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These pictures remind me of youthful...reading. As a voracious reader I traveled to a lot of places and did a lot of things and now I’ve found that as an adult my enjoyment of those activities was satisfied but a few remain. One of those is to visit New England during sugaring season. I think the activity, smells and taste were not captured in my visits via books. As always, Thank You.
ReplyDeleteThis brings up memories.
ReplyDeleteThere was a sugar shack not far from where I grew up. I think it was in either North Branford or northern Guilford. We went there as cub scouts, so I was pretty young. But that trip and its sights and scents have stayed with me my entire life. Maple trees were tapped with pails collecting the sap (no plastic lines then). It amazed me that a gazillion pails of clear sap were required to produce a gallon of syrup. I can still see in my mind's eye the long, flat pan of steaming, boiling sap fueled by a hardwood fire underneath, and the sweet smell of maple and smoke. We got to drizzle syrup onto snow for make-shift snow cones. What a delight! Over the years, I've learned about the grading system and the subtle - almost refined - taste of the "first fancy" syrup from the early boil. Still, there was nothing quite like that snow cone.
Aiken
Few things smell as good as a sugar shack! Seems early for sugaring, but we've been having such a ridiculously warm winter.
ReplyDeleteI want some johnny cakes with beach plums and some of that syrup. And speaking of ridiculously warm, it was 65 degrees in Antarctica yesterday.
ReplyDeleteNothing could be more “Yankee”.
ReplyDeleteNeither my father or I grew up in sugar maple country but my father used to talk about making molasses, technically sorghum molasses. Although the basic ingredient was different, it also involved using a long flat pan over an open fire, generally outdoors. I never saw it made but I have vivid memories of apple butter being made in a big cauldron, also over an open fire outdoors. These are both typically Southern and I wonder if anyone still makes either using the old methods.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful images! A good reminder that the things worth having (and eating!) are worth working for.
ReplyDeleteThere are remnant,centuries-old sugar maple groves scattered all over the place, including the Midwest, and many of them still tap their trees and sell syrup and sugar made from their sap. Google the name of your state with "maple syrup" to find them. I noticed the weekly weather report last week, above freezing during the day and below freezing at night and thought "Hello! Maple time." My point is, you don't have to travel to New England to experience it.
ReplyDeleteDear Dave,
DeleteThanks for the Google tip...It worked, New Mexico.
Such wonderful photos! Thank you so very much!
ReplyDelete