As I have mentioned previously, I quilt and usually tend to work on a couple of projects at the same time. Right now I am doing the chickadee wall hanging, one for our bed and a quilt I am donating to the nursing home my Mother was in. They will use it for a raffle to raise funds for residents to have craft supplies or an outing when the weather improves. So busy busy with those.
It is a lot calmer outside today, the wind has picked up but, certainly not like we have had. The sun is shining which always makes it look and feel better. Rain is in the forecast for early in the week.
With these cold nights and nice sunny days the maple sap should soon start flowing. The maple syrup makers will soon be attaching their pails or now a lot of the harvesters use plastic pipes directly from the tree to huge containers, so much easier than the old way of pails. Having said that, people still do use the pails now. That makes me wonder....how was the sap from the maple tree discovered. Did the pioneers see the liquid coming from the tree and taste it? At that point there is no taste. Did they collect it in containers to drink and inadvertently heated it up, reducing the liquid and the result being the sweet syrup? Did they wonder if it was poisonous, consume it, no one died so continued to use it? Would love to talk to some of people who discovered it.
When we first came to Canada we discovered maple syrup and decided to make our own. Tapped a few trees, gathered the sap and cooked it, cooked it and cooked it some more. We did it on the kitchen stove, it makes a lot of steam as it boils down during this stage. So much steam in fact it started the wallpaper to come off the walls. That put an end to our syrup making in the house, we would encouraged to light a fire outside and do our syrup making out there. Not much fun when it is quite cold outside. Don't recall making too many batches.
Maple syrup is quite pricey to buy, I can take it or leave it, not something I particularly enjoy eating. Here it is part of a breakfast food, syrup is poured onto a stack of pancakes along with some butter. Sometimes the pancakes some kind of fruit, such as blueberries. The pancakes are thick, not like the crepe type I had growing up, when we would squeeze fresh lemon juice on them sprinkle on some white sugar and roll then into a log and it would be a dessert item. Still like them that way, but have not made them for a long time. Do you like maple syrup? Western world pancakes? or the European still crepe?
The turkey pot pie we had for dinner last night was tasty, we have some leftover, so our dinner is all taken care of tonight except for some additional veg.
Have a great Sunday.
I think the early settlers learned how to make Maple syrup from the local Indigenous people. They were the first to tap the trees. I always have some on hand but don't use it very often, occasionally in baking. I have a very sweet tooth!
ReplyDeleteAs you say genuine maple syrup is very expensive and I don't really like the artificially flavoured stuff. But I do like a thick pancake with whipped butter, maple syrup and bacon. My preference, though, would be for the thin crepe with lemon juice and sugar. Maybe with a dollop of thick cream.
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