Making the Grade

Flat Stanley arrived yesterday all the way from California, so we wanted to show him something quite typical for this time of year in New England. This was probably the last weekend for boiling maple sap, so we took him to a maple farm. There is nothing like being inside a sugar house on a cool March day, breathing in the maple syrup steam from the evaporator and smelling the smoke from the wood fire. Flat Stanley enjoyed it immensely.

The bottles in the photo are samples of maple syrup throughout the seasons. Each shelf is one season -- samples from the beginning of the season on the left and the end-of-season samples on the right. The syrup is graded according to its color and when the sap was collected.

As always, the best part was tasting the maple products. The syrup served up today was grade B (darker and a more robust flavor). We also tried maple sugar, maple cream, and maple and bacon ice cream (out of this world). Flat Stanley will be taking some pure Massachusetts maple syrup (grade A dark amber) back with him to California.

More on maple sugaring here.