Changing the way the world looks

[Zaarin]

Europeans never really acquired a taste for maple syrup like the Canadians and Americans did.

The thing about maple syrup--real maple syrup, not the fake stuff--is that it's so smoky, which offsets the sweetness.

 

[Phrozen]

The thing about maple syrup--real maple syrup, not the fake stuff--is that it's so smoky, which offsets the sweetness.

I wouldn't say smoky but it has some woody flavors like good bourbon has.

 

[Zaarin]

I wouldn't say smoky but it has some woody flavors like good bourbon has.

Homemade maple syrup made the old-fashioned way definitely has a degree of smokiness to it. I had a great uncle who used to make maple syrup; my mom would hoard that stuff like gold when she got it.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

You can get sugar syrup from just about any maple. Just that the sugar maples in North America are the best species for it when it comes to sap, harvest season, and taste as maple syrup is surprisingly complex when it comes to the chemical composition of its flavor. There is some written evidence that the ancient Greeks produced sugar syrup from maples though it was used as a medicine. Aristotle mentioned it for example. There wouldn't be any problem planting Sugar Maples in say Scandinavia or the foothills of the Alps in Germany, Austria, and France. It is just that sugar beets grow quicker and are easier to process than Sugar Maples. Europeans never really acquired a taste for maple syrup like the Canadians and Americans did.

Thanx for the information!
Another point for the Sugar Beets, though, is that, at least in Germany where I was stationed, they could be grown in the same fields as other crops, but at different times of the year - harvested at the end of winter, as I remember, and both the greens and the beets themselves make great animal feed, so they contribute both as a sweetener and as a protein (indirect) source.