We talk with maple sugarers about the lure and mythology of "winter's sweet farewell." Maple sugar season traditionally begins on Town Meeting Day in early March in New Hampshire. With warming winters and unpredictable weather swings, however, large syrup producers depend on modern technology, like vacuum pumps and reverse osmosis, to start tapping and boiling whenever the sap runs, even as early as December. But New Hampshire's sugarbushes are still full of family-run sugar shacks, relying on gravity-fed taps and burning wood to boil the sap.
Air date: Monday, March 9, 2020
GUESTS:
- Dave Anderson - Senior Director of Education for the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests and backyard sugar maker.
- Jennifer Barton Scarinza- she teaches maple sugaring at White Mountain Regional High School in Whitefield. Her maple syrup from Scarinza's Sugarhouse won the Carlisle Award this year, for best maple syrup in N.H. from the N.H. Maple Producers Association.
- Steve Roberge - UNH Cooperative Extension Forester and Maple Specialist.
Dave Anderson wrote about maple season being pushed earlier by a warming winter in the Union Leader. He has written many articles for the Society for the Protection of NH Forests about how maple connects us to trees and nature.
NHPR's Outside/In devoted an episode to changes in maple syrup production. They also held a blind taste-test "syrup-off" to see if it is possible to tell where syrup comes from based on the taste.
NHPR Morning Edition host Rick Ganley visited Dave Anderson at his sugar shack in South Sutton in 2018. Listen to the story here and watch the video below:
