The shame of the north

The other day, I went to a sugar shack for the first time. For those who don’t know, a sugar shack is a place where maple sap is rendered down to make maple syrup. It’s supposed to be a traditional New England process, with wizened farmers pouring pitchers of sap into giant vats that simmer for hours over wood fires.

They’ve always sold maple syrup, but the idea of sugar shacks where you eat it right at the source . . . that’s something new. It is legit, or another trick for the tourists? Or is it just another way to milk the rich New Yorkers on their way to Vermont? I decided to find out . . .

Thousands of gallons of raw sap are boiled down to make a few gallons of syrup, which is liquid gold for farmers at this time of year. At least, that’s what’s supposed to happen. As I discovered, the reality may be somewhat different. And the smiling farmers may not be quite what you expect. Then again, maybe they’re exactly what you expect. It just depends on your perspective.

I walked in the front door, which opened into a post and beam barn whose centerpiece was a big steaming vat of sap. There was a wood fire roaring beneath it, and jolly diners lapping up sap on pancakes at picnic tables all around the room.

Great clouds of steam rose to the ceiling, where they escaped through slats in the roof. Laughing kids ran from table to table, and a jovial farmer tended the fire and answered questions for the tourists.

The scene looked too sweet to be real. I slipped out the door and walked up the hill out back. That’s where it hit me, right in the pit of my stomach. The smell. The odor of half-burnt fuel oil almost knocked me over. I realized the pastoral wood fire scene was just for show. The real work was done with petroleum. There were jets of liquid fire underneath a veneer of wood. And if the wood’s a fake, I thought, what else is going on?

I’d heard rumors, but they were too shameful to credit. Until now.

Maybe that “pure” maple syrup isn’t so pure after all. Maybe those empty plastic drums out back contained something other than fertilizer. Come to think of it, what kind of fertilizer do maple trees need, anyway?

I did the math as I stood there, wreathed in oily smoke. A 55 gallon drum of corn syrup costs $650. A 32 ounce jug of “pure maple syrup” sells for $30. That 55 gallon drum contains 7,000 ounces of liquid. Add 10% maple syrup for authenticity, and your $650 investment fetches $7,200 on the street.

With a sick feeling, I realized why the syrup containers never run dry. With that kind of profit, they can afford to be generous. Jeez, I thought, are the pancakes rigged too?

The profits are almost as good as cooking meth, with none of the attendant risk. Who ever heard of a farmer sentenced to twenty years for cooking bogus syrup?

I’m sure there’s some farmers who play it straight. Maybe even most. But the maple crop dwindles a little every year, while “pure syrup” production keeps on rising. How can that be? And when the snow finally melts, and you take a walk out back of the sugar shack, there’s a slick of half burnt fuel oil and soot coating a bunch of dirty plastic drums with the letters “FOOD GRADE ONLY” fading in the bright springtime sun.

Sixteen drums. Seven grand apiece. That’s a hundred fifteen thousand dollars, with the waste pile to prove it. All for a one-month sugar season.

Maybe I should start a maple syrup farm. I did ok with girl scout cookies, but this could be big. Really big.