WEBVTT - How to Drink a Tree's Blood 0:00:01.480 --> 0:00:11.520 Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey, 0:00:11.520 --> 0:00:13.920 I'm welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck 0:00:13.960 --> 0:00:18.000 and Jerry's here too, and we're talking today about maple syrup. 0:00:18.600 --> 0:00:21.480 And I'm not going to lie to you, dear listeners. 0:00:21.800 --> 0:00:24.799 I want something maple like right now. 0:00:25.440 --> 0:00:28.159 I need too. This was I don't know if this 0:00:28.200 --> 0:00:30.520 came from a listener or it came from many listeners 0:00:30.600 --> 0:00:33.560 or just my own brain, but we not even thinking. 0:00:33.600 --> 0:00:36.720 I just throw this one to Livia. Uh kind of 0:00:36.720 --> 0:00:38.800 forgetting that I don't want to give I don't want 0:00:38.840 --> 0:00:40.720 to doc's Olivia, but let's just say she lives in 0:00:40.760 --> 0:00:41.800 the New England area. 0:00:42.280 --> 0:00:42.960 Uh huh sure. 0:00:43.040 --> 0:00:45.480 So she was like, oh yeah, baby, right up my alley, 0:00:45.560 --> 0:00:46.000 let's do it. 0:00:46.680 --> 0:00:49.400 Yeah. I have the impression that she'll eat a thing 0:00:49.479 --> 0:00:51.919 of maple cotton knee to hand it to her. 0:00:52.120 --> 0:00:55.640 Yeah. I could feel the joy coming through Libya's keyboard 0:00:55.640 --> 0:00:57.720 in this one, which is always nice for sure. 0:00:57.800 --> 0:01:00.920 And the timing's amazing too, because the showing season is 0:01:00.960 --> 0:01:03.720 basically just wrapped up as far as I can tell. 0:01:03.880 --> 0:01:05.240 And I think it was a good one. 0:01:05.360 --> 0:01:05.560 Yeah. 0:01:05.640 --> 0:01:09.319 Yeah, Olivia also just as a little thing. Remember we've 0:01:09.360 --> 0:01:13.000 said that she always has great titles, and this one 0:01:13.120 --> 0:01:14.679 was how to Drink a Tree's Blood. 0:01:15.560 --> 0:01:17.279 Yeah, I think that's gonna be the title. 0:01:18.319 --> 0:01:19.400 Oh good, Okay, good. 0:01:19.400 --> 0:01:22.160 I mean I might put in parentheses maple syrup, you 0:01:22.280 --> 0:01:23.520 Sicico or something like that. 0:01:24.160 --> 0:01:27.480 Sure. I like that. Anytime Siico ends up in a title, 0:01:27.560 --> 0:01:28.919 I think something great has. 0:01:28.800 --> 0:01:31.199 Happened, including the movie Sicico. 0:01:32.400 --> 0:01:34.720 So is there a movie called Sicico? Yeah? 0:01:34.880 --> 0:01:38.839 Wasn't that didn't wasn't that one a Harmony Korean's movie 0:01:38.959 --> 0:01:43.240 or Krine? I don't know, I think so. No, No, 0:01:43.280 --> 0:01:46.440 that was Michael Moore, Sorry, Michael. Oh yeah, yeah, the 0:01:46.480 --> 0:01:47.559 documentary one, Yeah. 0:01:47.520 --> 0:01:50.560 Yeah, yeah, about the American healthcare system and how broken 0:01:50.600 --> 0:01:54.960 it is. Yeah, so chuck, all right, so let's talk 0:01:55.000 --> 0:01:57.360 about maple syrup. We both want some maple syrup. This 0:01:57.480 --> 0:02:00.600 is fair warning to anyone listening. You're gonna want some maple, 0:02:01.320 --> 0:02:04.560 and that's okay. It's okay to want something maple, even 0:02:04.600 --> 0:02:05.320 if you don't have. 0:02:05.280 --> 0:02:08.280 It, that's right. But if we're gonna start with maple syrup, 0:02:08.280 --> 0:02:10.560 we got to start with the maple tree. There are 0:02:10.560 --> 0:02:12.600 all kinds of maple trees. But if you and and 0:02:12.680 --> 0:02:16.000 you can get sugary sap from other kinds of maple trees, 0:02:16.040 --> 0:02:18.400 but if you want the real gold, and if you 0:02:18.440 --> 0:02:21.920 want the real gold standard industry wide, you're gonna tap 0:02:21.960 --> 0:02:27.120 into that sweet, sweet sugar maple, the Acer sacarum, because 0:02:27.120 --> 0:02:28.760 that's the one that has the real good stuff, that 0:02:28.800 --> 0:02:32.720 has the highest concentration of sugar in its sap. And uh, 0:02:32.919 --> 0:02:34.520 like you said, you might tap a red maple if 0:02:34.560 --> 0:02:36.399 that's all you got around, but you need a lot 0:02:36.440 --> 0:02:38.080 more of it to end up with what you want. 0:02:38.600 --> 0:02:41.000 So you really want, you really want that sugar maple. 