Ah, maple syrup (or as it's known in French, "sirop d'érable"). You have probably heard of it. It's gooey, amber-colored, really sticky, sweet, goes nicely on pancakes and waffles. It's possibly the biggest icon of Canada alongside moose, beavers, RCMP officers and hockey. It's so important to Canada that the maple leaf is on the flag.
In fact, virtually all maple syrup in the world comes from Canada and the USA (the two countries where the sugar maple grows). 80% of the world's production is from the former, with the USA (more specifically, the northeastern and midwestern states) accounting for nearly all of the other 20%. Within Canada, a whopping 85% to 90% of the production comes from the province of Quebec alone, with Quebec accounting for around 70% of the worldwide production. Because the French-Canadian province of Quebec is such a juggernaut of maple syrup production, a lot of terms related to it are French. Most maple syrup produced in the USA comes from Vermont, which by itself accounts for 5.5% of the world's production. Other states that produce maple syrup in commercial quantities include Wisconsin, Ohio, New Hampshire, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Maine, New York and Connecticut.
The entire production and industry of maple syrup is called acériculture in French. There is no direct translation in English. The French term "Acéraie" or "Érablière" can refer to both the maple forest itself but also its surrounding maple production facilities.
Production
Maple tree sap (or "sugar water" or "maple water") is watery and contains around 2 to 3% sugar. Late in winter or early in spring, when the nights drop below the freezing point but the days are above it (specifically, the roots of the tree must be at least 1 °C), the maple tree begins to emerge from hibernation and begins a process where its sugar reserves in its roots are moved up the trunk to provide energy necessary to jumpstart its metabolism. The period where maple water is harvested and refined is called "sugar season" or "sugar time" (French: "Saison des sucres" and "Temps des sucres" respectively). The sap harvested in this time is called "raw sap". Once the tree's metabolism is fully restarted, another batch of sap, much more rich in minerals and organic molecules, rises up from the roots. This is a bitter sap called "elaborated sap" and it's commercially useless since it tastes pretty bad. When the trees begin giving "elaborated sap" the season is over. With Climate Change throwing a wrench in worldwide temperatures, the future of maple syrup production is shaky. While it's unlikely the industry will disappear, yields might be diminished or vary wildly from year to year.
To make maple syrup, you need the sap of the maple tree. Similar syrup can be made with birch and palm tree sap, but that's not what we're here to talk about. To gather the sap, a hole is made into the tree with a hand tool called a "brace" (French: "vilebrequin"). It's a U-shaped tool with a drill-bit on one end. A tap (called a "chalumeau" in French) is then installed in the hole (the tap is traditionally made of wood, now often made of metal like aluminum) for the sap to drip through.
Traditionally, the maple farmer (called "acériculteur" in French) would then hang a wooden or metal bucket under the tap, with a cover on it that only has a tiny hole for the sap to drip into the bucket, and the cover keeps various crap from getting into the water. Nowadays with industrialization these buckets have largely been replaced with a system of tubes and pumps on commercial farms, though smaller operations and tourism-oriented "heritage" farms tend to stick to the old bucket method. The sight of tubes running between trees is much less picturesque than the iconic buckets and taps, but it's much more efficient and doesn't carry the risk of rowdy teens peeing in the buckets as part of an epic prank.
You should never tap into a tree that's less than 20cm in diameter. As a rule of thumb acériculteurs wait for 45 years before harvesting water from a maple tree, but trees can live to 300 years and give water every year.
On a "bucket" farm, the acériculteur will make the rounds with a cart full of barrels, pulled by horses, dogs or a tractor. The buckets are emptied into the barrels and the water is brought to the "sugar shack" (in French, "cabane à sucre") where the refining process is done. Like all agricultural operations, a sugar shack can range from a cutesy rustic one-room shack (on a smallholding familial farm) to sprawling state of the art industrial buildings (on a commercial farm).
