So what is the one thing that you find to eat or cook with or do food wise that tells you that "Spring Has Sprung?"
I am thinking of everything from planting potatoes as Good Friday has come and gone, the first fresh from the plant vegetables, starting seeds or "starter" plants in the house for planting soon...the first BBQing of the season or how about my favourite the tapping of the Sugar Maple Tree to make Maple Syrup.
Growing up my grandparents on my Dad's side had a Sugar House and it would be in full operation from the start of the season until the very end of the flow when it stayed above freezing all night for a week. As soon as "rings" started to form from snow "pulling away" from the trunks of the Sugar Maple trees my grandfather would tap the tree next to the garage. An "old-fashioned" covered bucket would be hung. As soon as the first drops were found he would hitch the horses and head out into the woods surrounding his farm and start tapping in force. Daily he would go out and empty the buckets into a large stainless steel tub and bring in the sap and begin the boiling process with a great big fire from the wood of Sugar Maples. Now throughout Quebec and Vermont and the rest of "Syrup Country" you see "pipelines" flowing to big "tubs" for collection of sap before boiling or running all the way to the sugar house. He was the second generation on this farm but the fourth generation of his family to do this along the Quebec and Vermont boarders.
Until his health started to decline this was the best time of his life. I remember a lot more snow back then and using the sled behind the horses to collect the sap. My uncles and my Dad's uncles and most of the men of the area would come and sit in the sugar house as my Grandfather and Dad worked. The coffee and Scotch would flow as would the stories of great spring blizzards and run ins with wild life (not sure if any of the stories were true) but it was an education to the then only grandchild and a treat as well as the first syrup of the year still warm flowed over a bowl full of snow for me to try first. Before anyone else even! Sugar on snow was a treat I remember to this day. A community dinner would be coming with local farm raised ham (most years my Dad's hogs gave their all for those hams) my Grandmother's baked beans and again lots of coffee and Scotch. The warm syrup would be on the tables to top the ham and the beans...of course a coffee cup or two would be ruined by Grandpa as he would stir and stir until a nice whipped "maple candy" was formed for all of us kids from the area (I routinely got the most...don't tell!) and the ladies would scold him for doing what he had done and take away his spoon and cups. Dessert was ALWAYS fresh snow (don't know how or why but it ALWAYS snowed that evening) topped with the syrup made in Grandpa's sugar house.
Sorry this is so long but that is how I knew Spring was coming or was arriving. The sap was flowing and days were getting warmer. The snow that was on the ground was melting and any new snow wouldn't last long. More memories from food. Gotta mention the wacky old guy down the lane that would tap the telephone pole at the end of his drive...
I am thinking of everything from planting potatoes as Good Friday has come and gone, the first fresh from the plant vegetables, starting seeds or "starter" plants in the house for planting soon...the first BBQing of the season or how about my favourite the tapping of the Sugar Maple Tree to make Maple Syrup.
Growing up my grandparents on my Dad's side had a Sugar House and it would be in full operation from the start of the season until the very end of the flow when it stayed above freezing all night for a week. As soon as "rings" started to form from snow "pulling away" from the trunks of the Sugar Maple trees my grandfather would tap the tree next to the garage. An "old-fashioned" covered bucket would be hung. As soon as the first drops were found he would hitch the horses and head out into the woods surrounding his farm and start tapping in force. Daily he would go out and empty the buckets into a large stainless steel tub and bring in the sap and begin the boiling process with a great big fire from the wood of Sugar Maples. Now throughout Quebec and Vermont and the rest of "Syrup Country" you see "pipelines" flowing to big "tubs" for collection of sap before boiling or running all the way to the sugar house. He was the second generation on this farm but the fourth generation of his family to do this along the Quebec and Vermont boarders.
Until his health started to decline this was the best time of his life. I remember a lot more snow back then and using the sled behind the horses to collect the sap. My uncles and my Dad's uncles and most of the men of the area would come and sit in the sugar house as my Grandfather and Dad worked. The coffee and Scotch would flow as would the stories of great spring blizzards and run ins with wild life (not sure if any of the stories were true) but it was an education to the then only grandchild and a treat as well as the first syrup of the year still warm flowed over a bowl full of snow for me to try first. Before anyone else even! Sugar on snow was a treat I remember to this day. A community dinner would be coming with local farm raised ham (most years my Dad's hogs gave their all for those hams) my Grandmother's baked beans and again lots of coffee and Scotch. The warm syrup would be on the tables to top the ham and the beans...of course a coffee cup or two would be ruined by Grandpa as he would stir and stir until a nice whipped "maple candy" was formed for all of us kids from the area (I routinely got the most...don't tell!) and the ladies would scold him for doing what he had done and take away his spoon and cups. Dessert was ALWAYS fresh snow (don't know how or why but it ALWAYS snowed that evening) topped with the syrup made in Grandpa's sugar house.
Sorry this is so long but that is how I knew Spring was coming or was arriving. The sap was flowing and days were getting warmer. The snow that was on the ground was melting and any new snow wouldn't last long. More memories from food. Gotta mention the wacky old guy down the lane that would tap the telephone pole at the end of his drive...
"Ponder well on this point: the pleasant hours of our life are all connected, by a more or less tangible link, with some memory of the table."-Charles Pierre Monselet, French author(1825-1888)