0:02:41.880 --> 0:02:44.760 Right, And if you say, okay, guys, I'm all fine 0:02:44.760 --> 0:02:48.200 to sugar maple, where do I go? They're all over 0:02:48.200 --> 0:02:50.839 the place. Actually, they have a pretty great range. We're 0:02:50.840 --> 0:02:55.080 talking about North America, Northern North America, which includes the 0:02:55.120 --> 0:02:59.680 northeastern US, southeastern Canada. We're talking New Brunswick, We're talking 0:02:59.720 --> 0:03:03.120 Nova Scotia. Yeah, don't leave out Quebec, because Southern Quebec 0:03:03.240 --> 0:03:06.440 is the far and away the largest producer of maple 0:03:06.480 --> 0:03:11.160 syrup in the world. Parts of Ontario and then Maine, 0:03:11.400 --> 0:03:13.840 all the way down in North Carolina you can find 0:03:13.880 --> 0:03:17.760 sugar maples. There are some places that sugar maples grow 0:03:17.840 --> 0:03:20.680 that they're not going to they're not going to make 0:03:20.720 --> 0:03:23.640 maple syrup as much there because there's also an addition 0:03:23.800 --> 0:03:28.120 to the actual tree itself. There are environmental conditions, climate 0:03:28.160 --> 0:03:31.720 conditions that have to take place, and they're so variable 0:03:32.200 --> 0:03:36.400 that maple syrup production and maple sugar production has resisted 0:03:36.640 --> 0:03:41.960 industrialization throughout its lifetime. And that just makes me cheer. 0:03:42.160 --> 0:03:44.840 Yeah, because it's like you have to tap a tree 0:03:44.880 --> 0:03:47.160 that grows in the woods to do that, and I 0:03:47.200 --> 0:03:49.960 bet they've tried, but they haven't figured out a way 0:03:49.960 --> 0:03:53.840 to build a factory around a forest with trees going. 0:03:53.680 --> 0:03:57.360 Through it, right, Yeah, as far as I know, no 0:03:57.400 --> 0:03:59.920 one's tried that. Well, I guess the biodome kind. 0:03:59.720 --> 0:04:03.560 Of punts, Yeah, probably so. But what we're about to describe, 0:04:03.560 --> 0:04:06.280 everybody is one of the wonders of nature. I didn't 0:04:06.280 --> 0:04:08.360 know anything about this stuff, so it was all new 0:04:08.360 --> 0:04:09.840 to me, and I was kind of blown away. It 0:04:09.840 --> 0:04:11.560 was kind of a mind bomb, if you will, for me. 0:04:13.800 --> 0:04:16.960 The magic to the maple syrup, obviously is that sap, 0:04:17.480 --> 0:04:20.599 and that sap has a very specific function in a tree. 0:04:20.960 --> 0:04:22.920 The sapwood is a part of the tree. It's also 0:04:22.920 --> 0:04:25.760 called the xylum. It's in that tree trunk just outside 0:04:25.760 --> 0:04:29.359 of the heartwood, and it has tissue in that sapwood 0:04:29.400 --> 0:04:33.320 in the xylum that moves water and minerals around from 0:04:33.320 --> 0:04:34.840 the roots to the leaves. It's kind of like the 0:04:35.120 --> 0:04:36.560 freeway system, if you will. 0:04:36.680 --> 0:04:40.479 Yeah, or it's circulatory system hormones too. That's what sap is. 0:04:40.520 --> 0:04:43.560 It's minerals, water, hormones, all the stuff that the tree 0:04:43.600 --> 0:04:47.440 is moving to itself to help repare wounds and to 0:04:47.960 --> 0:04:52.680 produce photosynthesis, and then also move the products from photosynthesis, 0:04:52.680 --> 0:04:55.479 which is like starches back down to the roots. Right, 0:04:55.760 --> 0:04:58.520 So you've got stuff moving up and down the tree trunk. 