The sap of the maple tree will be boiled to evaporate the water and keep the sugar and other desired substances. This is an inefficient process, as only 2 to 3% of the maple water is sugar. Modern processes like reverse osmosis can concentrate it up to 8%. Roughly 35 to 40 liters of sap are needed to produce 1 liter of usable product. Traditionally (you may be starting to see a pattern there) this sap was boiled by burning wood or coal, but modern installations sometimes use oil or electricity. Industrial concentration helps reduce energy requirements, and with Quebec having some of the cheapest electricity in North America, a modern "sugar shack" heating its sap with electricity is much more profitable than a traditional sugar shack.
Maple water is generally boiled to 103.5 C°. Evaporation is a tricky business and the resulting density of the product is important. If the maple syrup is underboiled, it will be watery and since it's a generous mix of sugar and water it will eventually ferment. If it's overboiled it crystallizes. Within the window of "acceptable", the more the syrup is boiled, you will get different maple products (yes, there's more to maple than maple syrup).
- Boiled maple syrup eventually becomes maple taffy. Traditionally, the boiling syrup would be dropped directly on snow. If it runs, it's not ready. If it immediately hardens, it's just right. Now modern acériculteurs use thermometers to get the right temperature. Cooled-down taffy is packaged and sold and you're supposed to eat it straight out of the package with a spoon.
- To get maple butter, the syrup will have to be heated to 112 °C, then rapidly cooled with ice or snow until it reaches 5 °C, and then heated up to 15 °C and stirred until reaching a nice creamy consistency and paler color. Maple butter is called that because it has a buttery texture, but it has no fat or dairy, only sugar. It goes great on toasts or as cake frosting. Sometimes cinnamon is added. You can also make another kind of maple butter by mixing maple syrup and, well, butter (two parts butter, one part syrup).
- Sometimes the maple syrup will deliberately be left to cook, sometimes up to 125 °C, until all the water has evaporated and only sugar remains (up to 90% sucrose, the rest being a mix of fructose and glucose). This is tricky, as it's easy to burn the sugar completely, so only the most skilled acériculteurs attempt it.
- Acerum
is a more modern invention, an eau-de-vie (liquor) made of maple syrup. You remember that part above about undercooked maple syrup being watery and fermenting? Well, that fermented "failed" maple syrup is then distillated into a strong spirit. Though experimentations began in the 70's, it's only in 2017 that Quebec companies really began producing and distributing it to market. "Acerum" comes from the latin word for maple, "acer" (hence the French term "acériculture") and "rum". Since it's so new, it's not well-known even in its native Quebec, and virtually unknown elsewhere. - "Maple-flavored" syrups. Also called imitation maple syrup. To be considered true maple syrup in Canada the product must be entirely made from maple sap. The USA has similar laws though it allows for additives like salts. Otherwise the product can't be marketed as maple syrup. To cut prices some companies will heavily cut down maple syrup with high-fructose corn syrup or other sugary or thickening agents. The viscosity and taste is only vaguely related to real maple syrup since there is very little maple content, but it's much cheaper (a liter of imitation maple syrup can cost 2 USD while the real deal can cost 11 USD). French-Canadians jokingly call this syrup "pole syrup" (as in, phone or electricity poles, the idea being that a pole is like a "fake" tree so "fake" maple syrup comes from it).
History
It was the First Nations, mostly Algonquian tribes in Northeast America, who first used maple syrup, long before European contact. The high-sugar content was very welcome in the spring for the extra calories. Maple features in many First Nation legends and tales. There is no account of how maple production began, only legends. The Natives harvested the sap by making V-shaped cuts in the bark and then making a tap out of reeds or bark which poured into bark basket. The sap was later refined by dropping hot stones into the bucket, or leaving the bucket outside in the night to freeze and then removing the water ice from the top.
The Natives taught English and French colonists how to process maple sap into maple products. European settlers moved from incisions into the tree to outright drilling holes in them. It's at this time that the "traditional" method of maple production began to take shape. Maple sugar often acted as a substitute to cane sugar since cane sugar was not always cheap depending on the time or place you lived.
The 1800's saw technological improvements that made the process more efficient and reduce the risks of contamination. During the American Civil War, cane sugar was virtually impossible to find in the North, since most of it came from the South, so people turned to maple sugar as a replacement. Even before the war made trade impossible, many abolitionists picked maple sugar instead of cane sugar to avoid supporting businesses relying on slave labor. The United States lead maple production up until the 1930's. In World War II, due to rationing many people stretched their meager sugar supplies by using maple as a sweetener.
