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From: "Bonnie McCroby Wuensche" <>
Subject: RE: [MDGARRET] RE:Sugar Camp
Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 14:39:55 -0600
References: <86CB09B92A1F2C4D81386606F736F9AC11A48E@mail.npradc.org>


That was SO interesting! I have had some of those Maple Sugar candies,
mentioned in the article. I have seen them in "Country Stores" - There are 4
ot 5 candies in a package, shaped like little maple leaves. They are about
the size of chocolate "turtles". The last ones I saw were on a trip to
Vermont in Fall of 1999. That doesn't mean they don't make them anymore,
just that's the last time I was in Vermont. You might go on-line to the
Vermont Country Store. Here is the link.

http://www.thevermontcountrystore.com

(You will want to save this link - it is a fun place to visit! They have
EVERYTHING.)

-------Original Message-------

From:
Date: Friday, January 03, 2003 2:26:48 PM
To:
Subject: RE: [MDGARRET] RE:Sugar Camp

Found this on maple sugar on the web. It is from Kentucky.

MAPLE SUGAR

On all the "Planet Earth" maple sugar production is limited to a
relatively small area that is the north central and north eastern United
States and eastern Canada. At the time the Europeans came, the American
Indians had been making maple sugar for centuries. The earliest Indian
method for producing maple sugar was slow but sure. They simply
collected the sap water from the sugar maple tree, poured it into
shallow containers and allowed the water to evaporate, leaving only the
sugar. Later, to accelerate the process, they heated the sap in birch
bark pots. Then came the white man with his huge iron kettles that he
traded to the Indians for sugar and furs. Building fires under iron
kettles containing the sap caused the water to evaporate at a much
faster rate. Time was saved but making sugar from maple tree sap was,
and still is, very slow going.

I can remember when I was about six or seven years of age (80 years
past) our family visited somewhere out in the country. The folks brought
out and passed around something called "maple sugar cakes." I recall
that I thought this was better than any candy that I had ever eaten. I
never forgot the taste of maple sugar. I don't know of anyone in this
area that makes maple sugar or syrup at this time. This is probably due
to the scarcity of sugar maple trees. In all my research I have but one
time happened upon any mention of maple sugar or syrup. This ad appears
in the March 15, 1918, issue of The Cynthiana Log Cabin - "Pure maple
syrup. Made at Oscar Rankin's sugar camp. Guaranteed absolutely free
from adulteration. Possibly last chance to secure pure syrup. $4 a
gallon. Leave orders at Lawrence Rankin's Store, Morning Glory,
Kentucky. Phone Rural 83-2. O. C. Rankin."

The Indians did not have permanent homes. Winters were spent usually
near large lakes where wild game, ice fishing and berries, fruits and
vegetables, preserved during summer, provided an ample food supply. Late
winter found them moving to their sugar camps. After the sugar season
they moved to their garden camp where they planted corn and other
vegetables, on to the berry picking camp, back to the garden camp to
gather and preserve the crops, then returning to the winter camp,
completing the circuit. Maple sugar was important in the preservation of
their food and for other uses.

My great-grandparents, Sam and Polly Slade, lived and operated a
general store and the Curry post office on the north side of Currys Run
Creek, about nine miles north of Cynthiana, Kentucky. The location was
on the north side of a county road about one half-mile west of the
Falmouth Pike. In 2002 Gertrude Patrick lives in a house that occupies
the site of their home. I took my Dad to the site in his late years
where he identified many landmarks as he remembered them. He pointed to
a large creek-bottom field and said, "This was the location of the sugar
camp." Dad recalled that it contained a large grove of sugar maple
trees. He said that each summer an Indian camped near the creek and
searched for something. He never revealed for what he was searching. No
doubt, before the coming of the white man, this was the Indian's sugar
camp.

Making maple sugar and maple syrup is very unpredictable. For sap to
run, nighttime temperatures must go below 32 degrees and daytime
temperatures above 45 degrees. Some years, when summertime temperatures
rapidly follow winter there may not be any sugaring. Daily, each tree
might produce from zero to a few quarts of sap. Thirty-nine gallons of
water must be evaporated from each forty gallons of sap to produce one
gallon of syrup, more to produce sugar. Determining when the sap has
been reduced to proper consistency for syrup is an exact science. Syrup
producers say that a candy thermometer is not always the right answer,
especially when making small batches. When the sap has boiled down to
near the syrup stage a metal spoon is dipped into the near syrup. If the
liquid runs off in a steady stream it is not ready. When one drop comes
off the spoon, it is close. When a drop comes off, rapidly followed by
another, it is ready.

At this time, states producing maple sugar and syrup commercially
are Vermont, New York, Maine, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire,
and Michigan. Quebec, Canada, is by far the largest commercial producer
of maple syrup.

P


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