0:04:59.279 --> 0:05:02.560 But if you you walk up to sugar maple in 0:05:02.640 --> 0:05:05.240 the summer and you put a tap into it, it's 0:05:05.279 --> 0:05:07.600 going to just be like this, that was useless and 0:05:07.680 --> 0:05:11.480 it kind of hurt. There's a specific time when you 0:05:11.520 --> 0:05:15.680 want to tap a sugar maple to get the constituent 0:05:15.880 --> 0:05:16.880 maple SAP. 0:05:18.000 --> 0:05:22.239 That's right, and that is in the major producing parts, 0:05:22.240 --> 0:05:25.279 which is what we described before. That will be generally 0:05:25.320 --> 0:05:29.800 between like February and April, with a peak in March. 0:05:30.400 --> 0:05:32.240 And that is because and this is the second sort 0:05:32.240 --> 0:05:35.840 of astounding part of this stuff, that xylum that sap 0:05:35.880 --> 0:05:38.920 would it's moving stuff all around, but it's also really 0:05:38.920 --> 0:05:42.040 good at holding energy reserves during times where it needs it. 0:05:42.680 --> 0:05:46.040 So they are the cells called ray parinama that use 0:05:46.360 --> 0:05:49.440 enzymes that turn those starches Josh was talking about into 0:05:49.480 --> 0:05:52.120 sugars and it's a great way to store that energy. 0:05:52.200 --> 0:05:55.960 But that sugar also protects the tissue from freezing during 0:05:55.960 --> 0:05:58.360 the winter, So it's just sort of sitting there like 0:05:58.839 --> 0:06:01.599 in the perfect conditions to be tapped in those months. 0:06:02.000 --> 0:06:05.719 Yeah, because there's this kind of positive pressure that builds 0:06:05.800 --> 0:06:09.480 up in the tree because on nights where it's freezing 0:06:10.320 --> 0:06:13.840 and that turn into days that get above freezing. Right, 0:06:13.920 --> 0:06:16.320 So when the icicles start to really drip, I've seen 0:06:17.839 --> 0:06:22.000 the sap itself starts moving up and down. And when 0:06:22.040 --> 0:06:25.039 it moves up, normally, when there's leaves on the tree, 0:06:25.960 --> 0:06:30.159 transpiration or basically evaporation at the leaf surface that relieves 0:06:30.200 --> 0:06:33.240 that pressure. But remember this is a time when the 0:06:33.279 --> 0:06:36.360 sugar maples don't have leaves yet, so it can't kind 0:06:36.400 --> 0:06:38.560 of relieve that pressure, and the pressure builds up and 0:06:38.600 --> 0:06:41.240 builds up, and so if you go to a sugar 0:06:41.279 --> 0:06:44.280 maple at specifically the right time, when it's freezing at night, 0:06:45.000 --> 0:06:47.200 not freezing in the day, and you put a tap 0:06:47.240 --> 0:06:49.680 into it, that's when the SAP's going to come out. 0:06:49.839 --> 0:06:52.640 And like you said, those starches have been converted to 0:06:52.680 --> 0:06:55.640 sugars as energy stores, so that's also when the sap 0:06:55.720 --> 0:06:58.480 is going to be at its sweetest. There is a 0:06:58.520 --> 0:07:02.720 couple of weeks that you can tap a specific kind 0:07:02.760 --> 0:07:07.600 of tree in a specific location under specific climate conditions. 0:07:07.600 --> 0:07:10.240 To get the sap. You're gonna need to make maple syrup. 0:07:10.280 --> 0:07:12.880 And I mean, I just love maple syrup so much 0:07:12.920 --> 0:07:13.920 more than I did before. 0:07:14.640 --> 0:07:18.880 Yeah, for sure, it's you know, once once those conditions 0:07:18.960 --> 0:07:22.280 leave that step, it didn't dry up, but it stops 0:07:22.360 --> 0:07:25.400 running freely. If you could get to it, it wouldn't taste 0:07:25.400 --> 0:07:26.960 the same, like you said, it would be kind of bitter, 0:07:27.080 --> 0:07:30.400 but you can't get to it anyway. And this is 0:07:30.560 --> 0:07:32.880 like a seasonal cycle, Like this is when the trees 0:07:32.880 --> 0:07:36.160 are beginning to bud again, you know, like we said, 0:07:36.160 --> 0:07:40.040 at peaks and march basically. And if you let's say 0:07:40.040 --> 0:07:42.400 you tapped a tree and you got a little bit 0:07:42.400 --> 0:07:44.160 of that good stuff and you put it on your tongue, 0:07:44.640 --> 0:07:47.800 it wouldn't taste like the final result. It's sweet. You 0:07:47.800 --> 0:07:50.280 can taste the sweetness, but it's about you know, the 0:07:50.960 --> 0:07:54.200 SAP ranges from about one to three percent of that 0:07:54.320 --> 0:07:57.400 sweetness at that point, so like it needs to be 0:07:57.440 --> 0:08:00.240 processed after that point because what you really want to 0:08:00.280 --> 0:08:04.240 get it too is a sugar concentration about sixty six percent, Yeah, 0:08:04.240 --> 0:08:06.360 which means you have to boil it. You have to 0:08:06.720 --> 0:08:09.600 boil down about forty gallons to get one gallon of syrup. 