March is Maple Sugar Time

Usually maple syrup is associated with Vermont or Canada, but a lot is made right here in Indiana.  In fact, The National Maple Syrup Festival is held in Medora, Jackson County in Southern Indiana.

When there is a slight thawing and the nights no longer go down into the deep freeze, the sap of the sugar maple starts running.  This happens of course at different times depending how far north you are.  It was the first two weeks of March in Southern Indiana.   This coming weekend, March 19 and 20, sap is being collected and syrup is being made and sold at Deep River Park in Hobart, Indiana.  It is a free event, with the added attraction of an operating grist mill where you can get stone ground cornmeal.  There is even a maple tea room.


Photo by Susy Morris of Chiot's Run



The sap of a maple tree is very thin and clear, almost like water.  To collect it, you push a spigot into the tree and hang a bucket under it.  Sometimes it drips, sometimes it runs freely.  That is all there is to it.....except that it takes about 30 gallons of sap to make 1 gallon of syrup!



I was never there for it, but my Mom and Dad made syrup a few times up at Running Fox Farm in Wisconsin.  They had one giant sugar maple right in front of the house along the road.  It must have been planted when the house was built in 1848.  It's possible that they tapped trees in their woods, too.  I don't know.  I'll have to ask my Mom.

Photo by Dean Michaud

They had to boil it down the old fashioned way - over an open fire.  It takes hours and hours of cooking to get the sap to syrup stage. Cooking it indoors would have been too steamy, and would have used up all their bottled gas.  Being made over an open fire gave the syrup a slightly smokey taste.

From my door, the closest producers of maple syrup are:

Deep River Park (If I can get there this weekend) - 25 miles.

Wakarusa Maple Syrup Festival in April - 92 miles

Burtons Maplewood Farm in Medora, Indiana* (They host the National Maple Syrup Festival) - 210 miles.

Leane and Michael's Sugar Bush in Salem Indiana* - 222 miles

*Maple syrup can be ordered on-line.

Perhaps by next year I will be able to find a small producer that is closer to home.  Even better, my sister has a stand of maples at her place, and perhaps by next year will be ready to tap them.  (Getting your syrup made by a relative scores more points than even buying local.  I know, because I am making up the rules.)