Looking Back: The Making of Syrup

While I am hardly old enough to reminisce about the good old days when maple syrup was hand-boiled by families across the north east and the corn-syrup “Aunt Jemima” substitute had never been invented, I nevertheless find myself thinking back to those times. Because although I am a child of the Aunt Jemima generation, I was fortunate enough to be raised on nothing but pure and sweet real maple syrup—I have never seen a bottle of fake syrup in my house in all the 16 years I have been alive. I grew up with home-tapped, home-boiled, home-made maple syrup that came from my grandparents' farm in Vermont; some of my fondest memories are of sitting by the huge furnace in the sugar shack, eating hot dogs and talking through the cold March nights.

And then, a few years ago, I decided to make syrup myself. With my parents' support, I bought the taps, the plastic tubing, the buckets, and the cinderblocks to build the fireplace, and jumped right in and made maple syrup. People say watching the ocean is calming, but nothing can compare to sitting outside under the shelter of a little overhang on an old stump, and settling down beside a fire-brick and cinderblock oven to watch vats of syrup chug away merrily, filling the air with steam and the sweet smell that only those who have boiled their own can imagine. And then the end result—the jars of golden liquid you eventually bottle, each batch tasting completely different, lined up on a shelf to be used in the months to come.

Boiling syrup has been a north-east tradition, one started by the Indian tribes who lived here first. The method of making maple syrup has remained unchanged through the hundreds of years it has been around; the trees are still drilled, the sap is still collected, and the syrup is still boiled over open flame. But unfortunately, the time when early spring was a season where every farm across the state was busy hauling buckets of sap and anxiously stirring pots of syrup is long gone.



I was intrigued with the idea of the posts highlighting “A Day In History” written by our contributer "fishmuscle", and so I did some digging of my own and decided to highlight a time in history: the age of syrup. I came across an article written in 1892, and it turns out that 120 years ago, someone shared the feelings of loss for real maple syrup that I feel today, although I cannot even imagine what they would do if presented with Aunt Jemima. If you want to see what I mean, here is how the article starts:

“The maple sugar days have come, the sweetest of the year, and connoisseurs are searching for the saccharine life-blood of the maple that is up to old-time standards and contains none of the quinine, sand and other ingredients of modern maple sugar.”

I’ll admit I had to look up the word “quinine”, and it turns out it refers to “a white, bitter, slightly water-soluble alkaloid having needlelike crystals, obtained from cinchona bark” (dictionary.com) Apparently, the downfall of maple syrup—according to this author—began even in his time, although I am sure that in retrospect they really had it quite good. The article then goes on to actually interview two people who lived “the good old days”, and what they have to say is quite amazing.

“An aged, but bright and sprightly old lady, who was born and reared on one of the representative farms of New England eighty or more years ago, told a COURANT representative what maple sugar really was like when these now common components were not “thrown in for luck,” and imitation was not an art. In those days, a farm was hardly considered first-class unless upon it was a large sugar bush of magnificent rock maples, for the family looked to this for the greater part of the year’s sugar supply. The early spring was then a season of unusual activity and concern. The methods of making the sugar from the older sap spout to the huge iron kettle, were crude and clumsy, but the resulting product was pure and sweet. Few of those grand groves of maples are now met with in this part of the state. The old lady said that she was never able to really comprehend the Biblical statement about Moses smiting a rock and obtaining a liquid supply, and she always believed that the account should have stated that he smote a rock maple." (for others out there as un-versed in Biblical statements as I am, the lady is referring to the story of Moses tapping a rock in the dessert with his staff, and having water pour forth.)

The other person interviewed for the article was an old man who was one of the first settlers who grew up in Michigan, and actually recalled seeing the Indians having huge feasts events while collecting and boiling the sap around his farm. I encourage you to read the whole article below.

While people then complained of the “adding of sand” to their syrup (I am still not sure if that is meant literally or figuratively) and people today, myself included, complain about the loss of real maple syrup as a staple in every household, people should know that the magic has not been lost, not really. There are still farms throughout the state who boil the authentic stuff, and they are the ones who deserve your money, not the corn farmers in California. So please go out and relive this piece of history, and enjoy a food that has lived unchanged since the very first settlers of our town. And if you ever want a taste of what real Middletown maple syrup tastes like, just stop by the Devoto farm.

Sugar houses open to the public in CT:
Durham Sugarhouse Durham, CT
Lamothe's Sugar House Burlington, CT
Wenzel's Sugarhouse Hebron, CT
Bureau's Sugarhouse Old Lyme, CT
Moore's Sugar Shack 413 Pond Meadow RD, Westbrook, CT (860)399-227
Rick's Sugar Shack 69 Collie Brook Road, East Hampton, CT 0642
Click here for a full list of sugar houses open to the public in CT (includes descriptions/hours)



Old maple sugar days. (1892, Apr 01). The Hartford Courant (1887-1922), pp. 6-6. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/554499110?accountid=14963