Starting in the 1930's, Canada began slowly overtaking the US in maple production, with production exploding in the 1990's.
Culture
Maple syrup had influences on Canadian and to a greater extent Quebecer culture. In Canada households will break out the good maple syrup for guests as it's considered rude and cheap to use the imitation stuff.
The cabane à sucre ("sugar shack") is a big part of Quebec culture. When maple syrup season begins, many tourist-oriented sugar shacks will open and organize events. Traditional French-Canadian working class meals will be served:
- Ham
- Fèves au lard note
- Scrambled eggs
- Cretons note
- Bacon
- Oreilles de crisse note
- The whole lot often covered in maple syrup.
Sugar shack activities may include folk music and dancing, and various French-Canadian folklore stories and legends being told. Other activities may include rides on horse-pulled carts throughout the forest, to replicate the traditional harvesting of maple sap, and showcases of maple syrup production. One particular activity, loved by young and old, is the degustation of tire sur la neige (snow taffy). Remember the part above about maple taffy? Here an employee of the shack will pour down the boiling maple syrup on the snow, which will quickly harden and be picked up with small wooden sticks (think icy pop or corn dog sticks) and eaten.
Maple Syrup Cartels and Heists
Maple syrup is such Serious Business in Canada, that there is a strategic maple syrup reserve, as covered in an episode of Dirty Money. Representing around 11 000 maple producers, the Federation of Quebec Maple Syrup Producers (French: Fédération des producteurs acéricoles du Québec) is a government-approved but private organization that acts as a federation for maple syrup producers, lobbying for their interests, setting quotas and quality standards, organizing the farms for mutual aid and advertising maple syrup products. This is part of a wider phenomenon in Quebec of various farmers and agribusinesses banding together into sorts of MegaCorp not unlike Middle-Age guilds (or to their detractors, The Cartel). Other large Quebec agricultural federations include the milk industry and pork industry, but that's beyond the scope of this article.
The existence of the FQMSP is controversial, even within Quebec. Detractors say that they stifle the free market and the choices of individual farmers to sell their products however and to whoever they please. Proponents say that the FQMSP has reduced the rate of érablières going bankrupt and has made the industry more profitable, while stabilizing the prices through managing supply. Both Sides Have a Point, but it's unlikely the Federation will go away anytime soon.
The strategic maple syrup reserve is managed by the FQMSP. Each year a quota is set, and acériculteurs who produce above that quota give any excess maple syrup to the reserve, ensuring that the market is not flooded, which would drive price down and could lead to larger farms that can produce more maple syrup driving the smaller "mom n' pop" farms into bankruptcy due to prices collapsing. In lean years where harvests are poorer, the reserve is opened to ensure that maple syrup will still stock the shelves of grocery stores around the world and farmers can receive the profits to avoid going bankrupt.
Maple syrup that enters the reserve is pasteurized to make sure it will last longer. The main reserve is located in Laurierville, in the Centre-du-Québec region. At peak capacity it can hold 55 million pounds of maple syrup, stored in over 94 000 barrels of 45 gallons, representing around half of the harvest of the average érablière.
Over several months in 2011 and 2012, thieves (it was an insider job) stole nearly 3000 tons of maple syrup, worth around 18.7 million Canadian dollars (around 14.7 million USD). Adjusted for inflation, this is the worst heist in Canadian history.
Normally, the barrels are inspected only once a year. Reserve employees would take barrels out to a sugar shack that was in on the heist, where the maple was siphoned and replaced with water and the barrels placed back in the reserve. The stolen maple was taken to New Brunswick or Vermont and was then fenced slowly (to avoid suspicion) to legitimate resellers who were unaware of the theft. As the heist progressed, the thieves got cocky and siphoned the maple directly from the warehouse without bothering to refill it. The plot was exposed when an inspector fell on some barrels and it was discovered they were empty and not full of maple goodness.
While the idea of a strategic maple syrup reserve, a maple syrup cartel and a maple syrup heist can seem like amusing Canadian trivia that needs a "Not Making This Up" Disclaimer, it's important to note that this kind of theft hurt hundreds of smaller farmers and their families.
