Thursday, March 08, 2007

Maple Syrup and Climate Change

Nothing reminds me more of my New England heritage on a consistent basis than maple syrup. I love maply syrup--on pancakes, drizzled over oatmeal, in my granola--it's the perfect natural sweetener. I used it several times a week, and, like any true New Englander, insist on REAL syrup--preferably from NH, but Vermont will do

When I lived on the Owen Farm in Hopkinton, NH, I took part in the age old ritual of actually making maple syrup. It is a decidedly low tech process, consisting of tapping maple trees to allow the sap to collect in large steel buckets. I remember carrying those buckets through the snow to the house, where the liquid would be added to the huge pot on the wood burning stove. It would be cooked down until it became syrup--I don't remember the exact ratio right now, but I've read that it is 40 gallons of sap makes one gallon of syrup. But the effort of carrying those heavy buckets was easily outweighed bythe amazing amber sweetener that resulted.

So the story of how global warming is affecting the maple industry in Vermont resonates a little deeper and more profoundly than the doomsday scenarios where one imagines the state of Florida disappearing. Those images are a bit too dramatic to realistically contemplate--even though they may eventually come to pass. But the sap run on maples in Vermont?? That definitely gets my attention.

Yet another small illustrative anecdote of how climate change is affecting whole industries, and the lives of many who have made it their vocation or avocation.

Will there come a day when we can only get Canadian maple syrup? I shudder (sweat?) at the thought...