In celebrating foods, this has to one of everyone’s all time favorites. Cathy Isom fills you in on why you may want to begin and end your day today with a favorite breakfast topping. That’s coming up on This Land of Ours.
Whether it’s french toast, pancakes, or biscuits topped with a little maple syrup – today we celebrate National Maple Syrup Day. It is usually from the xylem sap of sugar maple, red maple or black maple trees that maple syrup is made from although it not limited to those maple species.
These trees, in cold climates, store starch in their trunks and in their roots. In the spring, the starch is then converted to sugar that rises in the sap. The maple trees are then tapped by boring holes into their trunks and the released sap is collected. After the sap is collected, it is processed by heating to evaporate much of the water, leaving the concentrated syrup.
Maple syrup was first collected, processed and used by the indigenous peoples of North America. The practice was then adopted by the European settlers who gradually refined production methods. In the 1970s further refinements in the syrup processing were made with technological improvements. Vermont is the largest producer of maple syrup in the United States.
I’m Cathy Isom…