got to be real
When I was a kid, the only syrup I ever knew was Aunt Jemima's-- that shapely bottle of corn syrup masquerading as the real stuff. It wasn't until I was 10, eating breakfast at my best friend Stacey's house that I encountered the thinner, more powerful elixir that is maple syrup.
Stacey lived in a very different world from my suburban landscape. Her parents had renovated a stone house from the 1700s and loved to dress up for reenactments of the Revolutionary war replete with bonnets and bayonets. Her mom was a food stylist, a career that was beyond foreign to me at the time and only explicable if I looked up at the photographs in a McDonald's of hamburgers with just the perfect amount of ketchup and pickle showing from under the bun.
Many foods were introduced to me when I spent weekends chez Stacey: fresh mushrooms, anchovies and on that particular morning I am thinking of today-- maple syrup.
Looking back, I can see that my shock at discovering the difference between what I thought was maple syrup and the real thing was one step on a lifelong path toward awareness of and appreciation for, that which is authentic.
A pretty long-winded way of saying, I like maple syrup.
Last year, I had the extraordinary good fortune to live on an 1800 acre farm, surrounded by the Ossipee mountains, where a sugar shack was put to good use every spring.
Although I now live three hours south and am not around the daily happenings of all those long, long hours it takes to produce one precious ounce -- I am checking in on sugaring operations both large and small (such as at Amanda's homestead) and living a bit vicariously through them.
Apparently the season has started early this year due to the warm temperatures we've been having here on the east coast-- maybe it's a problem, maybe it's normal, that I don't know. What I do know is that the sugaring is under way and I am loving this sweetest harbinger of spring.
bisous, e
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Comments
I love this post- your writing is so effortless and beautiful, as always. I am so taken with the idea of homesteading recently, so this especially speaks to me, and I too am living vicariously through Amanda!
Also love that you discovered true maple syrup through your cool, quirky friend- great story!
Mmmmm maple syrup...
I'm living vicariously through Amanda as well. Here in Oklahoma we depend on you New Englanders for this!
Great post celebrating the wonderfulness of real maple syrup! That is one happy dog.
anything maple is alright by me!....especially maple bacon!
oh, your sweet pup in snow...and oh, pure maple syrup! like christine, i love the effortless of your writing. love how you've tied pure maple syrup into the idea of authenticity. so simple, but can mean so much more...go so much further...
there's a maple syrup festival close to us...we'll be heading there next weekend. pancakes, demonstrations, hiking...a perfect, brisk, outdoors event. admittedly not as cool as your experience living on the farm or amanda's homesteading life, but still full of good :)
Oh, what a lovely post! And sweet Daisy in the snow - I want to snuggle her. You have such a talent for evoking the beauty of simplicity.
One of my most vivid childhood memories is going to a sugar shack (think it was a school trip but I'm not sure) and nibbling the shards of maple sugar that were put out as samples in a bowl. Fantastic!
On another school trip (to Quebec City this time) the bus pulled over to a roadside farm stand and we had still-warm chunks of fresh bread slathered with maple butter -- to this day that is my idea of heaven.