The Crown Maple Guide to Maple Syrup: How to Tap and Cook with Nature's Original Sweetener

With their 'Guide to Maple Syrup,' Robb Turner and Jessica Carbone explore the origins and processing history of sugar maple syrup and crystal maple sugar in America. The text is very readable and the photos, by Tina Rupp, are colorful and evocative of New York's Hudson River Valley. This book will appeal to any reader who is interested in understanding local food traditions; specifically why maple sugar was so important in the Northeast of our nation and why it is becoming increasingly relevant now. The history of tapping trees, collecting and transporting sap and then evaporating the sap into syrup and drying the product further to produce sugar is clearly laid out and changing technologies are explained.This is also a story about a different mid-career change from Finance to farm came about, with maple tree farming and syrup/sugar making and marketing rather than cows and chickens taking the staring role. We follow along a bit as Crown Maple grows from an idea to a business to an expanding business of production and marketing; with the aim of preserving a natural, sustain-ably harvested food and its sources.Users of pure maple products will appreciate the information on the different grades of maple syrup and their best uses in recipes and how the revised grading system compares with the traditional, color-based/sap-cycle grading system it replaced. Most of us won't get much farther in consuming maple products than pouring syrup on pancakes and waffles. (It is HARD to get beyond that!) But the 90 maple syrup and sugar using recipes included in this 206 page volume make the case for using the sweetener in beverages, baked goods, salads, vegetables, roasted or braised meats and poultry and even seafood. The flavors and ingredients presented are 'up to date'; contemporary twists on American Classics.I have been pouring and baking with real New York State maple products for over thirty years, even when I have had to ship annual order of maple products to Texas and Virginia; I have seen sap running and sap evaporating and sap being barreled and stored in bulk; so this is a book that is of great interest.

Interesting and informative! The book itself is also really attractive, and the photos are gorgeous. I was fascinated by the history. There was a lot I didn't know, both about maple syrup and its influence on American cuisine.BTW, I highly recommend the pecan pie. A keeper recipe.

This book provides me with all I want to know about maple syrup and then some. The history, the processing each are detailed. The photography is brilliant. I could have been walking among the trees rather than curled up on my sofa. The family has a personal relationship with the trees and the products themselves.I learned there were four grades of maple syrup. Each type is specified in the recipes that comprise the second half of the book. Yes, a baked beans recipe is included. But, the recipes seem inspired by a family passionate about cooking, about umami, about the layering of flavors. Because of this book, I now know how to flavor maple syrup with ancho chiles!