Maple Sugaring 03/21/13
In the early days of our courtship and marriage, I could always depend on my wife Julie to travel with me as I searched Pennsylvania for small food producers. One day a few years ago I suggested that we drive 6 hours west to the Pennsylvania Maple Festival in Somerset County, Pa. My wife duly considered my suggestion, smiled sweetly and said call me when you get there honey.
This was not the first time that it has occurred to me that my wife and I have a different definition of a “good time’. But seriously the Pa Maple Festival not only includes all manner of maple goodness, there is also real life maple queen, handmade quilts and a parade of fire trucks, I mean what else could you ask for?
Located on the edge of the Allegheny Mountains, Somerset County is blessed with a healthy population of maple trees and the perfect combination of warm days and cool nights in springtime. During the warm days the maple sap flows freely, while the cold evenings cause the trees to move sugar from their roots producing more maple sap.
This ideal maple-syrup-making weather, however, is a package deal. With a yearly average snow fall of 200 inches the Meyersdale area is one of the snowiest inhabited locations in the United States--great for maple-syrup farmers, bad for shopping malls and coffee shops.
Maple sugaring tends to attract hearty individuals who don’t mind being outside in the cold. For over 20 years we have sold maple syrup produced by Ed Emerick and his son Matthew. Each season they tap over 4,000 maple trees.
Like any farmer, a maple syrup producer works on Mother Nature’s schedule. When the sap is flowing, it must be collected and boiled down into syrup. Turning thousands of gallons of sap into hundreds of gallons of maple syrup takes large quantities fuel, and nearly as much coffee to keep the farmers awake as they work feverishly, often through the night, to keep up with the flow of the maple trees.
When the sap is running so are they, for once the tree starts to bud, there is no more usable sap till next year.
Still a little put out by my wife’s refusal to join me, I didn’t call her immediately after arriving, but waited till I had sampled some of the maple fare available at the festival. As you would expect, the Pennsylvania Maple Festival sells maple syrup along with, maple cream, maple sugar and maple candy--the single most teeth-shatteringly sweet confection on earth. By the time I called home it was difficult to engage in conversation with my wife as I was nearly catatonic state from a sugar overdose. I not sure if it was the maple cotton candy, the maple ice cream sundae or the pancakes, sausage and maple syrup that pushed me over the edge. In hindsight it might have been the fact that I, in the name of pure science, tried them all.
For more info on the Pa Maple Festival visit - pamaplefestival.com