0:08:09.880 --> 0:08:13.120 Yeah, there's actually there was this maple syrup researcher from 0:08:13.160 --> 0:08:15.680 the turn of the last century named C. W. Jones, 0:08:15.720 --> 0:08:17.600 and he came up with what's called the Jones rule 0:08:17.640 --> 0:08:20.239 of eighty six. And I'm not sure how it works. 0:08:20.240 --> 0:08:22.880 It seems a little magical, but you can take the 0:08:23.200 --> 0:08:26.520 percentage of sugar that's found in the sap naturally that 0:08:26.560 --> 0:08:29.800 you just got out of the tree, and multiply that 0:08:29.840 --> 0:08:32.640 percentage by eighty six and it will tell you how 0:08:32.679 --> 0:08:35.520 many gallons you need to boil down to get one 0:08:35.600 --> 0:08:39.240 gallon of maple syrup at sixty six percent sugar concentration. 0:08:39.880 --> 0:08:44.240 That's right, And usually it's about that forty gallon range. Yeah, 0:08:44.640 --> 0:08:48.560 people have you know, we're not the first persons to 0:08:48.800 --> 0:08:51.640 enjoy this. Stuff like has a very long history among 0:08:51.760 --> 0:08:54.960 indigenous North American groups and they used it for all 0:08:55.080 --> 0:08:57.880 kinds of stuff. There's a lot of different stories like 0:08:57.880 --> 0:08:59.880 like you know, who's the first person to eat oyster? 0:09:00.040 --> 0:09:01.600 Like how do they figure out this tree sap was 0:09:01.640 --> 0:09:04.160 something you wanted, like the first person to tap it? 0:09:04.720 --> 0:09:06.839 And it probably no one knows for sure. It probably 0:09:06.840 --> 0:09:09.320 happened by accident. There's a lot of stories. One of 0:09:09.360 --> 0:09:13.640 them is that there was a tomahawk in a tree. 0:09:13.720 --> 0:09:16.719 That tomahawk got pulled out and there just happened to 0:09:16.760 --> 0:09:20.360 be a container below it that caught that sap and 0:09:21.120 --> 0:09:23.480 some indigenous person was like, oh well, let me take 0:09:23.480 --> 0:09:26.199 that water that's in this bucket from the rain and 0:09:26.480 --> 0:09:29.400 boil some meat for dinner. And they're like wait a minute, 0:09:29.440 --> 0:09:32.400 this is like, you know, has a sweet taste to it. 0:09:32.800 --> 0:09:35.959 So it was a complete accident. It's kind of a 0:09:36.040 --> 0:09:39.959 nice story. My money's probably on just another kind of accident. 0:09:40.000 --> 0:09:41.920 Maybe someone just sort of tasted it with their finger 0:09:42.600 --> 0:09:45.720 because a woodpecker pecked a hole in a tree and 0:09:45.720 --> 0:09:47.680 they're like, hey, may maybe we can use this something 0:09:47.720 --> 0:09:51.000 because they had long use SAPs and gums for other things, 0:09:51.000 --> 0:09:54.079 so it wasn't like any big like revelation that something 0:09:54.080 --> 0:09:55.120 from a tree was useful. 0:09:55.920 --> 0:10:00.320 Sure, yeah, totally. That's a good point. Another suggests is 0:10:00.360 --> 0:10:04.360 that somebody noticed a sapsicle and try that, because the 0:10:04.760 --> 0:10:08.400 sugar content of the sap itself has a lower freezing 0:10:08.480 --> 0:10:11.480 point than the water, so the water separates out as 0:10:11.520 --> 0:10:15.119 it freezes, and then the sap, the sugary sap eventually 0:10:15.480 --> 0:10:19.000 freezes more with a higher concentration of sugar. And if 0:10:19.040 --> 0:10:21.080 somebody broke that off and licked it, they'd be like, 0:10:21.160 --> 0:10:23.640 wait to get to the bottom of what's going on