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Article: Maple Syrup Taps Winter Sweet Tooth
- Article from:
- Chicago Sun-Times
- Article date:
- February 17, 1994
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright 1994 Chicago Sun-Times. (Hide copyright information)
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For much of the country, February is a time of gloom, cold and
darkness. And few places are more gloomy than the northern parts of
New England. The sky is gray, the trees are bare and the snow is
deep.
Yet with this glum month comes the first harbinger of
springtime: the flowing sap of the sugar maple tree. And from this
sap comes a delicacy unique to North America: maple syrup.
For centuries, the Cree, Algonquin and Ojibway Indians enjoyed
the sweet sap of the sugar maple. They would gash the trees with a
hatchet, collect the sap in birch bark buckets and boil it.
The Colonists brought new refinements to the sugaring process,
such as metal spiles (taps) to draw the sap from the tree. ...