WALL STREET JOURNAL SAYS ITS A BANNER YEAR FOR SYRUP!

WALL STREET JOURNAL
MARCH 12, 2011
Maple's Moment
From scrambled eggs to side salads, a guide to all the marvelous places the golden syrup can go.

Thanks to the historic lashings of snow that hit the Northeast this winter, we're poised, pancakes stacked, for what's likely to be a banner year in maple production. Icy nights and warmer days are essential to a good syrup season—the end-of-winter rhythm of freeze and thaw coaxes sap from the trees for as long as they can resist the urge to bud, usually four to six weeks. Last year overheated prematurely, leaving some producers with a maple bust. But it's been a snowy season, and chances are good that the sugar bush (as tapping areas are cheerily called) will stay chilled and the sweet sap will flow.


With a glut of nature's most bewitching sweetener headed our way, it's high time to break maple out of its brunch hour rut. Under that sticky toffee veneer are layers of smoke and tannin that play just as well at dinner or cocktail hour. In search of a few unexpected ways to use the spoils, we turned to chefs across the Northeast.

—Kristen Miglore

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