hard maple or rock maple, yields by far the best sap. Silver maple (A. saccharinum), black maple (A. saccharum) and red maple (A. rubrum) trees follow closely in sweet sap production.

Maple trees are deciduous, with beautiful red/orange and yellow leaves in the autumn. Sugar maples can live up to 400 years, and most reach their top height of 80 to 90 feet at about 150 years, though some grow as tall as 130 feet. It takes about 40 years for a tree to grow big enough to support a tap — a 10-inch girth is considered the minimum size for one tap.

The species requires moist, rich, well-drained soil for best development. Flowers appear at the same time as, or shortly after, the leaves begin to unfold. The fruit consists of samaras, or terminally winged seeds, often called keys, joined together at their seedpods.

MAPLE: A LEGEND IN ITS OWN TIME

Maple sugar was among the most used and cherished foods by the original inhabitants of the New World. Every Northeastern American tribe has a variation on the same story of maple sap’s creation: In the beginning of time, thick, sweet maple syrup flowed freely from maple trees, but the first wise Indian chief, knowing that humans only value that which comes through effort, climbed to the top of the magic tree and poured water down over it to dilute the syrup, making distillation necessary.

Like many discoveries, maple sugar from sap probably was the result of chance. No actual descriptions exist of how the Indians first learned to tap and distill sweet water from maple trees, but written descriptions from as early as 1555 explain how fire-heated stones were thrown into birch-bark cooking vessels to boil water out of the sap. Another early method was less tedious: Sap was left overnight in wooden or bark troughs to freeze. The frozen water then could be lifted off, leaving a concentrated sugary liquid.