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A short history of a great product: maple syrup

Many legends tell the origin of maple syrup. Whether they belong to the culture of the First Nations or to Quebec folklore, they mostly tell the same story, but in different versions.

A short history of a great product: maple syrup

Many legends tell the origin of maple syrup. Whether they belong to the culture of the First Nations or to Quebec folklore, they mostly tell the same story, but in different versions.

It seems that originally, maple syrup circulated freely through the vascular system of sugar maples. Given the great simplicity of harvesting this sweet nectar, a fantastic being decided to make it more difficult so that men would not become too lazy and could appreciate maple syrup at its true value. To do this, he climbed to the top of a maple tree at nightfall and diluted the tree’s syrup by pouring a large pot filled with water into it: since that day, men have had to cut and split a large quantity of wood, then collect the sap from the maple trees and boil it for nights in order to produce a syrup as we know it today.

Although maple sap is traditionally harvested in the spring, it can also be done in the fall. Indeed, for the maple trees to “flow,” temperatures must be below zero at night and temperatures above zero during the day: as soon as the mercury rises above zero during the day after a fairly cold night, the raw sap from the maple trees can be harvested: this is what is called sugaring time.

Unlike raw sap, the processed sap from the maple trees is loaded with minerals and organic molecules. It only circulates in the maple’s vascular system when dormancy is over and its metabolism is restarted: since its taste is bitter, its return to the tree marks the end of the maple sap harvest, and therefore the imminent arrival of spring.

A cut (or several in the case of maple trees with a large diameter) a few centimeters deep is made at the bottom of the tree, down to the tissue called xylem (or sapwood), where the raw sap circulates. A blowtorch is then inserted, a sort of small nozzle in which the sap will flow to a boiler responsible for collecting it. Traditionally, the contents of these boilers were harvested by hand, poured into a huge wooden barrel mounted on a sled and transported by horse to the cabin where the maple sap was evaporated to produce the famous syrup. Although some small producers still work this way today, new methods exist to increase the productivity of this business: among other improvements, producers now use a network of pipes connecting the maple trees together and transporting the maple sap by gravity directly to the sugar shack, where it will be boiled.

Boiling maple sap concentrates its sugar content. Interestingly, it takes 40 litres of maple sap to obtain a single litre of maple syrup, which explains the high cost of the final product: in addition to extracting and harvesting the raw material, there are also the costs associated with the labour to transform the water into maple syrup, and the wood and other fuels needed to evaporate the maple sap and concentrate the sugars. Without going into detail, maple sap must reach a certain temperature equivalent to 3.5 degrees above the boiling point, which varies depending on the altitude and atmospheric pressure. In addition, it must reach the right consistency during this step because if the syrup is too dense, it will crystallize, while if it becomes too liquid, it risks fermenting.

Other products derived from maple water exist: maple butter spread, maple taffy that is heated and poured on snow to then collect on a stick and enjoy warm, and maple sugar molded into bread or candy, which Louis XIV was also fond of in 1700. Finally, maple flakes are used in cooking to replace traditional refined sugar, particularly in coffee as well as in many homemade recipes. In its raw form, maple water has been marketed and distributed for about fifteen years in France, Belgium, Japan and Australia for its many curative properties resulting from its 46 different vitamins and minerals and its precious antioxidants.

Although the food processing of sap into maple syrup does not require any additives, a producer can obtain organic certification when their operations comply with the specifications for organic farming. The related standards concern forest management, stand biodiversity, fertilizers and soil amendments used, insect and disease control, tapping (some producers used to use formaldehyde capsules to delay the healing of notches in the trunk wood, which was far from organic), collection and processing. In addition, reverse osmosis and ultraosmosis (a process that saves wood and/or fuel oil during boiling by filtering maple sap through membranes that allow maple sap to pass through but retain sugars) are approved for organic production, as long as certain related standards are met. In Quebec, more than a quarter of production is organic.