here, 0:10:23.679 --> 0:10:26.240 because this is de lish. 0:10:26.280 --> 0:10:28.400 I would love a real sapsicle. That'd be fun. 0:10:29.000 --> 0:10:33.480 We should also say this, so the the Europeans who 0:10:33.520 --> 0:10:38.040 came over to colonize North America got this, like learned 0:10:38.080 --> 0:10:42.880 about maple syrup directly from the indigenous people who were here, 0:10:42.920 --> 0:10:46.400 like the Abenaki, the how to know Sni, the Ojibwa, 0:10:46.480 --> 0:10:50.480 the Algonquin. All of them had methods and techniques for 0:10:51.280 --> 0:10:55.679 getting maple sap out of sugar maple trees, and they 0:10:56.360 --> 0:10:58.920 had like their own techniques. Each group had a slightly 0:10:58.960 --> 0:11:02.080 different technique, but ultimately what it usually boiled down to 0:11:02.679 --> 0:11:05.720 was cutting a laceration in the bark of the tree, 0:11:06.480 --> 0:11:09.680 possibly putting like a hollow twig in there to serve 0:11:09.720 --> 0:11:12.200 as the tap. Sometimes they just let it trickle down 0:11:12.240 --> 0:11:14.839 the bark of the tree, and then they would usually 0:11:14.840 --> 0:11:17.960 catch it in like a little birch bark container. The 0:11:18.000 --> 0:11:20.880 ones that I saw look like little tiny rowboats, which 0:11:20.880 --> 0:11:24.160 I bet you could use as rowboats after the sugaring season. 0:11:25.160 --> 0:11:28.040 That's right after they got that sap you know, like 0:11:28.040 --> 0:11:29.880 I said, it was still you still have to process 0:11:29.880 --> 0:11:32.360 it and boil it down. There were different techniques that 0:11:32.400 --> 0:11:35.080 they used, you know, depending what tribe you were from, 0:11:35.120 --> 0:11:38.920 but one of them most certainly was probably putting heated 0:11:39.000 --> 0:11:41.640 rocks into a container and kind of boiling and evaporating 0:11:41.679 --> 0:11:46.319 out the water that way a lot slower process actually. Yeah. 0:11:46.480 --> 0:11:48.600 In fact, sometimes they would just put it over hot 0:11:48.600 --> 0:11:52.640 fire and let it happen. Sometimes they would just leave 0:11:52.679 --> 0:11:54.480 it out in the sun and take like the real 0:11:54.559 --> 0:11:56.400 slow roll approach to get the water out of there. 0:11:56.679 --> 0:12:01.680 Yeah. Also they from that I guess, the sapsicle kind 0:12:01.679 --> 0:12:04.720 of thing, they figured out that you could also freeze 0:12:04.720 --> 0:12:07.080 it out like you could freeze the water out, remove 0:12:07.120 --> 0:12:10.720 the ice, and you've just basically evaporated a bunch of 0:12:11.360 --> 0:12:15.600 water from the sap. So there was probably different techniques 0:12:15.640 --> 0:12:19.040 that could also be combined to just to get it 0:12:19.080 --> 0:12:23.520 more and more closer to what you wanted. And we 0:12:23.520 --> 0:12:26.640 should say that the indigenous peoples of North America who 0:12:26.640 --> 0:12:32.240 were doing this pre contact, they were not making syrup 0:12:32.360 --> 0:12:34.280 nearly as much from what we understand. They were making 0:12:34.320 --> 0:12:38.120 this into sugar, sugar cakes, granulated sugar. They were making 0:12:38.160 --> 0:12:40.520 sugar out of the maple sap, which is essentially the 0:12:40.559 --> 0:12:43.760 same thing. You're boiling it down further than you would syrup, 0:12:44.280 --> 0:12:48.040 but you let it dry. Once it gets to a 0:12:48.040 --> 0:12:49.720 thickened state, you let it dry it. Then you break 0:12:49.760 --> 0:12:51.840 it up and you've got maple sugar on your hands. 