Posted on 04/11/2020 9:22:03 PM PDT by nickcarraway
I stayed alone with my axe and my thoughts. But I never felt alone. All around me, the forest slowly stirred to life
The arrival of the coronavirus pandemic exactly coincided with a vital rite of spring in Canada’s eastern provinces: the celebration of known in Quebec as “le temps des sucres,” translated into English as “sugaring off.”
My family had gone to Quebec City for a March Break ski trip that got cancelled when François Legault, the premier, shut all the province’s ski hills to slow the spread of the virus. In the Quebec City newspaper, Le Soleil, I read crisis reporting from a cabane à sucre, the French word for a sugar shack, called Chez T-Moussse, near my mom’s home in Papineauville, Quebec. The owners were gearing up for their busiest season, when buses disgorge throngs of seniors to breathe in the fragrant steam that wafts from the evaporator pans as the sap boils. Guests then sit shoulder to shoulder at long tables with plastic tablecloths, to feast on the delicacies of the season: Oreilles de crisse (crispy pork rinds), beans with pork, baked omelette, smoked ham, pickled onions and beets, sausages, thick slices of white bread and butter and pancakes, all slathered with sweet fresh thick dark maple syrup.
But the cabanes were as closed as the ski hills; the owners were in panic mode. As for us, we turned around and drove back to Ontario.
Sugaring-off season can be a very social time, but one part of the job is profoundly solitary: boiling the sap. This is especially true in our family sugar bush, near the village of Madoc, Ontario, about half-way between Montreal and Toronto. My operation consists of a pan about the size of a school desk and the depth of a kitchen sink, balanced
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalpost.com ...
That probably smells divine!
Where were the cheese curds?
Even this Anglais knows that phrase means the times of the sugars.
When I was about 10 (circa 1965) I mentioned to my Dad that I would like to tap maple trees and make maple syrup. He found someone to loan us a bunch of taps. Mom got all of her friends to save coffee cans. Dad drilled two hole in the cans and used electric fence wire to make hanging handles on them. Then at the proper time (It has to do with temperatures freezing at night and warming above freezing during the day, we tapped the maple trees on Grandpa’s farm. Twice a day we would drive to the woods and drain the sugar water from the coffee cans hanging from the taps into a big 100 gallon tank. On Saturday we would start boiling it down to turn it from sugar water to maple syrup. Lots of wood and time needed. Lots of work. Fun to do once but we never tried it again.
Today they have plastic tubing connected to all the taps and they pull a slight vacuum to bring the sap back to the sugar shack. Saw it about three years ago at a sugar shack on the Île d’Orléans, near Quebec City. The proprietor was this super nice French Canadian woodsman in jeans and a red plaid flannel shirt straight out of central casting. We were the only ones there, as it was just before/as tourist season was starting, and he was boiling down maple syrup in a big metal tub to make maple butter, and filling the plastic containers with a spatula. Needless to say, it smelled great! We bought a pretty good pile of stuff.
I really enjoyed Quebec City and surrounding area, and found the people generally very friendly. I think the Québécois sometimes get a bad rap, probably because of big city Montreal types.
Ha! Found the place.
Érablière Richard Boily
2977 Chemin Royal, Sainte-Famille, QC G0A 3P0, Canada
+1 418-829-2874
https://goo.gl/maps/hjC6NoZtB47kszr66
Drove by my favourite sugar bush operation yesterday. They were in production but, sadly, the pancake house is closed by the lockdown. A very nice family who are losing a big part of their family income, as the weekend farm markets are also closed.
My place has an order form. I think I will send them a big order.
Roses are red. Violets are purple. Sugar is sweet and so is maple syrpel.
Alternatively, it’s also the title of a 60s song, “Sugar Time”.
Some friends of ours used to make and sell syrup. It took a lot of time but it was essentially free money. They tapped trees on their neighbors property and did all the work in an outbuilding on their farm. The pan was built by her great grandfather about 100 years before. Their only actual cost was the bottles.
We once spent an afternoon with them while they were making syrup.
To badly misquote Ben Franklin, Maple syrup is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.
The only reason I make pancakes or waffles is so I can eat maple syrup!
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