Maple syrup is a favorite sweetener often poured over pancakes, waffles, breads, and other desserts. This syrup is taken from the sap of the maple tree. While some people might think that the tree can be tapped all year round, this is not true. That is because maple trees store sugar in their roots and it is just before winter arrives or after winter has finally arrived that these sugars go up from the roots and reach the sap of the maple tree.
Another misconception is that the sap is made entirely of maple syrup. Again, this is false. The sap contains only about 2 to 3 percent of the maple syrup. It takes a long and tedious process just to remove the maple syrup from the sap. This process alone is perhaps the major reason why pure maple sugar is expensive.
It is the Native Americans that are generally considered to be the first people to tap maple trees to get the syrup. It is also the Native Americans who have taught the early settlers how to do this and how to make other maple products like maple butter. This is quite startling because Europeans have long been in the presence of maple trees but they were not able to discover the potential lying within the sap of that tree. The colonists first encountered the maple syrup when they traded with the Native Americans. Later they even used to call their Canadian maple sugar as sweetwater. In the 18th century, maple syrup became a popular sugar alternative and has been used across the country as a major sweetener.
Aside from making pancakes even sweeter and tastier, maple syrup can be used for other purposes. It can be boiled and dried into maple candies, which is a favorite sweet treat by children of all ages. It can also be turned into maple butter, which is not really a butter but just a resemblance to actual in terms of texture. This maple butter can then be spread on bread.
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