0:12:52.040 --> 0:12:54.920 Specifically, for one drive, it was sort of a seasonal 0:12:54.960 --> 0:12:59.160 shift for the Ogway people. Like in the wintertime they 0:12:59.200 --> 0:13:01.319 would break up into smaller groups of like a dozen 0:13:01.400 --> 0:13:04.080 or so and travel around and hunt and ice fish 0:13:04.120 --> 0:13:05.960 and stuff like that, and in the spring they would 0:13:06.080 --> 0:13:09.760 come back together and form like these bigger communities. And 0:13:10.360 --> 0:13:12.920 that sugaring process and tapping those trees was kind of 0:13:12.960 --> 0:13:15.640 the first big thing that they did so they could 0:13:15.720 --> 0:13:17.800 you know, store it as long as possible, hopefully all 0:13:17.880 --> 0:13:20.400 year long, and then you know, did their other spring 0:13:20.440 --> 0:13:23.280 and summer stuff like you know, plant and harvest and 0:13:23.320 --> 0:13:27.079 stuff like that. But sugaring season kind of kicked off 0:13:27.120 --> 0:13:29.360 of the coming back together, which is kind of cool. 0:13:29.559 --> 0:13:31.600 That's another thing I love about it is that's what 0:13:31.640 --> 0:13:34.560 it's called. When you go and you collect the sap 0:13:34.640 --> 0:13:37.120 to make maple syrup or maple sugar from, it's called 0:13:37.120 --> 0:13:41.240 the sugaring season. The place where you boil down the 0:13:41.240 --> 0:13:42.720 SAPs called the sugar shack. 0:13:44.440 --> 0:13:46.200 The sugar bush. 0:13:46.320 --> 0:13:50.960 Yeah, the stand of trees of sugar maples together is 0:13:51.000 --> 0:13:53.319 called the sugar bush. Kind of like a wooded area. 0:13:53.440 --> 0:13:57.000 Another name for that. Not the evergreen scrub bush that's 0:13:57.040 --> 0:14:01.160 found out in chaparral country. This is just a group 0:14:01.200 --> 0:14:04.439 of sugar maples together in an area. That's your sugar bush. 0:14:04.880 --> 0:14:06.080 I just love this whole thing. 0:14:06.880 --> 0:14:09.319 Yeah. When they would pass pass it back and forth, 0:14:09.360 --> 0:14:14.280 they would say, give me some sugar, baby. That's really 0:14:14.720 --> 0:14:16.400 I love it that. The word sugar is a very 0:14:16.400 --> 0:14:17.600 pleasing sound to my ear. 0:14:17.640 --> 0:14:20.680 So sure, especially and also when you think of the snow. 0:14:20.760 --> 0:14:23.000 I think of the snow and like the maples in 0:14:23.040 --> 0:14:26.200 the snow like visually, and then thinking of the word 0:14:26.240 --> 0:14:30.240 sugar with all that stuff too. Just gosh, that almost 0:14:30.320 --> 0:14:33.760 makes me want to go do like basically move and 0:14:33.880 --> 0:14:35.800 buy like a little parcel of land that has some 0:14:35.840 --> 0:14:38.520 sugar maples on it and just make like a gallon 0:14:38.760 --> 0:14:41.320 once a year or something like that. Seems like a 0:14:41.360 --> 0:14:44.360 lot to do just for a gallon of maple syrup 0:14:44.360 --> 0:14:46.920 that I could probably buy from somebody else for much much, 0:14:47.040 --> 0:14:50.520 much cheaper and less effort. But it just seems nice, 0:14:50.600 --> 0:14:52.160 you know, like a pleasant way to be. 0:14:52.880 --> 0:14:55.080 Oh, people do that, I mean, I know in this 0:14:55.200 --> 0:14:58.040 article Livia said that like doing it in your house 0:14:58.120 --> 0:15:00.920 isn't super recommended because all the steam creates from boiling 0:15:00.960 --> 0:15:03.920 it down. But I've seen videos like there are definitely 0:15:03.920 --> 0:15:08.200 people that tap trees on their land and just get 0:15:08.400 --> 0:15:10.280 small amounts of sugar and like, you know, kind of 0:15:10.280 --> 0:15:13.040 like somebody might get honey from bees and set a 0:15:13.040 --> 0:15:14.280 little stand on the side of the road. 0:15:14.360 --> 0:15:17.440 Yeah, for sure. I was looking at like a map 0:15:17.640 --> 0:15:21.080 or sugaring I guess supply house and they had like 0:15:21.440 --> 0:15:24.840 three four hundred dollars evaporation pans that you basically put 0:15:24.880 --> 0:15:29.440 on like a propane gas like heater or burner, And yeah, 0:15:29.560 --> 0:15:32.080 you could, you could do it wherever. But yes, I 0:15:32.120 --> 0:15:35.360 think I would build a little sugaring shack or sugar 0:15:35.400 --> 0:15:38.720 shack just a yeah, just a wood burn into a 0:15:38.840 --> 0:15:41.400 sign to hang over the door that said sugar shack. 