Treeless Maple Syrup | SouthernPaddler.com

Treeless Maple Syrup

Deer Slayer

Active Member
Sep 4, 2006
37
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Tomorrow's the day I'll be making a big batch for the larder....

here's the recipe

From Bradford Angier's Wilderness Cookery (1961)...quoting


The sugar maple grows only in North America. Like all green trees, it mysteriously changes water and carbon dioxide into sugar. So exceptional is the sugar maple's capacity for storing the sweet that this talent is a double boon.

In autumn it produces some of the loveliest hues of the American forest; in spring, the amber succulence of maple syrup.

The only trouble many wilderness cooks have is that these latter activities are largely confined to such Eastern regions as the St. Lawrence Valley, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, and such New England States as New Hampshire and Vermont. But there's a slightly incredible way around.

You'll need:

- 6 med. potatoes
- 2 cups water
- 1 cup white sugar
- 1 cup brown sugar

Peel the medium sized potatoes. Boil uncovered with 2 cups water until but 1 cup of fluid remains. Remove the potatoes, for use any way you want. Stirring the liquid until the boiling point has again been reached, slowly add the sugar. Once this has entirely dissolved, set the pan off the heat to cool slowly.

"Ghastly concoction", the old mountain man who gave me the formula nodded agreeably, when the initial time around, I first sampled the elixir at this primary stage. "Like home brew, it has to be aged in a dark place. After a couple of days in a bottle it'll be noble."