New Series On Maple Sugaring
March 28th, 2013 - Etna, NH
Here in the Upper Valley region of New Hampshire and Vermont along the Connecticut River a fascinating tradition emerges from the deep cold winters. A warm, humid, sweet aroma raises from backyard sugar houses as the cold nights and warming days of early spring not only melt the snows but awaken the trees who start sending complex sugars up from their roots to the branches and leaf buds. A chemical signal to shake off winter hibernation and to start producing leaves and flowers for the coming warm season.
For hundreds of years enterprising New England farmers have tapped into this flow of sap to gather, boil and bottle sweet maple syrup. The process combines generational traditions, old fashioned know how and modernized equipment to produce one of the most natural and beloved food products in the world.
Join photographer Edward M. Fielding has he journey's inside the sugarhouses of New England to show you the amazing handcrafted product that is real maple syrup. The only thing missing from his photographs is the warm, moist caramelized air of the sugar houses.
www.edward-fielding.artistwebsites.com/art/all/maple+sugaring+in+new+england/all
Facts about Maple Syrup:
Scientists have found that maple syrup's natural phenols – potentially beneficial antioxidant compounds – inhibit two carbohydrate-hydrolyzing enzymes that are relevant to type 2 diabetes. In the study, 34 new compounds were discovered in pure maple syrup, five of which have never before been seen in nature. Among the five new compounds is quebecol, a phenolic compound created when the maple sap is boiled to create syrup.
Vermont is the biggest US producer, with over 1,140,000 US gallons (4,300,000 l) during the 2011 season, followed by New York with 564,000 US gallons (2,130,000 l) and Maine with 360,000 US gallons (1,400,000 l). Wisconsin, Ohio, New Hampshire, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and Connecticut all produced marketable quantities of maple syrup of less than 120,000 US gallons (450,000 l) each in 2011.[44] As of 2003, Vermont produced about 5.5 percent of the global syrup supply.