Maple Syrup is a sweetener made from the sap of maple trees. It is most often eaten with pancakes or waffles, but is also put on everything from ice cream to corn bread. It is also used as an ingredient in baking or in preparing desserts.

Production
Maple syrup comes from eastern Canada, particularly Québec, Ontario, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick, and the northern United States, especially New England, New York State and the Great Lakes states. However, given the correct weather conditions, it can be made wherever maple trees grow (see below). Usually, the maple species involved are the sugar maple (Acer saccharum) and the black maple (Acer nigrum) because of the high sugar content in the sap. A maple syrup production farm is called a sugarbush or the sugarwoods. Sap is boiled in a "sugar shanty", "sugar shack", "sugarhouse" or "cabane à sucre", a building which is louvered at the top to vent the steam from the boiling maple sap.

Canada produces more than 80% of the world's maple syrup. The province of Québec is by far the world's largest producer (about 75% of the worldwide

production). The provinces of Ontario and New Brunswick produce smaller amounts.

In New England, Québec and extreme eastern Ontario, the process has become part of the culture, and urban and suburban dwellers often go to the sugar houses, or in Québec cabanes à sucre in early spring, where rustic meals are served with maple syrup-based products. Tire sur la neige, also known as sugar on snow, is a seasonal treat of thickened hot syrup poured onto fresh snow then eaten off sticks, as it quickly cools. This thick maple syrup-based candy is served with yeast-risen doughnuts, sour dill pickles and coffee. Owing to the sugar maple tree's predominance in south-eastern Canada (where European settlement of what would become Canada began), its leaf has come to symbolize the country, and is depicted on its flag. Several U.S. States, including New York and Vermont, have sugar maple as their state tree.

Traditionally, maple syrup was harvested by tapping a maple tree through the bark and into the wood xylem then letting the sap run into a bucket; more advanced methods have since superseded this.

Production is concentrated in February, March and April, depending on local weather conditions. Freezing nights and warm days are needed in order to induce sap flows. The change in temperature from above to below freezing causes water uptake from the soil, and temperatures above freezing cause a stem pressure to develop, which along with gravity, causes sap to flow out of tapholes or other wounds in the stem or branches. To collect the sap, holes are bored into the maple trees and hollow tubes (taps, spouts, spiles) are inserted. Sap flows through the spouts into buckets or into plastic tubing. Modern use of plastic tubing with a partial vacuum has enabled increased production. A hole must be drilled in a new location each year, as the old hole will produce sap for only one season due to the natural healing process of the tree, called walling-off.

During processing, the sap is fed automatically from the storage tank through a valve to a flat pan to boil it down until it forms a sweet syrup. The process is slow, because most of the water has to boil out of the sap before it is the right density. It takes approximately 40 litres of sap to make one litre of maple syrup, and a mature sugar maple produces about 40 litres (10 gallons) of sap during the 4-6 week sugaring season. Trees are not tapped until they have a diameter of 25 centimetres (10 inches) at chest-height and the tree is at least 40 years old.

Starting in the 1970s, some maple syrup producers started using reverse osmosis to remove water from sap before being further boiled down to syrup. The use of reverse osmosis allows approximately 75 to 80% of the water to be removed from the sap prior to boiling, reducing energy consumption and exposure of the syrup to high temperatures. Microbial contamination and degradation of the membranes has to be monitored.

Maple syrup is sometimes boiled down further to make maple sugar, a hard candy usually sold in pressed blocks, and maple toffee. Intermediate levels of boiling can also be used to create various intermediate products, including maple cream (less hard and granular than maple sugar) and maple butter (creamy, with a consistency slightly less thick than peanut butter).

Use

Maple syrup and its artificial imitations are the preferred toppings for crêpes, pancakes, waffles, and French toast in North America. Maple syrup can also be used for a variety of uses, including: biscuits, fresh donuts, fried dough, fritters, ice cream, hot cereal, and fresh fruit (especially grapefruit).

It is also used as sweetener for apple sauce, baked beans, candied sweet potatoes, winter squash, cakes, pies, breads, fudge and other candy, milkshakes, tea, coffee and hot toddys.

During the American Civil War, and the ten year period previous to it, maple syrup and

maple sugar were substituted for cane sugar and molasses by New Englanders because it did not involve the use of slave labour.

Imitation maple syrup
Most "maple-flavoured" syrups on the market today in the United States are imitations (table syrups), which are less expensive than real maple syrup. The primary ingredient is most often dark corn syrup flavored with sotolon, with little (2-3%) or no real maple syrup content. They are usually thickened far beyond the viscosity of real maple syrup. Since US labeling laws prohibit these products from being labelled "Maple Syrup", many manufacturers simply call the imitation "Syrup" or "Pancake Syrup". Québécois often refer to imitation maple syrup as Sirop de poteau ("Pole Syrup"), implying that it has been made by tapping telephone poles.