0:15:42.320 --> 0:15:44.800 Yeah, And if some paote happened to find its way 0:15:44.800 --> 0:15:49.600 in there, so be it. So we should mention before 0:15:49.600 --> 0:15:51.440 we take our break. You know, they were obviously eating 0:15:51.440 --> 0:15:54.320 this stuff in a lot of ways, the indigenous peoples. 0:15:54.560 --> 0:15:57.040 They were making corn meal based breads with it. They 0:15:57.040 --> 0:16:00.239 would put it on all kinds of like meats and fish, 0:16:00.280 --> 0:16:03.240 and I imagine it tasted just so great. So it 0:16:03.280 --> 0:16:05.720 was the flavor for them, but it was also a 0:16:05.800 --> 0:16:08.040 very calorie rich thing in the early spring when their 0:16:08.040 --> 0:16:11.400 winter food was sort of dwindling, right, and so you know, 0:16:11.480 --> 0:16:13.680 and as we'll see later, their health properties too, So 0:16:13.720 --> 0:16:16.040 they probably had a hunch about that as well. 0:16:16.400 --> 0:16:18.560 And don't forget the tiny rowboats that you could put 0:16:18.560 --> 0:16:22.760 in like a laker a pond. After sure, that's right, Yeah, 0:16:22.840 --> 0:16:24.560 let's take that break, all. 0:16:24.520 --> 0:16:27.240 Right, We'll be right back and talk more about maple 0:16:27.400 --> 0:16:28.040 right after. 0:16:27.840 --> 0:16:58.880 This, So Chuck I said that European colonizers got there 0:16:59.800 --> 0:17:04.280 just total awareness of maple sugaring or syruping from the 0:17:04.760 --> 0:17:07.520 local indigenous people. One of the things that the local 0:17:07.520 --> 0:17:12.760 indigenous peoples got from the Europeans were metal pots, which 0:17:13.359 --> 0:17:17.240 vastly improved the process of making maple syrup and make 0:17:17.400 --> 0:17:21.320 maple sugar for the indigenous tribes. Like that, no longer 0:17:21.359 --> 0:17:24.000 did youift to put a heated rock in some sort 0:17:24.080 --> 0:17:28.520 of bowl with some sap and just weight Like this 0:17:28.960 --> 0:17:30.640 just increased things tremendously. 0:17:31.600 --> 0:17:33.639 Yeah. I wonder if they collected in that or if 0:17:33.640 --> 0:17:35.159 they stuck to their baby boats. 0:17:36.480 --> 0:17:40.000 I hope, I hope baby boats. That's my that's my wish. 0:17:40.160 --> 0:17:45.160 I think so too. So early on in that colonization process, 0:17:46.600 --> 0:17:49.280 you know, the settlers, obviously we're doing the same thing, 0:17:49.320 --> 0:17:52.000 collecting it and using their methods. It was cheaper than 0:17:52.040 --> 0:17:55.080 importing cane sugar from the Caribbean, Yeah, which is where 0:17:55.119 --> 0:17:58.439 that was all coming from. And it became like the 0:17:58.440 --> 0:18:00.919 de facto sweetener of the United States at some point, 0:18:01.760 --> 0:18:04.439 and then later became a sort of a cause, an 0:18:04.520 --> 0:18:08.440 abolitionist cause. I think in the eighteenth century, abolitionists and 0:18:08.480 --> 0:18:13.560 Quakers were using like maple like as a way to say, hey, 0:18:14.000 --> 0:18:17.200 let's not especially founding father Benjamin Rush, like, hey, let's 0:18:17.240 --> 0:18:22.760 not support these British slave based plantations in the Caribbean 0:18:22.840 --> 0:18:24.720 that we're getting this cane sugar, Like, we can get 0:18:24.720 --> 0:18:28.840 our own sweet stuff right here and export it and 0:18:28.960 --> 0:18:31.080 not promote slavery, and it tastes great. 0:18:31.359 --> 0:18:34.200 Yeah, but in that export, if you made enough to export, 0:18:34.280 --> 0:18:38.560 you could also undercut the sugar market in Great Britain 0:18:38.760 --> 0:18:42.000 back home, so you were really kind of hobbling the 0:18:42.440 --> 0:18:47.639 slave slave based plantation societies by doing that. Thomas Jefferson 0:18:47.720 --> 0:18:50.040 was like, I'm on board, let's do this, because it 0:18:50.080 --> 0:18:53.600 fit into his vision of the United States being a 0:18:53.720 --> 0:18:57.800 collective of Yaouman farmers who are basically, you know, growing 0:18:57.880 --> 0:19:00.480 enough for themselves in a little as sell Like, yeah, 0:19:00.640 --> 0:19:03.320 just plant some sugar maples too, and it'll be great. 0:19:03.600 --> 0:19:07.439 Because one of the things that makes sugaring attractive is 0:19:07.480 --> 0:19:09.840 that it takes place in this weird in between time 0:19:09.880 --> 0:19:12.399 when there's normally not a lot to do on a 0:19:12.440 --> 0:19:16.119 family farm. Now you have a whole other revenue stream 0:19:16.320 --> 0:19:18.399 and you're getting a bunch of maple syrup out of 0:19:18.440 --> 0:19:22.160 it too, just by sugaring adding that to like your 0:19:22.600 --> 0:19:23.280 yearly thing. 0:19:23.800 --> 0:19:26.920 So we did mention earlier that you know, they probably 0:19:26.920 --> 0:19:29.600 tried to turn this into a large scale thing, but 0:19:29.640 --> 0:19:32.160 it just failed kind of time after time because it's 0:19:32.160 --> 0:19:37.240 such a labor intensive thing. And you know, but as 0:19:37.280 --> 0:19:39.240 a result, you know, maple you know, I think I 0:19:39.240 --> 0:19:41.040 said at one point it was like the most common 0:19:41.080 --> 0:19:43.280 sweetener in the US. That kind of started falling away 0:19:43.760 --> 0:19:47.040 because it's so labor intensive. And by the second half 0:19:47.080 --> 0:19:50.640 of the nineteenth century, cane sugar prices fell a lot, 0:19:50.720 --> 0:19:54.240 and then beat sugar started being produced. So maple sugar, 0:19:54.840 --> 0:19:56.680 it just, you know, as far as being a sweetener, 0:19:56.800 --> 0:19:58.800 kind of fell by the wayside for a long time. Yeah, 0:20:00.119 --> 0:20:04.119 but they started, you know, people still like that flavor, 0:20:04.200 --> 0:20:08.359 especially on things like pancakes and waffles, so they needed 0:20:08.359 --> 0:20:11.879 to unfortunately kind of cut it with other stuff. So 0:20:11.960 --> 0:20:15.440 they maple producers started cutting it with that cane sugar 0:20:15.480 --> 0:20:17.760 I mentioned in corn syrup, and that's where we get 0:20:17.840 --> 0:20:20.040 you know, missus Butterworth. That's where we get that pancake 0:20:20.040 --> 0:20:21.040 syrup that we have today. 0:20:21.119 --> 0:20:23.240 I have Missus Butterworth written right there. 0:20:24.600 --> 0:20:27.159 I mean what else is there aunt Jemima? Those are 0:20:27.160 --> 0:20:29.520 the only two. And I don't think it's called Auntjemima anymore, 0:20:29.560 --> 0:20:30.119 is it? Or is it? 0:20:30.200 --> 0:20:32.399 No? No, it's I can't remember what they call, like 0:20:32.480 --> 0:20:33.880 Old Mill or something like that. 0:20:34.320 --> 0:20:36.919 Yeah, yeah, they changed the name. Here's my secret. Like, 0:20:37.560 --> 0:20:39.159 if I go to the restaurant and they have the 0:20:39.200 --> 0:20:41.880 maple syrup at the nice brunch, I love it. I'm 0:20:41.880 --> 0:20:43.399 not going to turn my nose up and I know 0:20:43.440 --> 0:20:47.040 that's the gold, but man, I love that that buttery 0:20:47.080 --> 0:20:47.800 pancake syrup. 0:20:48.440 --> 0:20:50.719 Oh yeah, me too. So I was thinking about what 0:20:50.760 --> 0:20:53.159 I was raised on. I didn't have real maple syrup 0:20:53.240 --> 0:20:55.640 until I was I don't know, probably in my forties, 0:20:55.680 --> 0:20:57.960 to tell you the truth, I finally was like the same, 0:20:58.000 --> 0:21:00.320 I want to see what this is like and ordered 0:21:00.320 --> 0:21:02.719 some and it. I mean, it's pretty good, but it 0:21:02.800 --> 0:21:05.719 is a different animal from what I grew up on, 0:21:06.119 --> 0:21:09.600 which wasn't even missus Butterworth's. My mom was like, no, 0:21:09.680 --> 0:21:12.439 that's too expensive. She would make a one to one 0:21:12.480 --> 0:21:15.679