Boiling Canadian Saps

It is commonly accepted around the world that we Canucks are a docile bunch who suffer our fools lightly (to a fault some would say). So you may be shocked to hear that once a year we take great glee in boiling our saps. But take relief. We're not actually gathering all our foolish together and sticking them into big pots set over open fires.

The saps we like to boil come from trees. Sugar maples in particular, although other varieties have their saps as well.

Each year at this time, as temperatures begin to get warmer during the day and dip below freezing at night; the sap begins to run, carrying the nutrients that have been stored in roots for the winter up into the limbs to prepare for spring. (You can usually time it by watching as ice fishing huts begin sinking into the lakes.) And taking a lesson from Native Americans who developed the technique long before written history, when the sap runs we tap into the trunks, collect and boil it down, thickening it into syrup roughly at a rate of 40 gallons of sap to 1 gallon of maple syrup. 40/1: much better than the odds of many lotteries or having a pleasant evening at your boss's house for dinner.

Sugarbush, 1958

Of course, I've tasted the sticky treat a number of times, even right in the sugarbush as a child. (I'm the little guy beside my mother on the right.) Culinary experts have tried to classify its taste and can only agree that there is no other taste quite like it. Scientists have tried to detail the formula but have been unable to break the code.

While there are cheaper syrups (mainly made from corn syrup) there is no comparison. Francophones refer to imitation maple syrup as sirop de poteau ("pole syrup"), joking that the fake syrup comes from tapping telephone poles.

So you can relax about the Canadians boiling their fools thing.

Not that I haven't, at times, thought about what we should do about our silly citizens.

But it saps the energy right out of me... :o)