Maple Syrup

History of Maple at Snell Family Farm

By Ramona Snell

Johnny and I both made maple syrup as children with our parents and grandparents on a small scale for just our own families’ tables. In Bar Mills Johnny’s grandmother, Ruth Snell, boiled sap in her kitchen on a kerosene “end heater.” Across the Saco River in Hollis, my Grandpa Harry Anderson had rigged up a flat pan over a wood fire outside for the most of the boiling. Then Mama Rita Anderson finished the concentrated sap on our kitchen wood stove where she could watch the progress more closely. So, we both developed a taste for maple syrup and an eye for a “juicy” maple at an early age.

After we married and were trying to enhance farm cash flow in the off season months, the grand maples lining the roadsides and dooryards of Buxton evoked maple memories and the possibility of another crop.  John’s brother-in-law, Russell Vanhazinga, of Westminster, Massachusetts, sold us his old evaporator and helped us rent a King drop flue pan from his Uncle John in Peterborough, New Hampshire, for the price of two gallons of finished syrup. We contacted our maple-owning neighbors to see if they were willing for us to tap their trees for shares of syrup, and they were resoundingly supportive.  We were in the maple business.

Actually this model of “renting” trees is common in the maple business. Many national and state forests, conservation tracts, and paper companies allow sugar makers to tap their trees for an agreed upon rent per tap. Generally these wild trees are of small diameter and do not produce as much sap per tap as the grand, old roadside trees we were using.  However, there are so many maples up and down the hills and mountains, that  their sap can be pipelined to roadside tanks and hauled to centralized sugarhouses where reverse osmosis machines shorten the length of time from sap to syrup. These are big, oil fired operations, making hundreds of gallons of syrup from thousands of taps. We Snells boil sap on a much smaller scale.

 We still hand collect the sap and fuel our evaporator with wood, but the process is the same on any scale. Pure maple sap which is about 2% sugar as it comes from the tree is concentrated by boiling to be 67%  sweet—maple syrup. Other pure maple products also come from sap, concentrated to various thicknesses and cooled or whipped or left alone depending on the desired crystal size or lack of crystal wanted. The recipe for most pure maple products reads like a recipe in reverse.  You start with something (sap) and then take away (water naturally occurring in the sap) rather than add ingredients.

Maine Maple Sunday, observed the fourth Sunday in March, has been a huge help for Maine sugar makers selling their products directly to their customers.  It is celebration of spring, a declaration of the end of winter.  There is a real jubilation that spring is on the way and there is the concrete evidence of the sap to prove it. All over the state, sugarhouses are open to visitors, and in recent years many sugar makers—the Snells included—have offered a pancake breakfast in the day’s activities.

Many people have helped us in our maple business, and when we decided to do pancakes we turned to our neighbor, Lisa Parker, a food wizard, to develop a multi-grain pancake.  Her original recipe has undergone some tweaking over the years as Lisa retired from catering and our sister-in-law Lynn Anderson took over the chef’s hat.  The past few seasons Ron Adams has overseen the making of the mix, the mixing of the batter and the griddling of the pancakes.

We now celebrate Maine Maple Weekend, extending the Open Sugarhouse and Pancake Breakfast to two days, Saturday and Sunday, in an effort to reduce waiting time for hungry pilgrims.   We serve the pancake breakfast in one of our greenhouses, which we call the Maple Café, where we can seat a few over a hundred patrons.  From the beginning, we wanted our customers to be able to sit in a warm place and not have to juggle jackets, babies, cameras, and other paraphernalia, along with pancakes and coffee.  So, our customers are seated and served by a wait staff.  Pints of heated syrup are on the tables and people can have as much as they wish, and additional pancakes as desired, although everyone agrees the original portions are very generous. Our loyal farm crew of field and greenhouse become cooks, hostesses, waiters, and tour guides for the two days.  Often their spouses and children help, too, so it is a family affair. 

After breakfast, customers may walk from the café to the sugarhouse which should be exhausting steam from the roof vent.  On the way, everyone is encouraged to try some raw sap directly from the tree, noting that the resourceful Native Americans invented the process of maple sap to sugar.

In the heady atmosphere of the sugarhouse, now grey-bearded John and son Edward tend the equipment and answer questions. There is another taste of fresh syrup and perhaps a sample of maple cream or sugar on snow, if there is fresh snow. A roadside stand offers maple products for sale, along with Maine jam and jellies and fresh apple cider.  The families reassemble, leaving Maine Maple Weekend with a sweet taste in their mouths and a definite song of spring in their hearts.